The 27th day of August

It's an old story now. I am sure you are tired of hearing about the grand Oregon Maple in Loyalty Park, of the seal off near the ferry there at Pt Defiance. I know that I have mentioned the rugs at Ikea, the pears at Tacoma Boys, faking out the sales clerks at the furniture warehouse in Sumner so many times it feels like scripture. It was a full day we shared that day. We went different directions at the end of the road, you to the 'Woods and full house, me to a house that was empty except for the sound of loud music and pacing. I played David Bowie and Herb Alpert that night, wrote you long letters, told you about the tunes and you wrote back, telling me that you'd listen to whatever it was I wanted you to hear. It was axsweet and wonderful agony we spent apart that night, but then came the dawn and all that agony and bliss went away. We went onto other things and that, my dear, is really the story of our lives.

Five years laters the sweetness and agony of that day still lingers. The poetry is still inscribed on the sidewalks off on the boardwalk there in Tacoma, Ikea still imports it's beautiful wool rugs. That little hamburger stand in Sumner still makes the best malteds and the pears are still stacked, firm and crisp, there off the aisles in Tacoma Boys. A lot of things have come and gone since that day. My old Bowie tape has worn out, the paint on the walls has changed. My life is so much different now and that is okay, too, because the anger I was wearing on my sleeve at the time was debilitating. The sorrow of losing my kids has mellowed, but that's only because I know where to find them and they know how to get ahold of me.

The biggest difference is in the knowing, knowing that our time as friends, when we could talk, laugh together, write, all that, has, for all intents and purposes, flown. So, I have to ask,when a person goes away like that does that mean it's the end of a friendship? When you run into someone on the sidewalk out of the blue does that mean when you meet them you are no longer friends but strangers in passing? I like to think that whenever I see you it's only been a short passage of time since I've seen you last. It's easy to want to catch up, even if my heart is racing and my mind is all befuddled.

Five years has come and gone since that day we met on the fly at Ikea. Your sister flew back that morning to whereever it was she was going, I left behind housework and got on the road on a whim. It was the best day I ever took a chance on. It left behind an indelible mark on my heart and soul, one that neither time or distance or social propriety can erase.

Be good, happy, all that, M and I will see you again somewhere down the road. I'll stop by here every now and then, leave clues about life, tell you how things are going. But otherwise, happy trails to you, Professora and I'll see you at sunset!

Love always, your WHMB

Lastly, Los Lobos singing "Sabor a Mi"...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU-LeccqS48

Seven years and change

Goodness, look at the changes! But, then again, outside of death and taxes change is the only thing you can expect out of life, right? Love? Yeah, I have been lucky. Happiness? Fleeting but sweet. Great sunsets? Thank goodness for the smog, a bit of patience, perfect timing and a good sense of aesthetics.

Looking back over the seven years since I've met you I have to say that life delivered up everything possible that went to the right and left of what I had expected. Nothing, outside of me being on top of the dirt and still living in this house, is the same as when I first saw your name on that application all those summers ago. I can't say that all the changes have been for the better but all I can say for certainty is that those changes, good, bad, indifferent and otherwise, have made me a better man.

You might wonder why I say better when to look at my situation, say, in comparison to yours, is worlds apart from what I had when I met you. Back then I was actively married, had my kids around me, had a good paying job, respect, admiration, all that. Well, I suppose I can say that I am a better man because, in losing all that, I have been tested by fire. I found my life wanting and instead of eating from the same old trough, instead of being satified with the status quo, I let it all go. Or it drove away down the drive. Or it was full out taken away from me. I suppose, too, in some cases I pushed the envelope, took that plate of same-ol', same-ol' and tossed it in the face of the cook. I know for sure in many cases the antics I pulled off were not subtle, but then again, to pick up the paper and read about life is to note that life is anything but.

I have to wonder if we met today would you care for me. I am sure you if you stood the two men, then now and then side by side you would note that the charm and zest and world changing awe of one would be a bit different from the other. Looking at myself in the mirror I can tell that my hair is thinner, that I've gained a few pounds, that my nose is being to show the ravages of a bit too much wine. I can see that my eyes have seen a lot, that the lines in my face are a bit deeper, are showing the wear and tear of hard living. Some might say that those lines are there due to wisdom finally setting in, I say that those cracks and crevices in my face are there due to hard fought battles, too little sleep, too much time spent away from my children, a bit too many worries about money, all too much time thinking about you. But then, you see, that's been a big part of my life the last seven or so years. Most certainly the last five.

We are the verge of a five year anniversary. Tomorrow is the big day. I told myself I would start to throw sheets over the furniture here, start to ready this shop for shuttering. But last night, five or so in the morning, after I roused myself from the couch, let the cat in, took myself to bed, I started thinking about writing this piece, about this last round-up of words for you, and I had to laugh. It wasn't a gut wrenching sort of laugh, but a slight chuckle, the kind you might utter when you think of your kids and their antics, the type you might let slip in line at the grocery store or the bank when you think of a silly joke or a scene from a movie. I let that little guffaw go because I know, in my heart of hearts, that shutting this site down is to say, yeah, I am done, put it away, M is and has been long gone. What a laugh.

But.

And there's the but.

M, I haven't stopped, really, running into you yet. I thought for awhile I wanted to move away just to make that happen, sort of like selective surgery. Tired of looking at that nose? Cut it off to spite the old girlfriend type of thing. Well, I haven't gone anywhere and no, it just can't be helped, that running into you thing. It's this small town, my obsession, all that. I still run into you everywhere: on line, in social networking tools, in the newspaper, out taking walks, at the grocery store, passing by on the highway, following behind me on the street in your car. Who am I to think that by closing this place you will magically go away? What a laugh. It might take a bit more than that, say, a frontal lobotomy or something, to get you out of my mind.

Yet I know the time I spend here, most of which has been spent rummaging around in that satchel of ours, is something I need to set down for awhile. As I mentioned earlier, things have changed. I have a movie house job lined up thanks the dearth of work in my profession. The kids are beginning a new school year in Boise and are growing up fast without much of an influence from their father. The yard is overgrown, I am behind one payment on the house, the larder is full, the cat comes and goes when he pleases, my mom is three years in the grave and I have all too many movies and not enough time to watch them all. Thanks to you I have hundreds of cookbooks, a handful of relationships that have tanked because nobody could live up to the standards you set. I have a serious coffee jones going on again, I've gained back all the weight I lost when I was walking regularly and the rooms that needed to be painted are now done and out of the way.

I no longer drive a Honda (but you do). I find that I am lot more tolerant that I used to be, that I am not seeking out love or the Grail or even fortune, but instead, I just want a bit of peace in my soul, a nice small job close at hand that feeds my passions and a friend in my life that is true, that isn't going to run away, who isn't going to turn their back on me because of God or a bigger house or a whatever other fascinations lie over the rainbow.

Changes have come into my life, Melissa and darlin', I can say unequivocally that a lot of those changes were brought about just from knowing and loving you. As I said to you that time I ran into in the 'Woods, I have no regrets about any of it. Well, maybe one, and that is that I didn't tell you right then and there, maybe for the last time, that I still love you, woman. Saying that even as I lock up the storm windows, turn off the gas and lock down the water main of this little house of wonders.

This place, wonderful home of memories, will still be a way station come those times when I find I really need to say something to you. Expect a word now and then. Otherwise, be good, happy, all that.

Wally

Snow Falling on Cedars in the midst of summer

I finally caught the film adaption of Snow Falling on Cedars last night. I was tired and worn from the road, aching because I had to leave my kids behind in Boise again. I am sure that if CalCoPO had continued we would have found a way to fit that book title into our monthly reads, but, instead, it was good enough just to catch the film. I was finally open to seeing it and receptive to the message, well, one the messages, anyway.

There is something to be said for letting go. Sometimes there needs to be a wrenching experience, a transcendent moment, to make it happen, to help folks, and life, move forward.

Looking at that film I could see that the lead character needed something monumental to understand that his old love for the lead actress was holding him back, keeping him from allowing small town justice to be served. His old worldview was in conflict with his mission, which was to serve justice, to help the accused rise above prejudice and the unfairness of his wee berg's political and economic leanings.

I should know about small town thinking, about prejudice, about moral absolutes, about grasping endlessly to the pains of the past. My old love for you has been long overdue for jettisoning. I finally got the message, can see that it has gotten in the way of gainful employment, that it went beyond the pale, irked folks' sensibilities at our former employ and helped bump up their moralistic fervors to the point of blacklisting me. But even more than that my holding onto the past has kept me from moving forward into a future with my kids. It was very clear to me as I crested the rise out of Ontario yesterday morning, sun coming up, the back seat empty. I came home off of a long and lonely roadtrip, off a drive that, back in the day, I would be furiously scribbling messages to you on the seat next to me as I drove. Yesteday it was all I could do just to get home, to stop for gas, coffee, a bit of food. The tears got in the way of really appreciating the beauty. The only messages I had this time were for myself, and that was, Peter Fonda style, saying, yeah man, I blew it.

The time to let go is upon me. I know that I've said this in the past but maybe this time I can do it. Maybe this time I AM at the bottom of the satchel. Maybe this time I can honor and appreciate that special date of ours, the 27th day of August, and, for all intents and purposes, finally say goodbye to that beautiful thing we shared. You did ages ago. I suppose, after all this time and heartache and grief, I need to do the same and stick to it.

What I would like for you to do someday is to stumble upon this site, just to see the process that I have gone through to sever those ties of ours. Maybe it's just me but I think this public chronicling is what was needed for me to move forward. You hid or ran away from it all ages ago, denied or buried or unassed our past in order to secure your future. I took in the chest for the both of us, became the poster child for some sort of living dead love monument. How old and moldy it has become. No one is fighting that fight for us anymore. It reminds me of those old Japanese warriors on Guam or the Philippines, the ones who were stuck in time, fighting a war that was long over. My uniform is in tatters, my gun rusty and bent, it's time to lay it all down, walk away, get out of the jungle.

Since this blog isn't going anywhere I can leave it be. Come the 27th I'll post what is hopefully the last post, make it searchable, all that. One last opening of the satchel for all to see. Why not? Everyone who saw us together back in the day knew we were in love. We thought we were cool about it but we were as open as a book. We were "sparky" and even then we pissed people off about it. But you know, buddy, it was then and will always be a beautiful thing. But "was" is the key operand word here. Time to close the book and put it on the shelf. Good Pages that we were, we can handle that. I can handle that.

Love, your WHMB

Out of the sky

So, my only story for the night is that I got off late from the movie house and then went home, cracked a bottle of very inexpensive white wine from Freddies and then proceeded to shut down lights in the house in order to get my eyes ready for the annual falling star show only to get the point where a movie, World's Greatest Dad, seemed more important to watch, thanks to the poster I see everytime I go up and down the stairs from the projection booth, a film I told my coworkers I passed up during the Hollywood Video closeout, one that they said was great and that I was a fool to have passed up on.

Well, I watched it as well I could knowing that the stars were falling and that the sky was clear and that lights were off in the alley behind the house. Each and every year I say that I am going to go somewhere dark and city free and see that grand pass of stars falling through the comets tails but do I do it? No, I continue to find a dark and quiet spot in my backyard that looks promising and then look up into the sky, look for the really bright ones to go flashing by, to see if the big one, the truly big ones, rate this neck craning activity that I have been indulging in for almost all the years I have been here in the Pac Nor West.

I have to wonder, now that it is the next day and nobody seems to have watched or cared about the Perseids if you even bothered to watch them this year, if your brother in law was in town, if he squired you, escorted you out to that local ball field to watch the show. I wonder if your man could be bothered, or, if all that was too much to ask, if you woke up and stared at the ceiling, applying your superhuman powers and looked through the roof and the trees and the cloudcover and took the sight that darlin I would have happily shared with you whether I was rich or poor, young or old, healthy or infirm.

Somehow I think we both were looking up at the sky, wondering where the big ones were at, wondering if the really BIG ONE, the love of our life, the real COMET, the REAL shooting star of our lives somehow passed us by while we were inside making popcorn, making excuses, making up for all the ragged sadness that passes for love in a world full of folks who keep that love held ransome, ransome until they realize that people's hearts about as easy to hold onto as those shooting stars we saw fall through the night sky.

Your WHMB

Storyteller

There wasn't much of a chance that I would get my shoes dusty today as it has been raining on and off for the past two days. I spent an hour at the track, walking the walking, talking the (interview) talk. Tomorrow I get to spend a half hour weaving magic with the Pierce College bunch via video cam. It all blew up in our faces last week, put me in a terrible funk that I was bound and determined to rise above today. I managed to do that and get in a good walk as well.

Talking yourself up during an interview is not too much different than storytelling. For awhile I was well paid performer. I learned from masters, honed my craft in front of school age children and their parents, in front of large groups, birthday parties, for charity, in churches, on the road and once for a llama backpacking group high in the Siskyous. I took those ancient words, those dusty and wonder filled tales up and down the West coast, formed two guilds, amassed a large collection of bound tales and learned enough stories to carry on the magic for at least an hour or more in front of a crowd. It wasn't just fairy tale recitation, I became the story. I learned the art of improv and turned those tired old stories into fresh and imaginative tellings, each one a little different from the last, all the while tuned into my rapt and turned on audience.

It was that storytelling talent that first drove me to get my shoes dusty five summers ago. You had a talent contest to attend and couldn't quite figure out what you wanted to do. I figured I had an easy answer to that: learn a story. I was once again telling fairy tales to my kids after a long hiatus from the art. I would find an old story deep in the folds my brain and then, with the ninos on my lap and couple beers in me, I would spin a few threads of magic, just to keep that font of sweetness and light flowing between me and my brood. So we chatted up your dilemma. Should you sing a song, tell a joke, do something spellingbinding, dangerous or witty? In the end I volunteered to teach you a tale or two. I rounded up folk tale books from the branch's fairy tale collection and got a few moments of your time after work. It was late July, early August. You were on your summer break from home schooling, had time to burn before you went home, and life, for me, almost required the break.

There was a junior high track by the branch, hot and dusty during the day, cool, removed and dusty still in the late afternoon and early twilight. We took those books and put them away in your van and then proceeded to burn up an hour walking round and round the track, you choosing to listen rather than learn, me, well, I enjoyed telling you those old and moldy tales. It was like grad school all over again, it was a first time telling in front of a wide eyed group of youngsters. You were happy for the attention, I was happy for the audience. Synergy at it's finest.

In the end you didn't recite stories or sing songs or tell jokes, instead you passed on the talent show part of the party and had a good time instead. Me, I turned those turns around the J high track in East Bremerton into a reason to keep up the sweating close to home. Instead of going home with dusty shoes right after work I would go home and change into broken down tennies and get dusty on my side of town, instead.

I went out walking today and once again, five years later, I have thirty five or forty pounds to lose. I don't have the impetus that I had before, but, then again, better health and lower blood pressure and clothes that fit just a bit better than they do now is reason enough to walk those hours, to kick up that dust, drop some pounds, spin some stories in my head as I go round and round the track. Tomorrow I have an interview, we'll see if that old storytelling magic of mine is as good as it used to be.

Love, your WHMB

"She had, umm, umm..."

"..kisses sweeter than wine.."

One thing I loved about working in the Paging Department was the discharge shift. Busy, fast paced, on my feet, always hustling, music fueled. We had a democratic music system there in the back room: whoever was at the discharge desk was in charge of the deck. So it was there that I discovered Jimmie Rodgers again, long after those long ago days when my pop would spin his hits on his portable record player.

Maybe it was music your people played, too, that you had fond memories of, no matter, there it was, softly playing in the background on your shift at the desk. It had been years since anyone I knew cared about that old pop singer of old folk hits. It was just another thing that I found endearing, if not plain old quirky, about you. We both grooved on his songs, cool, and if not together, at least there across the room from one another.

This weekend Jimmie popped up again. It wasn't really even noticed at the time, wasn't till I got back home and sat down and started writing this piece. What a weekend it's been, one filled with too much down time. Thank goodness for my movie shift this afternoon as I need a reason to make my way out of this house, out from behind the computer, back into the land of the living, and not just as a customer in the midst of a ten second exchange with a merchant. I need flesh and blood and plenty of real time, face to face, interchange.

All to the good considering I woke up this morning with heavy remnants of strange dreams still working their way through my head. Those late night visitations have been hard to shake and what's worse is that a song, a song we shared long ago, has kept them at the forefront of my mind.

It was probably the supper that did it. Might have been the day, too. Been five years now, five years on this path. I dodged the heaviness of it all all day long, kept myself busy, cooked, cleaned the fridge, wrote to folks, kept above it. But things have a way of catching up, of ambushing you, and so they did. I ate well, drank well, popped in a couple movies and then, sleepy eyed, turned out the lights.

So, enflamed by Riesling, approved by Bacchus, I went into vino fueled sleep, one tightened down and made easier by a heaping platter of cole slaw, lime and chili marinated flank steak and a fistful of baked potatoes. It wasn't a restless sleep until you appeared. Maybe it was my focus earlier in the day on the family decamping five years ago, maybe it was a case of just too much time spent on my own in this house, or maybe it's just because I am tired of the path I'm on and need someone, something, to give me some serious direction but nevertheless, there you were, center stage in my dreams, unbidden, unasked for, but a key player nonetheless.

Somehow the Estranged One's sister brought you to me, as you were both members of the same parish or church, something like that. She walked me through your house and there you were. Somehow I found you in the living room, partially clad, your long pale flank was exposed, but, once it was tucked away we went away, out the door, arm in arm. That stroll didn't last long as I woke up out of the dream, highly perturbed. My heart was racing and yet, strangely, I wanted to get back in, and somehow, I did. The second pass was stranger, as I kept having to dodge the Detective in your house. You were moving to Kansas in that dream, our kids, much younger, were interfiled, household things were scattered everywhere and somehow I was left in charge of pick up, all the while having to stay out of the way of you and your man.

That was enough for me, and thanks to the cat I woke up again, this time at a reasonable hour, six or seven, not so much refreshed but hungering for a real visitation, a honest to goodness siting. So I fueled up on coffee, put in a short road trip, hung out under the overpass and waited for nothing, then came home to face yet another day, but this one with the built in work shift. Thank god.

But what sealed that dream in concrete this morning was hearing Jimmie Rodgers sing Kisses Sweeter than Wine. It's the lead song on a compliation I picked up at Starbucks during that last heart rending road trip I made to Boise. I spun that cd this morning waiting for you to pass and song after song seemed to be so appropriate, seemed to conjure you up, seem to recall that fevered dream you were so recently part of. But that one particular song fairly reeked of long shelved sentiment and times spent wishing for, or maybe, just dreaming of, times long gone. Yeah, maybe, in this case, after seeing what I saw last night in those dreams, maybe those times, those memories, those emotions we shared, maybe were just plain made up, figments of my imagination, the stuff of hard charging, heavy sweating paging duties. Maybe, maybe not, but all I know for certain is that dream of you last night was most certainly fueled by a very nice, very sweet and lovely bottle of Riesling.

Ummm, ummm, baby, your kisses were sweeter than wine.

Peace, your WHMB

Kisses Sweeter Than Wine
Words & Music by Paul Campbell & Joel Newman**Recorded by Jimmie Rodgers*, 1957 (#3)Also recorded by Peter, Paul & Mary; First recorded by The Weavers, 1951

Em D C Bm

When I was a young man and never been kissed
Am Bm7 Em
I got to thinking it over what I had missed.
Em D C Bm
I got me a girl, I kissed her and then, and then,
Am Bm7 Em
Oh Lord, I kissed her again.

Chorus:
G D9 Em B7 Em
She had kisses sweeter than wine, she had
G D9 Em B7 Em
Oh - oh kisses sweeter than wine.

I asked her to marry and be my sweet wife,
And we would be so happy the rest of our lives.
I begged and I pleaded like a natural man,
And then, Oh Lord, she gave me her hand.

Chorus:

I worked mighty hard and so did my wife,
Workin' hand in hand to make a good life.
With corn in the field and wheat in the bins,
I was, Oh Lord, the father of twins.

Chorus:

Our children they numbered just about four,
They all had sweethearts knockin' at the door.
They all got married and they didn't hesitate;
I was, Oh Lord, the grandfather of eight.

Chorus:

Now that we're old, and ready to go,
We get to thinkin' what happened a long time ago.
We had a lot of kids, trouble and pain,
But, Oh Lord, we'd do it again.

Chorus:

*While there's no question the Jimmie Rodgers version of the song scored higher on the charts, my personal preference for how to play it is fundamentally the Peter, Paul & Mary version. The choice of words and chording on the refrain is a synthesis of both. **The authors' names merit mention here, as well. The name "Paul Campbell" was the group pen name of the Weavers. The name "Joel Newman" was the pen name for Huddie Ledbetter, who was the source for many of Weavers' greatest hits in the late 40s and early 50s. The lyric and guitar chord transcriptions on this site are the work of The Guitarguy and are intended for private study, research, or educational purposes only. Individual transcriptions are inspired by and and based upon the recorded versions cited, but are not necessarily exact replications of those recorded versions.

The power of POF

When I set up your email account on Yahoo years ago, the first thing you wrote me humbled me to the core. You said something to the effect that it was a place you could call your own. Not a family box, not a shared place, but one where you could come and go and your words would be for me and no one else but me.

You fairly blossomed there, always finding a way to sneak off and write a line, to jot down a feeling or a memory or share a story about your life, your family, your times. There were many days where I felt that I was part of your ongoing story, and while, on the most part, and to most people, I was an invisible presence, I was still there with you, side by side on your many adventures. It was an almost daily occurance, that quick message or more in my email box. In was never about quantity, it was all about quality, the shared moment, the sweet and oh so normal raft of words. As you put to me as the months unfolded, I made the words, you made the time and for a long while that worked.

Then it all came down upon your head. Your computer time became suspect, your history was opened and followed and finally, your email box discovered, opened by password or by mistake.

So, I was left without a correspondent. I wrote you and for awhile dodged your sensor, finally, though, he demanded complete and total access to all your email accounts. Our long run ended ignobly.

I have to wonder if writing was our primary pleasure port? Those words meant a lot of things to us. Truly, our words were inflammatory, they were tools to help incite riot, promote unrest. They brought down the house on your end of town, helped to bring down my marriage on mine. Indeed, not only did they turn my marital world upside down but they also helped push me out of a job. What a thing our words became, amazing how they still continue to piss off folks who really don't have a vested interest in where our hearts dwelled or where they have flown to since.

So, you left a void impossible to fill. I've sought out other writers out of loneliness and boredom, not so much to replace you but to keep that skill sharp. One time I found a flagrantly impetious writer on the other side of the mountains, much too keen for sharing her words and more. She went much too far and left her world behind because of what she gleaned from our exchanges. There were never hard promises given but she flew high on the wings of desire, left all she knew because she became drunk, ney, unstable, on the heady drafts of our words. She crashed and burned hard. I will always feel bad about that.

There have been all too many since then that imagine that they are writers or think that they understand the power of the pen and the keyboard. All to many have flailed about in their attempts to convince me or have tossed their hearts under the bus much too soon, their sneakers tripped up in the landmine fields of love, lust and impossibility. I stumbled into the Land of POF awhile back. All too many possible correspondents there to choose from, all too many who start up, tease me with their words, find that I am not their Prince Charming or Daddy Warbucks and then go away, allowing themselves a few fantasy moments with me and then, when the reality check arrives, back up and slither away.

I am weary of the game. Where are the real writers? Where is the true heart? All I want is to find a letter in my mailbox, one that is written with a sense of purpose, something will will inflame me, a letter that will show me that the writer is happy to share not only share bit of her day but also a bit of that long lost heart I crave as well. But I suppose you can't hit the same spot twice. To hit it once with you was enough. But continue to write I will, even if the end result is a sort of love letter to you by proxy.

Your WHMB

"They share loneliness"

It's been five years. Not five years since we shared that lovely day together, the one that culminated with that kiss on my neck that will forever and always branded me cosmically, psychically...no, five years since the Estranged One bundled up the kids, packed out the van, lassoed her sis into coming along for the ride and set out for a two week "vacation" in Idaho, under the auspices of seeing her folks, taking a break, getting some sun.

I was left with a house that took three weeks to clean. It was in the midst of that cleaning when you came by with coffee, left your lipstick stuck on the edge of one of the paper cups you brought along. We were already on the edge of infamy, toying around with extreme friendship, playing with the flaming torch set-up, not yet lighting them but practicing all the juggling moves.

So, I sat in my living room today and marvelled at the extent of my loneliness. I don't quite know why that is, why I am lonely, why I feel I need to be. I have had two consorts pass through this place over the summer, one rabid for my attention, the other quite pissed off because I wouldn't jump onto her fantasy train. I have two volunteer jobs that fill my life and time with people, but stranger still, when given the chance to go in this week to fill up my time with people I preceeded to use the week as a sort of unpaid vacation. I wasn't on the schedule and hey, I'm not on the payroll, either. So I spent the week not walking or working around the house but prepping for an interview that blew up in my face. The ride to Steilacoom was nice, nostalgic, all that, but everything else I did...read, write, cook, watch movies, sip wine on the porch while the sun went down in flames over the Olympics...was all very invisible to the rest of the world.

Today marks five years since the family decamped but life goes on. I talk with the Estranged One regularly, almost every day, to what end I don't know. I am on the edge of finding work, always sending out applications, where all those efforts will take me is still uncertain. Time passes for all of us, my oldest old enough to drive a car, on the edge of finishing his primary educational path, the youngest starting Kinder in the fall. I have yet to test that wonky car of mine on the other side of the mountains to see if the repair job took. It's my turn once again to do the drive to Boise, to once again make my way back to my children. I have discovered the hard way that no matter how many times I make that drive I cannot turn back time, cannot make those days, those early angst filled days, go away or return. I sometimes wish for that righteous anger, for those days when I knew I could be lonely, sad and would be coming back home to you.

I sometimes wonder if we had never met would I still be in the same predicament. Would I have replaced you with someone else? Or were you slotted to be in that place at that time, were you born in that little town in Colorado and guided by some unseen hand to be there for me and for me to be there for you, in that vast city park, in my arms, in that one momentary embrace that ended in a brief kiss on my neck, one that forever and always changed the world as I know it?

I cannot do more than make the drive to Boise. I cannot turn back the tides, I cannot keep my children from growing, no more than I can somehow get you to open your heart or your door or even your keyboard for me. So if loneliness is the order of the day today it's because I willed it to happen, commanded it, desired it. I was given the chance many times over to turn it around but rather, instead, I occupy this house high on the hill, watch the sun rise and set, watch messages come and go, watch shadows cross my threshold, return flaming hearts to senders, see the days fall off the calendar and know, in all of that, that we met for one thing and one thing only, and that was to share our loneliness.

You and I were meant to meet on that plain of loneliness. And somehow, whether or not you are back in his arms with your family and friends all around and regardless of whether I am here in this house, or poised and ready to do another 12 hour run to Idaho, I think we are both still there, aching, wondering, where our right arms have disappeared to.

Your WHMB

Thanks, Roger, for this lovely review: Lost in Translation:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100804/REVIEWS08/100809996

"Stumbling towards improvement" Mr Ebert, again: Spanglish:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041216/REVIEWS/41201005/1023

In sympathy, 7/10

Somethings you never hope to find.

In this room where I'm sitting we dabbled with electronic databases, Reference USA among them. You wanted to be a Library Associate. I had just gotten onboard as a librarian, was being schooled on all the databases that we owned that I was unfamiliar with. Match made in heaven. We sat here side by side, poured over all the new stuff that my new compatriot was teaching me at the branch. We kicked around in Reference USA, played with your name, found your family out west. It was fun, sharpened both our skill sets. In the end you didn't get the job, and in the end the compariot who was teaching me those new skills found this place and ratted me out. Funny how things go.

No matter, I was kicking around the net the other day, trying to figure out how you spelled that old last name of yours. Why? Because I wanted to see if I could find an old high school photo of you. So I played around, tossed what I thought was your name at the old high school site you gave me years ago. Nada. Played with it here and there, white pages, college site, all that. Gave up, went to sleep on it. Found you the next day sideways thanks to the Detective. Went back, found you in your h/s roster but no photo. Thought, well, let's take it to the big search engine. That's when I found the obit in Google.

I am sorry, buddy.

So, I sent along a card to your house, simple, clear, not overly religious, a nice message. My name was a scrawl. It was more of a message to say that I understand what you are going through and that if I could I would tell you how I felt myself. A one line Facebook message and a card with a practically illegible name doesn't count for much. I felt alot like the man who, by necessity, has to stand outside the gates of the cemetary, watch the funeral from afar. Isn't my family, isn't my place to grieve, but still, I feel for your loss.

Lo siento, amiga. Viya con Dios.

Your WHMB

Flickers

You once left a note for me on my ottoman, letting me know, as you drove up to the cottage, that you spied a flicker on the crest of the roof of the big house. Today, as I mucked about in the kitchen, as I pulled together a bite to eat, I looked out the nook window and saw a couple flickers on the lawn. Were they a sign? A reminder of the passing of yet another year? Another casual reminder of you? Hard to say but it was a treat all the same.

This week marks seven years, seven summers since I first met you down at the Port Orchard branch. It was a thunder struck moment, that moment you walked in the door of the meeting room. Auspicous? A case of almost too much of a good thing? A bad omen? No, seeing you that day I knew you were the real McCoy. I didn't know it then but I must say that you, my dear, where the finest thing that every happened to me, a real life incident, the kind that a man can say he experienced and lived to tell about, like living through a flaming train wreck or an asteroid strike.

You were like a special delivery letter sent from Venus that day, a visitation, a walk-on role that neither of us ever fully expected you to play, kind of like a person who walks into a foreign embassy, who has a message on the tip of her lips but doesn't quite know how to speak the language. You were the messenger, and I was, well, the willing recipient. Spectators at the window would have loved and understood the moment, it was the kind where you can practically see the writing on the wall, the kind of writing that says, here lies THE fork in the road. It was in our eyes, in the way we sat, fidgeting, like the chairs had loose electrical wiring shorting in our pantgs, in the way that my fellow colleague and the building and the universe all sort of disappeared. Only when you left did the walls in the room return, did the sun come in, did my mind stop reeling.

Was it love? You know, M, looking back, I couldn't tell you at the time, as I was addled, starstruck and wanted to somehow preserve that strange little moment of heartfelt wonder. I knew that there was no language for it so I tucked it away, put away that meeting of ours into some sort of magic bag of mysteries, let the moment settle and simmer away until I met you again later on that fall at All Staff Day. But love? I didn't know the symbols that were in front of me, I could only tell that what I felt for you was deep. I told my new old friend about the other day in a letter. She asked me why the Horsewoman wasn't high on my list, why I couldn't reciprocate the feelings she had for me. She knew of our story and asked me if it had anything to do with you. I told her that love comes one of two ways, either in the form of a lightning strike or is allowed to build up over the years. Either way you know it when it comes. It's pure chemistry, one way or the other, either sent from above in a sort of wild emotional deluge or built up, a sort of elemental chemistry block set that you both put together brick by brick. The Horsewoman has neither going for her, sad, but that's the way it is.

I looked out the window today and know that those flickers were sent to me as a sort of subtle cosmic reminder that love, no matter how it comes or goes, lingers, and that little messengers like those birds are gifts, ones that remind me, now and forever, that love, no matter how it comes, must be honored, cherished and respected.

A bag full of notes, an empty kitchen and you across town in the arms of another, notwithstanding.

Love, your WHMB

From here to there, shadows on the water

Things change.

Stores close. Eras end. Dynasties topple. Relationships, good or bad or indifferent, evolve or stay the same. I still live in the same town, same house, still walk the places where we walked. I see changes everywhere, slow, subtle changes, things slipping away, getting softer around the edges, a world filled with grand Etch a Sketch shakes and No. 2 pencil erasures. Things we shared and places we visited are now folded deep into the recesses of our past lives, but their soft, shadow-grey reminders were, for the longest time, still all around us, egging those old emotions on, the way a stick can find old embers deep within the confines of ash. Now our infamous acts and the notorious places we haunted are, thanks to the passing of time and the vagaries of commerce, disappearing fast, being buried by the sands of time. To that end, a list..


The Manette Bridge: closing, to be replaced

Pat's: shuttered

Hiro Sushi: once again closed

China Chef: on it's third or fourth evolution

Paging Department: new look, an old hire of mine now the leader of the pack

The Port Orchard branch: a place my shadow will never cross again. Yours? Highly improbable

Hollywood Video: bankrupt

Corner of Wheaton and Sylvan Way: a defunct meeting place

Summer Reading Club: the kids are grown and there's that decidedly strong lack of parental interest

Conference: Chelan is a place to visit not to travel to

KRL Foundation Gala: "I gave at the office"

Allies, beards and fellow staffers who looked the other way: all ghosts in my past now

The Rodeo Drive-in: still the same but without the chance of a secret rendevous

CalCoPo Forest to the Sea Book Discussion Group: shuttered indefinitely

Northwest Passage Toy Soldiers: mothballed for the duration

92 Honda Accord Wagon: worn out, broke down and sold

Corelli's Mandolin/Time Traveler's Wife/Mama Mia/Love in the Time of Cholera: all movies now

Connells Dahlia Farm: no more walks between the aisles of raging psychedelic dahlias

Rosedales: a weeding/pest removal joint, no more questions to be asked

Cinnamon Twisp: bigger, brighter, far less funky

United Way baskets: hard to say, all I know is that we started them

As for you I catch your shadow when I can. Saw the back of your head in a shot in the Sun. Something to do with graduation. Perked me up but I let it go. Our old long forgotten times are fading fast. Soon there will be nothing left but old photos in the bottom of the satchel, ripped around the edges, colors shifting, fading, with no references tothem other than my old memories. Memories. What else could possibly be keeping them alive? Is a form of CPR for ghost town lovers needed to bump those old hearts back to life?

Nah, let them fade. Let them rest in peace. And live on, in the recesses of my strong and softly beating heart.

Your WHMB

The new "hun", 7/06,06/10

Got a letter today, a short, sweet note from a horse-woman who wants me badly. It's already got the earmarks of a whirlwind romance, from dinners on the fly and evening walks unadorned to sleepheaded Sunday afternoons on the couch watching barely watchable movies. But what set off this note, and what set me on this flight of fancy, was being call "hon" once again. It's an endearment rarely heard outside of a greasy spoon diner, and usually when a woman calls me that she's got her hair up, her spongy soled shoes on and is carrying an order pad, as in "want cottage fries or hash browns with that, hon?"

So, I was surprised, that's all, the way that I was surprised when you called me that in the aisles of Fred Meyer's years ago. It was a hit and miss, you called, I came, kind of shopping moment. How did you find me, considering the Estranged One was back, living in the front house with the brood in tow? How was it we that found each other in that busy store, ended up connecting like two gummy bears in a plastic bag on a hot day at the beach? We gravitated towards the furniture but knew better, found ourselves in the end in the gardening section, wandering between large plants, oogling at yard tools, standing too long in a popular summertime section of the market and ended up being a magnet for friends and acquaintances. We stood there, parrying questions from pals and neighbors until time and common sense ran out. We left it like that, and met again early the next day, a staff meeting respite, a quick burrito shared, mugs of coffee passed around from a hot thermos, as always, on the worn wooden bench at the harbor observation booth down the walkway from the branch.

It was all grand, the start of a grand week that ended in the greatest bust of your life.

Today I woke with two of the kids sleeping in pockets around the house. I padded down and opened my email, looking for news, word of a job, for notes from friends and for friendly notes. Never anything from you, and baby, and believe me, I don't expect it. So when I found that note from my new friend, oh, yes, all too new, almost too new for that kind of endearing word, I was taken aback, pleased, honored and yet worried just a bit. When I was gifted with that sweet endearment by you oh so long ago it stuck like a burr under a saddle blanket, it touched me a like a firey branding iron. I still wear the sonic impact of that word in the deepest recesses of my brain. It comes on like a slight throb, the kind like you get in the back of your head after a long fever or a bad infection. Something akin to malaria, something that just never really goes away.

I wish had a form of quinine for you, M, my dear, something to take whenever that fever comes around, when the slightest of things triggers a remembrance of you. A bit of medicine would be good to have around, something to take when I want to set the record straight instead of reminice, whenever I need to be reminded of your duplicity and the fact that you never left that damned marital bed of yours. I need a draught to quaff whenever I feel that sweet, acute pain coming on. I need something to nip that unhappiness in the bud, something heavy, like a maul, to hit me between the eyes, that will tell me once and for all that, baby, you were no good for me, that you sold me out to God and the Detective and that you, in midst of all your pain and heartache for me and that sweet, sweet freedom I offered you, were, in the end, just self serving and shallow. Yeah, where is that damn quinine, my love? Why can't I ever remember to take it when those painful memories of you make me swell and throb like blister on a hot saddle, like an artery about to explode?

I got a note today in my email box from the horse-woman, and she called me "hun". I will take that as a compliment, as a sweetness, as a touch of something nice in the wind. No heartaches, no fire brands, no tattoos, no drumbeats of a relationship on it's way to the gallows. Just a note, a touch to my heart, a kindness from a woman who seems to want whatever it is I have to give, and baby, right now, that's not much.

But, you know, that's alright, cuz darlin' you rode me hard and put me up wet and I will forever thank you for that.

Your WHMB

And when she was asked "Did you kiss?"..

...she replied "And how!"

Five years and running, M. Never a day goes by...

Your WHMB

Wood winds, Mary Mac Park, 6/10

I sat in the very same spot about six months ago. It was a Sunday, early afternoon, sometime after church got out. The sun was beaming down, the air was cold, the sky crisp blue, crystaline light was shining down and through the trees. The evergreens were the only thing outside of the holly that was really green that day, a stark contrast to the denuded trees all around. But what really stood out was this little tree in front of me, standing all alone as I sat on the end piece of right horseshoe pit. I understood at once why Christmas colors were silver, green and red. The berries on that tree stood out in direct contrast to the stripped silver of the bark, in direct relation to the trees across the street, towering up against that bitter blue sky. It was about as sacred of a moment as I could ever hope for for the holiday season. Beat going to church all to hell.

So I went back there today, to that very same horseshoe pit. Brought two cookies along with me, scrounged from one of my Helpline bags. I sat there cooling down from my walk along the Big Pond trail, well, not so much cooling down as chilling out. I waited for awhile, munching almonds, the back lid of the car up, just sitting there, sipping water, watching all the while, waiting for lightning to strike twice. No such luck. But I didn't need luck to sit and admire the trees in Mary Mac Park, and so I sat and munched and watched the wind blow through the trees.

It was a different experience today. The wind, as opposed the light, was the star of the show today. More, it was just the symphony of sound that made the experience so sublime. First the wind would come up from behind, turning the two stands of evergreens on either side of me into some wild sort of acoustic set of speakers, amplifying every move the breeze would make. Then, across the street, four or five deep and a quarter mile long stood a stand up against the drive, standing up and against the winds that were coming out of west. There was this one moment where suddenly I was back watching Captain Blood, with Mr Korngold directing the massive sun filled clouds over head, providing some sort of special effects for the three part harmony of whispering trees all around me. It was highlighted by a wide variety of migrating chirps and twitters, and only marred by the ominous sound of a lawnmower starting some blocks off. By then the concert was over and it was time to leave. My refreshments were finished and I was done waiting. A man will only wait so long when he knows he has water to boil at home.

Jumping in my car I am always tempted to do the route one more time. And today, as I was leaving, all that thinking and waiting and observing paid off. You and yours headed one way down the road and I, with my mind full of wind song and my heart full of light, was headed in another direction entirely.

Thanks for coming. Your wave was greatly appreciated.

Love, Your WHMB

A gathering, May 2010

Punkin celebrated her first holy communion a couple weeks ago. The church ceremony was beautiful, the kids were bedecked in flowing gowns and awkward suits, parents and sponsors and relatives were beaming, all craning to see "their" kid up there at the altar, all doing what they did all so many years before. The weather went along with the picture as well, stormy one moment, wildly beautiful the next, a day suited up with rainbows and wind squalls and piercing sunshine. A grand, holy, and remarkably peaceful afternoon to go along with such a sacred community event.

After the church ceremony we made our way over to my Estranged One's parent's home, the one perched on the edge of the golf course. Lovely place, nicely appointed, comfortable. With no irony intended, it was populated with pretty much the same people who were there a year a half ago, the same ones who happily shared my email box so readily with MEO. Someone in that room shared letters that I wrote to you, but there was no sense of embarrassment at all. It was Punkin's day and nothing would mar it. The food was grand, wine flowed, but I found it necessary to "disappear" every so often. I would step outside, watch the sun edge towards the mountains, look at the various bands of migrating birds swoop and dive among the trees. I could only take so much inside that house, the house that started, and ended, it all.

I have to admit, though, overall it was a very nice time. I put myself out there, kept myself from getting too involved with my feelings, with anyone outside of the kids. I kept it light. They were no longer my people. It was a party and I know how to do, how to work, parties. I kept the wine moving along, helped with dishes, made conversation. I have that part of life down pat.

But then, this is where you fit in. I shared you with the room that day, unbeknownst to anyone but me. I brought along a stack of music to the house, some country, a bit of light jazz, a Cajun compilation, but before dinner was served, while the wine was being uncorked and consumed, while the hearts and minds warmed up before supper I put on Norah Jones. Come Away With Me. The room suddenly became warmer, more congenial, more upbeat, happy. The sounds of jazz piano soared above our heads and added a certain sense of class to the event. I stood off for a moment, thinking, yes, M, you gifted me with that album and now I am sharing it with everyone. Hearing those familiar chords, that thrilling voice, I was filled with the just baked warmth of our friendship, with that joy,that light, you would always bring into a room just by being there. By putting on Ms Jones that afternoon I pretty much introduced you to the family, shared that light and happy glow I always get these days whenever I think of you.

Thanks for coming along, M, for sharing in the joy and happiness of my daughter's big day.

Your WHMB

Bird Song, Kitsap Audubon

I attended this month's Audubon meeting out at the Poulsbo branch library for no other reason than to see if you might land there yourself. I knew it was a longshot but did the drive anyway. Actually, going there was not so much my idea as it was the chapter Treasurer's. I ran into her and her husband at the Clear Creek Nursery Annual Sale a while back. I was there shilling hot dogs for the Hot Dog King and we struck up a conversation after I saw the kingfisher embroidered on her sweatshirt. She reminded me of the monthly meetings that took place there in Poulsbo and told me about April's upcoming program. I went home and marked it on my calendar.

I ended up staying and am glad that I did. The program was fascinating and the crowd congenial as always. I hedged my desire to vote myself in as chapter secretary for next year because as we both know that I have no idea where I'll be landing between now and September. I can only hope it's either here or Boise, as damn near anywhere else has it's problems regardless of it's virtues.

So, I continue to drive along and look for kingfishers and, in turn, look for you. I almost left a copy of the Kingfisher monthly newletter on your stoop that night. I made the drive, turned on your street, circled the cul-du-sac and then thought better of it. All I want from you right now, my old love, is inspiration. What I desire more than anything is that old spark, the one that transformed me into that "better man" I became back in the day when love was in full flower. I was reflecting on those times this morning. I was at my best at work, in tip top health, happier than I ever remembered being and miserably in love. I think of those days and I suppose I long for that line up of good things as much as I desire anything else, sometimes, sweetie, even you.

We'll see where all those desires take me. Like the kingfisher I have my seasons in the sun and am inclined to be a one bird man. Summer is almost here. Time for a sort of migration, from the land of the lost to the land of the living. We're both birds of a feather. Come on, let's take wing and fly!

Your WHMB

Kingfisher: lover bird!

http://www.lewiscreek.org/kingfisher.htm

Moveable feast

Happy Easter, love.

I avoided my spare room all day today, even though I could see it quite easily across the hall from my bed. It was grey and wet today, just like it was that one Saturday before Easter, the one that we shared four years ago. I looked outside and said to heck with it, decided to play indoors instead, and watched some movies, cooked, wrote, all that. But even though the day lacked the joy we shared that day, even though I left the outdoors behind to seek comfort and solice in cinema, I felt your presence here in this house all the same. I was as if the roof was torn off by strong winds, allowing the rain to come down and saturate my bed. I felt you all around me, like I would that cold, cold rain. It sat heavy on my shoulders, my linen, my heart. I didn't want to cozy up to it, frankly, I wanted it to go away. I didn't have hail to watch from my windows that day, I didn't have slushy, cherry petal trails to walk through in the late afternoon. Instead all I had was an empty Easter basket of dreams, the stale taste of dark chocolate in my mouth, an empty bed, a mirthless day to mumble through, a day hobbled by old dreams, sour desires, ancient love.

But that was Saturday. Sunday was wonderful, as wonderful as an Easter can be five hundred miles from the kids. The weather was okay, I had my buddy the Hot Dog King over to sup, we ate a pile of crab legs, baked a ham, sipped libations, watched a thriller, laughed a lot, trolled some online dating services..in other words, lived the day in a big way. On that day I knew that in my heart I had risen above the storm and had moved to a new spot on the game board and baby, that is a good thing. Doesn't mean I don't love you any less, it just means that I moving along.

You were missed, no doubt. We never seemed to have enough of that good stuff, but here's to a couple of people who were in love and who took a big bite out the chocolate rabbit of life. I know that I have savored that bite for a long, long time. Yummm.

Yours in rolling rocks and Easter bunnies, WHMB

The sacking of our spiritual blind side

I don't think we ever really got down to brass tacks as far as happiness was concerned. We talked about it, tried to define it, played it up and pushed it aside as far as a value in a strong relationship was concerned. We used it as a benchmark to define our times but found it to be too vague or etherial to really use a guidepost for making hardcore future decisions between us. After you left I assumed that happiness for you meant a house in The Woods, a big income, a solid religious community. I am not sure what constitutes happiness for me anymore as I am in a period of reconstruction and all values are being renegotiated. When I get down to defining what constitutes living happily I will let you know.

There are a number of studies out there that seem to have a better idea of what happiness is all about than I ever knew existed. I am happy to report that the tabulated and documented underlying ideals of happiness...good friends, solid relationships, sex, shared meals, trusted neighbors..are all things I treasure. Even without those reports out there to back me up I suppose I would have placed those things in a spiral notebook as part of my top ten happiness markers. I think, too, I would put down "fulfilling job", "nice place to live", "good health" as other markers. I don't think I would put down "a lot of cash". I don't think that being wealthy is as important as being comfortable, but then again I am living through a period of very little cash flow and a place a large amount of value on personal and emotional comfort.

So that was nine. I think about happiness and know that I was truly happy at one time. I was happy with my kids all around me, when I had the respect of my coworkers and underlings, when I was knocking about the town as a bon vivant with cash in my pocket, butg most importantly when I had you in my eye and you had me in yours. I suppose that that kind of happiness can compete with yours, with that solid unpinning that God has given you in your life. I know that I harp on that, that I sometimes play that card a bit too often, but it saved you and possibly saved a large dose of happiness in your family's life. Your girls are happier for your decision, and I imagine your parent's lives were made happier, too.

It's a funny thing, happiness. It's fleeting and temporary as you said, maybe not a real basis for a solid, functioning marriage, but I think of all the factors in life..fame, fortune, big this, expensive that...and know that I would rather be poor with a pot of beans on the stovetop, a camping trip at the beach for a vacation and have a drive-in movie date with a loving partner on my arm and my family at my side than anything else. We may have missed some sort of turnoff to a long life together, but I am still pretty certain that happiness, as I know it and want it, is still waiting out there for me.

Money isn't as important as respect, integrity and love. I know that I am happy in many ways and just need to remind myself every once in a while that I am living well. I wish you well, too, my old paramour. That and a boat load of happiness.

Your WHMB

NY Times opinion piece on happiness:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/opinion/30brooks.html?src=me&ref=homepage

Red dirt

You never took yours off, so I put mine back on again. It's been four years. It's tight, a reminder that I am not as svelt as I used to be when was when I walking regularly and not drinking so much wine. Funny how it feels to wear a band of silver again, one that reminds me of times long gone.

It's a simple band. The Estranged One found it in the back of a sewing box that she picked up at a garage sale years ago. She had a wee sentiment engraved in the underside of the band and passed it along to me on our wedding day. I wore it day in and out until one evening late in March of '06. It came off after a row we had in the kitchen, over what I can't remember. I never wore again until today.

I don't know why I was inspired to put it back on. Frankly, I thought I had lost it. I cleaned out the old Honda wagon prior to sale and stuffed everything salvageable in boxes and placed those in the little house. I went to look for it a month or so ago and couldn't find it. Forgot I placed it in a wine glass in the living room hutch. Stumbled upon it last week when I packed it out. I placed it on a shelf and thought of it today as I walked the track.

The track. We truly loved that place, total rendevous, chance opportunity for us whenever you could pack in a store run while I was out walking. Nevertheless by spring of '06 the track was a last resort. We were pretty lucky that one spring day. You came down to see me as I got in a morning walk. I was already fighting with TEO and needed to get out, get some air. I called and you ran over. Little did we know that we narrowly dodged a bullet. The Detective had planned a reconnaissance mission for the track, something to do with getting your girls ready for their upcoming track season. Last minute cancellation. Would have sprung our trap a month or three earlier than anticipated. Oh well, didn't happen. I went home and fought and carried on wkth the TEO until supper time. Sat in my car in the Saars parking lot and took off my ring, put it in the coin tray, left it in there until the day I got the car ready for sale. There it goes.

So I walked the track this afternoon and thought about of all that, thought of you and lines in the sand and the red, hard, sandy path I was walking round and round on and wondered when I would somehow get around to truly embracing the lesson plan that has been placed before me. I know that this long time off from work, this endless time away from you, this long period of readjustment and learning about life anew has a purpose and meaning, but damn, when am I going to get it the way that you did?

I walked the track and marvelled at the weather, the fantastic clouds, the stiff breeze that promised more rain, maybe later on when I was asleep, in a perverse way reminding me that I needed to be woke up. I watched folks meander around the field, amble around the wet path just like I was, wondered if they, too, were working through things, finding meaning in their Zen type exercise, extracting some sort of gold from the hard lessons of life the way that I was doing. I know that the element that I am gleaning from all this is no Fools Gold, it is the real McCoy, the real deal, a signed PhD from the School of Hard Knocks. I know that someday when I see you again I won't be shuffling my feet, I won't be hemming and hawing. I will look at you straight in the eye and tell you that I am the product of Broken Man University with a Master's Degree in Reassemblage. Baby, I know now that I am good for the long haul. My load has been shaken, stirred, unboxed, trashed, repacked and made good and solid for the road.

Baby, I am the road. I know this for my feet and my shoes and my soul are marked with the red, red dust of the track we once walked on. I am ready to take on those miles, those endless circular miles, and put them to work, translate those footprints in the red clay into lesson plans, and get them out there and find a place where the road goes straight on for miles. As the Byrds sang I can see miles and miles and miles...

..and my dear, at the end of all those miles, I still see you running, running over the grass towards me and those lines on that red, red dirt.

Love, your WHMB

Stemware, 10/06, 3/10

I packed out alot of wine glasses today, almost too many for one man to use and break over the course of a lifetime. Looking back I suppose there were a few things that got my collection going again, a collection that had gone into remission a number of years back.

Long time ago when I was young and wagons still had wooden wheels I had pals who shared my jones for champagne, for large quantities of wine and beer and somewhat wild parties. I had folks over the house back then on a fairly regular basis and went through crystal glassware like mad. I was always on the lookout in toney department stores for nice stemware, for nice bowls and plates and such, but after awhile, especially after the kids came on the scene, found that that wasn't important anymore in my normal everyday life. After awhile it seemed that most of my company was The Estranged One's family, and for the most part most of the libations we shared were found in twelve ounce cans and bottles. My collection of wine glasses wound down to a pitifully small number and since I wasn't partaking much in the grape anymore and had no one around to share the habit with the need for wine glasses went away. The collection wore down to what I had in my old hutch, which, by the time you came into my life in earnest in 2005, wasn't much of a collection at all.

It may have been that one letter you wrote me in September of '05 where you told me that you were a social drinker that started me thinking. It could have been the night of the Gala when we broke open that bottle of bubbly here in my house, or maybe the trip we took to Chelan for WALE when we sat with our colleagues at the hotel bar and sipped the night away. No matter, I saw clearly that my collection of wine glasses had become shabby and needed an immediate update. More importantly I felt that I had found someone who would make a difference in my social calendar, who just might make some sort of concerted effort to help pull together some sort of organized entertainment in my life for a change. One talk or another that we shared on the couch made it clear that we needed good heavy beer mugs that could go into the freezer, that we needed a table full of nice crystal goblets, that we could use a matched set of plates and possibly a nice assortment of sparkling wine glasses to toast in some sort of special event.

Maybe it was my imagination running away with itself, but I started looking for stemware in second hand stores in earnest that fall. Even after the wars, once you were gone and I moved back into the little house I kept at the "hobby", accumulating glassware knowing full well we would never share wine in those cups again, but by then I was buying housewares in bulk, engaging retail therapy, dreaming of pulling together trunk loads of kitchen stuff for the kids, piling up goods for the day TEO would go away, knowing full well that the day she left she would strip my shelves bare .

Well, she left in the summer of '07 and left me with all of my accumulated stuff. All those goods I worried so hard about remained stacked up in back house for years. TEO never took a thing, left me with crockery and cookware and tools all stacked away in on shelves and table tops. I moved back into the big house only to find that all the things I bought and accumulated during our time were still there waiting for me, too. Why would TEO want to take away wine glasses and table settings when she had all that and more waiting for her back in Boise? Why would she want to accumulate crystal goblets when she had no intention of entertaining let alone using those kinds of glasses for drinking? They would only get broken, or worse, clutter up the shelves and get dusty.

So I went about my packing today and thought of you and that one night when we opened up that bottle of nice California sparkling wine at the end of Gala shift. We had two mismatched glasses on hand that night, two glasses long leftover from my wild old days when I entertained on a regular basis. Didn't matter that night if I had dozens of them waiting in the wings, there was just the two of and two glasses suited us fine. I looked hard at the boxes I have stacked in the living room, ready and waiting to be added to the rest of the boxes I have stacked up next door. That waiting area is starting to remind me of that one scene in Citizen Kane, the beginning of the tale when all the stuff is being shoveled into the great fireplace. I know that I have too much, that someday I will have to unload some of it and pare down that collection of stemware but know that that time is not now. I still am waiting for that one great party that will take place someday, the one that you painted such a nice picture of in my head. Someday someone will come into my life and fill up my house with people and laughter and a sort of hungry joy, one that says that love lives here and that people are welcome to partake in it.

You came through my life one time and made it clear that two glasses were not enough. I thank you for that, not only now, long after the packing is done, but also at some later time, when I'll hoist up a glass of fine chilled wine, knock it back and think of you. Of us, of two fine people, both in need of a table full of glasses and room full of company that say love lives here.

To your health, my love.

Your WHMB

Kindly fetch me some words, wouldja dearie?

Darlin'..I have been off of the road now for over a week, have walked the Woods two or three times, cruised all the old spots, watched countless movies and heard tons of music and found that I have been noticeably wanting in the words to share department. Not that I didn't have them by the bushel basket full for you on that long and dusty road trip I took a couple weeks back. And not to say that I haven't had an armful to share with you while job opportunities fell by the wayside and house offers stacked up. No, it's just that I am in this interesting spot, which sounds like something like Pooh might say. I am not so much sitting and waiting as I am shifting stuff and looking at various options as things like unemployment checks and joblines yield less and moreso of it every day.

Looking back it seems like I went on that trip not only to talk to Santa Clara County and to see the kids but to look at the land and see where a full grown man, his stuff and his cat might land once the house was sold and out of the way. I thought, once I got out of the Puget Sound region, that almost anyplace would do, but then I kept running up against the walls of memory and decided that where I should go is a place where my kids and you and I and an awful lot of life lived over the past twenty years really hasn't had much of an influence over my emotional and mental state. A fresh start would be mighty nice about right now, you know?

To that end I thought that Portland would be nice, as I have tons of great memories there, and maybe Grants Pass would do, too, as I had a good time when I lived there and the beginnings of my travails weren't too pronounced there. I thought, too, of Redding, for there was no bad there at all, just good Mexican food. As I kept making my way down the coast I kept finding more and more places to consider, to the point where I was overloading the ledger, outweighing the scale. I have to be serious about these places I'm considering, for I believe I am good for one really great move and then two or three smaller ones once I find the region of my dreams. As for that drive, once I finished up my interview in San Jose I said to myself, I could live here. I had all the things a man could want, that is, except for an immediate job. The one I interviewed for didn't pan out but the region is still interesting enough for me to consider. Another opportunity awaits. Hayward wants to talk to me next week. Let's see where it goes.

No matter what the house is being looked at hard, with a house inspection already out of the way and ready to be negotiated. Whether or not the gal who put earnest money down on it continues to be interested in it remains to be seen, but I know, having finished that five state journey on a good note, that I will soon have to make up my mind where to go, and where I go needs to be a place where my heart can be handled gently. I know that I can fantasize along with the best of them, pretend that places like Vancouver, WA and San Francisco and Huntington Beach would get me through the summer time, but why would I want to be so far from the kids when I could just as easily look for temporary work in the Treasure Valley as I could down south? Why bask in the sun on the beach in SoCal when I can ride the Wild Waves with my kids in Boise in June?

When I ran into you the other day I left many words unspoken because I felt it would be unkind of me to share words with you that wouldn't be appreciated. Know that those words were thought of and tossed off into the wind on that long journey of mine, one that that had me looking hard all over the place for a place to lay down my head and hang my hat. I found many places along the way that I could find some sense of peace and solice, that I could be close to my children and yet within some sort of hailing distance from a part of the world that colored my history in a such a bittersweet way. Know that all those words and that rough mileage and those elusive jobs and the location of my next new homes all sort of come together here, and that when I finally do find that place in the road where I am comfortable and that welcomes me you will be one of the first to know.

In the meantime, I need to go out and round up some fresh new words to share with you. New adventures await and new stories are aching to be told. Let me finish up this old saga and then we'll start the fire anew, pass the pipe and let the stories roll.

Your WHMB

Answer to your question, 2/21

When I saw you on the boulevard the other day you asked me where I wanted to go when I told I was looking for work. I said I would go where the jobs were. Sure, I said, I would like to be with my kids, but a man has to pay the bills. Yeah, I'll go where the work takes me.

Did that give you pause, my dear? Did you feel the breeze of a bullet dodged? Did you feel relief in not having chased after this wandering spirit, knowing, if you had, you might be with on that very same road, chasing after yet another library dream? Could you see or even hear that maybe, just maybe, this man is after that unseen commodity, is walking along a rocky path only because he chose to wear his heart on his sleeve? And that that heart had your name embroidered all over it?

I am on the road today, once again chasing down an interview, taking a long sweet journery to a place that might very well possibly connect my past to my future. I grew up fantasizing about the Bay area, about living in proximity to the City, about being within hailing distance of decent sourdough, cable cars and coolest summers a man could ask for. I think now, knowing the financial dispostion of the grand state of California, that I would rather be almost anyplace else, but I also know that beggars, or at least, underemployed librarians, can't be choosers. With as many applications as I have out there I think that whoever choses to be interested in me is who I want to work for.

But as to where I want to be? Don't you know that there is only one answer to that? As I was walking in the Woods the other day I thought of a song that you played one time for me. You were about the most musically inclined gal I ever known. Country, pop, classic rock, Christian, classical. You knew your artists and had song lyrics down and would quote lines to me that were particularly apropo to our situation at the time. You cut albums for me on your computer, Norah Jones and Seal, but it was a Dave Matthews album that you played for me in your car one day that stuck. Where were going that day? A bookclub meeting? Audubon? Does it matter? We were together and it was all good.

So you asked me the other day where I wanted to go and it was that Dave Matthews song that rang through my head as I walked your neighborhood. If I had my sense about me that day, if hadn't worried so much about what to say as opposed to saying what I really needed to say I wouldn't be jotting this down, thinking song lyrics out loud on hard, sweaty walks.

Where do I want to be? There's only one answer, my dear M, and that's with you. Yeah, I'm no Superman. Where are YOU going? Let's go!

Your WHMB

"Where Are You Going?" Dave Matthews Band

Where are you going?
With your long face
Pulling down
Don't hide away
Like an ocean
That you can't see but you can smell
And the sound of the waves crash down

I am no Superman
I have no reasons for you
I am no hero
Oh, that's for sure
But I do know one thing
Is where you are is where I belong
I do know where you go
Is where I want to be

Where are you going?
Where do you go?
Are you looking for answers
To questions under the stars?
Well, if along the way You are grown weary
You can rest with me until
A brighter day and you're okay

I am no Superman
I have no answers for you
I am no hero
Oh, that's for sure
But I do know one thing
Is where you are is where I belong

I do know where you go
Is where I want to be

Where are you going?
Where do you go?
Where do you go?
Where are you going?
Where do you go?

I am no Superman
I have no answers for you
I am no hero
Oh, that's for sure
But I do know one thing
Is here you are is where I belong
I do know where you go
Is where I want to be

Where are you going?
Where do you go? Tell me, where are you going?

Where? Well, let's go

24 little hours

"What a difference a day makes..".

It's easy to fall back on feelings when you're out standing in the rain. Feeling sorry for yourself is not such a bad option when you find yourself standing under a foreshortened umbrella, rainwater dripping down your neck, a stiff breeze blowing tiny shards of cold, wet drizzle up against the back of your pant legs and your not so waterproof jacket. It's easy to feel low when folks you know see you standing before your cart, well, actually, your friends dog cart, pushed up mean against the side of the road,, and wonder "how the hell did he end up there?" Looking around all I could see was grey, fat clouds and the expanding rings of raindrops hitting oily water in chuck holes the size of large bread boxes. I stood there and all I could think was "fall from grace". I kept flashing on Charleton Heston's turn as a galley slave in Ben Hur. It was all I could do to keep from knocking out a beat on the stamped steel beast I stood before, thrumming out "ramming speed" as cars kept passing me by.

Fast forward twenty four hours and the sun is shining bright. It's still cold out but I'm inside with the heater on. The cat is out, hot coffee is circulating through my veins, the bed is freshly unmade and I still have last night's dinner dishes in the sink. I am starting to sleep better now that I have let go my wonderfully bad habit of eating late and drinking late. I stood on the porch a moment ago and looked out over the water towards the Olympics and know that at some point today you will be looking out that way, too. Bound to be, have to be, as they are about as beautiful today as you are.

I think of days like today and wish to forego that lengthy drive I have ahead of me, stay here, wait for something to break, then just when I think I'll blow off my opportunity I think of days like yesterday when I felt like a misplaced bracero selling oranges off of a freeway offramp and know I have no choice but to go. I know that I have to set my finances back a bit in order to see if I can make a hiring list or two. I know that I have to keep up my housework so that that imaginary dream buyer will fall in love with my house. I know I must keep my spirits up because not every day is a rainy day, because there are plenty of sunny days up ahead.

Outside my door it's still winter, will be for another three weeks or so. We managed to get through the season here in PO with little to no snow. I managed to make it through this financial debacle so far with luck and pluck and bit of hard work. With the sun shining, the wrens singing, the dafodils rising up through the muck, job interview in the wings and the fridge full I feel that life might just be okay. Find me again out on a walk, my dear, and up the antey. I have a long road ahead of me and every little bit helps.

Ramming speed, indeed! Onward and upward, my dear!

Your WHMB

Second chance on Hawkstone, 2/21/2010

"No regrets".

Before I went to sleep last night I lay in my bed thinking of you and our chance meeting yesterday. I "talked" to you up there in my bed in a way that I wish I could have when we ran into each other on the street. Upstairs I didn't feel the tug of unseen hands on our coats. In my bed I could dismiss the sands of time that ran much too quickly through that egg timer we shared. In the quiet confines of my room I didn't feel the pressure of a million eyes that folks laid on us as they drove by. In my bed, my head on my pillow, I didn't feel like I was running after a train, didn't have that "say it to me now or forever miss the chance" angst I felt right before we parted.

Yesterday, as we stood there on the trail by the side of the road I felt the weight of all too many months worth of baggage on my shoulders, felt an unnatural constriction of time, the necessity for brevity, the confines of propriety. It felt odd, forced, almost manic to talk to you that clipped, chirpy sort of way. It was all I could do to avoid missing beats. I couldn't help but to stumble on my words. In that Last Supper moment I let all negative things fly away and packed as much soulful inane chatter into five hard and fleeting minutes as I could.

Up in my room, before I fell asleep, it was another matter altogether. The words I had for you there were slow, easy, filled with all the sweet nuances and sloy observations of life that come when you're feeling safe with someone. I've had an awful lot of practice "talking" to you up there, for you have been the one that I look for in heart first and last before going off to sleep or when I wake. I discovered this little truth there in my room that I didn't see or understand when we were there on foot and that is when I saw you I knew that I didn't want to burden you with my feelings. Instead, when I saw you I knew it would be enough just to share grocery aisle stuff, "wow, where did you come from? Out of the blue?" kinda of chatter.

In my bed, in my head, all feelings for you flowed, all bets were off, all normally choked off, restricted or forbidden words, were allowed. I think of all my words to you here, kind or longing or bitter or angry, and know that when I write them they're just to let you know where I stand, to let you know what I'm feeling at the moment. Here it's easy to share with you the general frustration I have knowing that you're out there, that I am over here, and that our coffee pot has been growing cold waiting for us to have our time in the sun once again.

When I saw you coming down the path yesterday I knew we would have just a moment to catch up, the way two people share pregnant pauses in an elevator in between floors, like the minutes you have with a friend, sharing movie star observations, while being stuck behind a harried hausfrau with a cart full of groceries at a checkout. I wanted time to move slowly but knew what we had was being pulled apart by our various realities. Those minutes we shared had to be enough.

But here my words for you can go on forever. My last words to you tonight before I fell asleep? Just this: no regrets. Jane, I have no regrets. I saw that those words registered when I said then to you right before we parted that second time. I saw it in your eyes. I haven't seen emotion like that from you for me in a long time. Like an arrow my words hit their mark. Bullseye.

Yeah, Jane, I have no regrets.

Your WHMB

Gosh

It was one of those things that I've always hoped for but has never happened, that is, until today.

It was short, sweet. I saw you coming about the same time you saw me, a few hundred yards out, on the other side of the intersection. Would you cross? Turn around? Make yourself scarce? The closer we got the more apprehensive I became. Would you wave? Disappear? Just smile and walk away?

Let me tell you I was surprised, somewhat shocked, when we actually stopped and talked. I felt almost at a loss as to what to say considering the boxcar loads of words and emotions and stories I've been storing up and setting aside to share with you . Let me say that stopping and chatting on the same patch of asphalt, hearing your voice, seeing your face, looking into your eyes and touching your hand, gloved or not, was more than enough for me. It truly made my year, short year that it's been. I have been glowing ever since.

We haven't talked, really talked, in over a year a half. And while I still have much to say, just know that those things I said to you on that second pass, when I caught you on the street on my way out of the Woods, will always stand:

That I have no regrets.

That you will always be my friend.

Know that no matter where we go that you can call on me and I'll come running.

That there isn't a day that goes by where I don't think of you.

And Jane, while I didn't say this, know that I will always love you. And, if I had a choice, I would never leave the region, for to go away means losing contact with you entirely, and that, for me, seems like a sad bit of business, indeed.

Seeing you today was a finest gift that I have received in a long, long time. Thank you, god of afternoon walkers, for making it happen.

Yeah, love, your WHMB

Get behind me Satan! 08/05, 02/10

Sometimes we just know when we fall upon aural bookends to our lives. Turn up the jams!

It's bright and sunny outside today, not too much unlike that fabled August day that we shared oh so long ago. I ended that night in a sort of fevered sonic embrace with David Bowie's album Hunky Dory, believing that everything would turn out just that way. Hunky dory. Why would I think otherwise after such a stellar, rule bending day? Didn't we have momentum behind us, a sort of confused but weighty purity of heart propelling us forward?

Fast forward four and a half years and we both know that the world is a different place. Instead of waking up to your face on a pillow next to mine on a sunny Sunday morning what I see before me is a smattering of quiet, cool architectural reminders of you, cryptic and inscrutible. On my way down to breakfast and redemption I found an album that appealed to me in the same way that that early Bowie album did on that long ago night. The White Stripes, Get Behind Me, Satan! Might it be the way the singer, high pitched and emotional, bangs out his tales of woe? Could it be the heart wrenching guitar solos that dart in and out of the sonic dialogue? Surely, it must be the tinkering keys of the piano echoing about the sunshine filled corners of my house that makes it so fulfulling?

It is full out daylight now, sort of like the day after our arm and arm walk down the concrete park path in Tacoma. Like that long ago day I see sunlight outside my door, a day colored by cool green lawns, deep blue skies and a sort of balmy grey calmness that typically washes over combatants still on their feet after having survived a fierce firefight in the dead of night.

So now I can say that I have yet another soundtrack to my life, bookend albums that will always spark memories of the joys and travails I shared with you, my True Love, records that will always say to me that I am a warrior, that I am a lover who took the hardest blows that life could deliver and still managed to wake up and face the dawn, happy, scared, deep in thought and filled with a sort of twisted joy in having loved the most difficult to love woman on the face of this planet. I am not the damaged man that you feared leaving behind, the shapeshifter that you chose to live with, instead I am the emotionally upright, morally skewed, financially wrecked and completely ready kick ass on the world man you wish you had, who wears the battle scars you left behind like colorful tattoos on his face.

Jane, here in this space I will always be happy to show the world the high price I was willing to pay for the joy and priviledge of loving you. Now, instead of shining me on why don't you grab a cup of joe, a plate of French toast and turn up the tunes. It's a beautiful day out there, a bit too grand and glorious for the blues, for the plinking of melancholy piano keys! Slap on something that's hard, sweet and righteous, will ya? Life is right outside the door and we need to find the next set of bookends for the next tale in our life that has yet to be lived!

Hard love, baby, no better kind. Your WHMB