In the end, my hopes and dreams were not his. I can neither fault him nor help him. I can only love him, pray for him, cry with him in my solitude. He struggles and chokes as he walks forward, but forward he does walk.

After looking at the incredible messes I managed to live through, I suppose I had choices. At the time it did not seem like much of it was a choice. Quicksand was where I often lived and I am still there. Mostly I have learned to stand on a rock.

I have worked hard at being happy or at least content. It is what I have learned to choose… to be at least content if not happy. It is a choice I make several times a day… Caught in tangled thread I can struggle as I twist in the wind or I can enjoy the ride and relish the view. My best hope for him is that he can learn to do something similar.

So my son goes forward on a self made raft of twigs. I quietly rejoice with him in his joy and cry with him in his sorrow while I watch him paddle with his hands. I could not love him more. I applaud his right to survive on what ever vessel he has fashioned. He says he was born without oars. Who am I to question that?

Ma used to say that we were not hers… that God had only given us to her for a little while. It used to really bother me but now I understand it well.

(This was prompted by the “Silent No More” essay written by Duke.)

There’s just one thing, though: my daughter is gay.

She was raised in a Christian home by two married heterosexual parents who were far from perfect, but who loved her, tried hard, and had good intentions. She was tucked in, read to, tickled, prayed with, prayed over, and taken to church. When she came out to me, she told me that she was gay before she knew what the term meant. Her natural attraction was to people of her own gender, and had been since before she was any kind of crazy — boy-crazy, girl-crazy, whatever.

She tells me that her same-gender orientation is part of who she is, not a choice, and I believe her without reservation. I have an inkling of what this has cost her and how difficult it has made her life. I don’t think she would want to stick with it if it was something she was merely choosing.

What do I want for my daughter? I want what every parent wants: I want her to be happy and love her life; I want her to find someone who loves her and wants to share everything with her. Who that person will be is something only she can know. I could no more choose that person’s gender than I could choose their name. And why would I even want to?

My mom taught me to stand up for what’s right. Mom’s gone now, but that part of her is strong in me, and I have tried to pass it on to my kids. They do a good job of it, even when — especially when — they are standing up to me. So I can’t be anything but proud of her as I watch the grace and determination she brings to dealing with the world’s reaction to this part of her, even as she is tackling so many other big changes in her life.

For some people, the gay rights issue is about whiners who want special treatment for an unpopular and unpleasant hobby. It may be that simple to you, but my life, my love, and my daughter have taught me differently. So when you talk about “gays” as if they were all one thing, and all wrong, please choose your words carefully and speak with respect. Because this is my daughter you are talking about, and I will take it personally.

We were in our “child bearing years,”and many of our friends were also going through the same things. Though we started among the earliest of our group, and stopped (6 children later) nearly last, a random gathering of a dozen of our friends at the time would have included probably a minimum of two pregnant women, and perhaps as many as four. And the thing was, some of them were having their babies at home. Yup, that’s right, no doctor, no hospital, maybe (or maybe not) a midwife. And every time we got together we had to listen to all these “I didn’t cut the cord, I bit it in half” stories, from all these very hip (don’t you know) young men and women. I still remember stories like: “I didn’t really experience labor. I had been so faithful with my Lamaze exercises that I just felt a little pressure, and then little Ezekiel slid out, singing ‘God of our Fathers.’”

We found ourselves behind the times. Our first children had been born in the hallowed, antiseptic halls of the local hospital, much to our chagrin. We’d bought all the bourgeois propaganda; we’d been brainwashed by our square parents and our Republican doctor. “Hospitals are safer if there is a complication… the sterile environment lowers the risk of infection for both mother and child… the nurses are trained to deliver excellent care for a newborn…”

But now we were becoming enlightened. We began to understand that hospital births were not only unnecessary, but also detrimental to the physical and mental health of the child. We learned that obstetricians had conspired to force women into hospitals for birth, that they had consciously acted to deprive midwives of their income and profession. We learned that birth in hospital was statistically more dangerous than home birth, and we learned that the impersonal, assembly-line approach to delivering babies meant that the babies would be deprived of the loving, calm atmosphere that was typical of home births. We listened to horror stories of others who had a sister, or a cousin, or a friend of a friend who gave birth in a hospital and had lived to regret it. (I don’t remember, now, exactly how they had learned to regret it. Perhaps when it was time for toilet training little junior resisted, and it was assumed it was because of delivery trauma from having been forced to enter the world under those bright lights, with all those scary people in white, and having one’s little bottom smacked in public. But I digress.)

Since we had finally learned the truth about childbirth, with number three we determined to follow the lead of our truly hip and organic friends. We were going to have our child at home. Our parents were against it, but we understood they had bought into the establishment’s factory mentality, just as we previously had, so we didn’t hold it against them. We felt sorry for them, really. How awful it must be to be as old as they, but still without any wisdom about the ways of the world. But we were newly enlightened, and because when we bought into something we did it all the way, we didn’t even engage a physician for prenatal care. We trusted to our careful diet and our Shaklee vitamins. And I have to say it went very well for, oh, nearly nine months.

Back then, money was a little tight. I was a college student and though we were getting by on my college funding, a little extra money was always welcome. In the Autumn, we had taken to “picking cones.” This is an activity in which you go way up in the mountains, way off paved roads, and you search for fir cones that have been cut out of a tree by squirrels. You gather these cones in burlap bags, and sell them to the forest service. These cones contain new seeds, and these are planted and tended in flats, and the baby fir trees are later carried into the woods by loggers and planted. It’s some “renewable resource” thing. For us, it was extra money.

So on a cold, crisp Saturday morning, with Debbie nearly full term, we dropped the two kiddie-boos off at grandmas, and headed into the mountains in our old Chevy sedan. We were both dressed warmly, and looked forward to a few hours out in the woods. The labor (so to speak) was not strenuous. Most of the time was spent locating the stashes, then it was scooping cones into sacks, and of course I did the sack-carrying back to the car. And that’s how it would have gone that morning except something else happened instead.

Suddenly Debbie gave a startled “Oh!” She looked over at me sort of puzzled, then informed me that her water had broken. Of course I, being who I am, inquired how she could possibly know that. “Well,” she said, “I think it’s a pretty good bet, since my shoes are suddenly full of amniotic fluid.” It was way too cold for Deb to hunt for cones in wet shoes, so I reluctantly turned the car around and headed toward home.

Now, we had really prepared for a home birth. We’d read several books, and had even built a backboard for Deb to use during the final stages of labor. We knew how to clamp and cut the cord, how to make sure the baby’s air passages were clear, and how to clean off all that gunk that a newborn is covered in. We knew we needed to keep the room warm, and bundle the little one in clean blankets and to tuck it into the bassinette. We had it covered, so I turned to Deb and said “I’m taking you to the hospital.” Her response was a demure “You better believe you are!”

An instance of repeating

when the world is only beginning

Strong coffee in the evening and a walk through the bookshelf of a stranger. He is too young for his grey hair, and he has been to Prague, and this Kundera, he’s Czech, isn’t he? We have already dreamed aloud together, and every step taken on common ground must surely bring us closer. I take the book home with me: heavy, even in its unbearable, unbeatable lightness.

Despite or because of the globe’s spinning, I am through the novel in moments like repeated prayer, like the movement of air into and out from lungs. I copy down carefully a single metaphor can give birth to love and leave it in the book for him to find when I return it.

In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera says: If eternal return is the heaviest of burdens, then our lives can stand out against it in all their splendid lightness.

The grey hairs spread into a stripe of silver over the next year and a half. We understand this to be my doing. We fall, like leaves or pieces of paper, into place more easily and beautifully than I could have wished or planned.

But leaves lose their grip on trees in the wind, and actually, life is never what you plan. Sometimes things fall together, and sometimes they fall apart.

dissolution

1 : the act or process of dissolving : as a : separation into component parts b (1) : DECAY, DISINTEGRATION (2) : DEATH c : termination or destruction by breaking down, disrupting, or dispersing <the dissolution of the republic> d : the dissolving of an assembly or organization e : LIQUEFACTION

when it is getting warm

With the writer in those first days: he is attentive and well-read and distracting, with dark hair free of grey. He asks me to recommend a book, which I take as a challenge. I don’t give him Kundera – he’s already read it, which pleases me. I give him my favorite Joan Didion novel, telling him the magic is in her use of repetition. For his benefit I have underlined I’m driving Sunset and I’m staying in the left lane because I can see the New Havana Ballroom and I’m going to turn left at the New Havana Ballroom. I have also written yes at the end of chapter fifty-two. He returns the book two days later.

I say I’m impressed you read it so fast.

He says I’m impressed with your taste.

At home I look between the pages for a bookmark, a note, a clue – but of course there’s none. It doesn’t really matter, though. I have already decided that I will be leaving someone behind.

liquefaction

You are free to do whatever you want, I tell the man with grey hairs.

You are too, he says. My eyes, closed. The evening light.

OK, I say.

OK, he says.

repetition

1 a : the act or an instance of repeating or being repeated b : a motion or exercise (as a push-up) that is repeated and usually counted

when the leaves are new

With a tall man in the woods; he says he’s just picked up something Czech – starts with a K, he thinks. It’s a good one, I tell him. He says hm, smiles. He, too, has a few grey hairs. We understand them to be my doing, but we don’t really understand each other.

His grey hairs start multiplying like buds on trees, and I try not to over-explain my fascination and alarm. Life is not a cycle; it is a series of events. The repetition means something different every single time.

Kundera says: In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.

We will walk into summer together, but not out of it.

disintegration

The tall man reads the Joan Didion. He is eager to talk about it in the sun, saying “I’ve never read anything like this before” while I think about the night before, moving furniture with the writer, each of us saying it is time for a change and hoping this is a metaphor for something else, and it is: this is a metaphor and the earth was turning very quickly last night, all night, and today.

When I get quiet in the car later the tall man says I can tell you have something to say, but if you don’t want to talk about it I guess that’s fine.

Yes, but I need to, I say.

He waits for me to finish the words: “and I’m going to give this a chance.”

OK, he says.

We each look at our own hands on our own knees, in the car, not touching.

decay

I don’t have any sense of intimacy with you I tell the writer, when it is already too late.

That’s kind of part of my personality, he says. I think about how he would move away from me in the night.

I just don’t see why two people who don’t make each other that happy should stay together any longer, I say.

OK, he says.

Later we shake hands. Well that was very adult, he says.

When he leaves I call the man with grey hair. Things are already shifting. Summer is ending and the world seems to be turning right-side-up again, without our asking or effort.

But actually, life is never what you plan. Sometimes things fall together, and sometimes they fall apart. And sometimes when they could fall apart they don’t, instead – sometimes instead they hold together because you have at your disposal some very strong glue and a very strong wish to try, let’s try this again, let’s give this thing another chance and see what happens.

when it is getting cold again

Kundera says: Human time does not turn in a circle; it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition.

I feel like we should still be so happy, I tell the man with grey hairs over pancakes and applesauce.

I’m happy, he says. Aren’t you?

I’m fine, I say.

He is looking at me, so I look out the window. The bank says it’s fifty-three degrees.

I hope this isn’t like last time, he says.

I tell him I will absolutely not make any promises either way about that and think about how there are no easy answers and about how the world will only grow colder again in the coming months and about Joan Didion and how she wrote I have this problem with as it was.

when the leaves have fallen

Going through my shelves, offering new books to the tall man, who I am trying to make a friend. “This is what she’ll do to you,” I warn him, reading aloud from Carole Maso: I was hoping to tame my terror with sex or language. He says mm, nods. I tell him that the repetition means something different every single time. He nods and I can never tell how much he knows. I think to myself: he could have learned, he could have learned. But I know that I, too, have trouble with as it was.

The repetition means something different, every single time. Life is not a cycle; it is a series of events.

lightness

Sometimes things fall apart. Sometimes they also fall back together, like how the leaves always end up back on the trees. Give it time: it will get warm again; we will live again. Making choices and keeping secrets and fighting or falling in to the occasional (constant) trickle of memory every time I close my eyes. Saying we don’t need to tell anyone about this, saying he doesn’t need to hear about this. Sometimes good writers make confusing lovers, and sometimes tall men organize their kitchens in impossible ways. But sometimes arms are just like you remember, and sometimes they are better. Sometimes a man with grey hair loves you when you leave and come back, and leave and come back again. Sometimes I think: I am not changing. I have not changed. I still sit quiet in the kitchen, watching the Fahrenheit move between 32 and 33 degrees, imagining puddles thawing and seizing up again, and again. Sometimes you can see right through me and sometimes (I recognize) the sighs go too deep to see to the bottom. Sometimes you think that perhaps finally everything is just as it was, but this is never the truth.

The United States fought its way to the front of that line and paid the fee some time ago, with England moseying along behind. France tried to cut ahead by slipping some money to one of the clerks, but Russia somehow is still waiting.

She would be willing, at this point, to slip the clerk some money just to be able to go home and maybe catch the last 30 seconds of the ball game, but that requires actually having some cash to slip. Russia had some green, at one point, but her cheating, no-good husbands abandoned her and the kids, who need school clothes, and schools. Russia has had time, standing in line all these years, to think about the sweet-talking fellows who charmed her, wooed her, married her, then stripped her clean, leaving her with no money and who knows how many mouths to feed. She scowls with regret and anger, tapping her foot with increasing impatience as she gets jostled by Chechnya from behind, and jostles back.

I. Rabbit

The first memory: yellow carpet of my bedroom in the duplex where we lived when I was five. I am sitting on the floor; I am wearing a short dress. There is something involving a dresser drawer and the wrapping paper (from a years-ago baby shower) lining the bottom of it, and there are carpet lines on my bare legs, and there is this necklace – the flatly glinting rabbit and the cheap, indelicate silver chain.

II. Magpie

I see a bird spread out in wings, slightly blurred – I think he’s flying. Lines of motion all around him, I’m sure of it. But coming into vision as the light shifts I see his still, glassy eyes: the magpie, brilliantly black and white, is dead and stuffed.

III. I remember

Joni Mitchell wrote: I remember that time you told me, you said “love is touching souls” – well surely you touched mine, ‘cause part of you pours out of me in these lines from time to time.

IV. The magpie and I remember

Magpie. That word, like the smile written into the reach of his shiny oiled wings, takes me back in a breath. Like the scent of sagebrush or sycamores or the breath of hot dust when it rains suddenly, falling fast, and the water rolls off the hard dirt and winds up in the gutters, creating tiny, flooding rivers. Like the peeling beef jerky texture of the bark and the shade, silvergreyed green, of the small, furry leaves of the Russian olive trees. Like the bright hot sky and those birds swooping in for something that catches the light.

I remember that time you told me magpies pick through garbage and filth in their search for something shiny, something beautiful.

I remember that time the blonde woman at the park said magpies were disgusting, but I always liked them; I always liked those scavengers. I had recently learned the word carrion, and thought that it was also a certain kind of beautiful.

V. The magpie remembers something shiny

Sometime later, in another town, digging through boxes, I find the necklace again. The details of losing and finding are lost by now, but somehow the necklace survives the garages of several houses and surfaces again with familiarity and recognition. My memory is only of the rabbit in my hand and the impression of significance. Chain is replaced by ribbon and ribbon by chain and the series links and breaks the years; the rabbit stays close to me from now on.

VI. Remembering the scavengers

I remember that time you told me you had found something interesting in the car. I cringed as it came back: the dark sky and those boys and the early Beatles and the parking lot and the ten hubcaps I collected, stashed in the trunk of your Nissan, and forgot about.

I remember that time you said “you’re such a little scavenger.”

VII. The rabbit and I remember the magpies

I remember that time I was wearing that necklace on that ribbon and those earrings I bought for the way the sun sparkled them when I turned my head. I remember when he got in the car (this was around the start of the collaborative magpie afternoons) and looked at me, a pleased or proud smile to one side.

I remember that time he said “fuck, you’re hip today,” and thinking back to the person I was at that time, I’m sure I replied “I know.”

VIII. Magpie, in loving memory

The lines of life of that dead magpie in flight bring to mind the beating of a heart in a hollow place. How we may sigh for the sake of beauty without a sense of emotion, without a memory of warmth or the sea or of blossoms when they are being born. That bird is dead, but I’m reading forward motion, or suggestion, or implication, in those tire-track power-line clothes-line stripes.

IX. Remembering the scavengers II

I remember that time I brought home the bicycle wheel. You had just cleaned the walls in the hallway. I came home late and you got up to say hello and found the wheel (brown and rusty and greasy, half-cleaned) leaning against the clean beige wall.

I remember that time you said “get this dirty piece of garbage out of my house.”

X. The rabbit and I remember who we are, were, want, wanted

I remember that spring, running out the door and tumbling down the stairs in skips and leaps, always almost late for the bus, always tying on the ribbon necklace in the rain. I’d been bringing home all kinds of things and I remember how you sighed and said “oh, Yoko” when I wrote or pasted or labeled Yes on things, looking for some rock star to wander into the installation that made up my life, climb the ladder and fall, fall, fall for me in some kind of double fantasy. Around the dinner table dad asked if I’d become Catholic when he wasn’t looking, saying the necklace looked like the medallion of some saint. Saint Anthony? Saint Peter?

I remember that time, how you looked at the rabbit and suggested “Saint Peter Cottontail.” Images of pastel colored, cardboard bound children’s books flashed around the room and we all exploded with enchantment.

I remember that time, reading a draft of this, how you told me “it came from chocolate. It was on a box of chocolate.”

At the time, I was working a new job at a restaurant. I didn’t particularly like this job, for a few reasons. The main reason was the fact that I was not the only “Pondificator” there. It wasn’t that I disliked working with my relatives. It had more to do with the fact that I was constantly being compared and contrasted with said relatives. And since I was the new kid (being a youngest and all), and had never done restaurant work before, I felt deeply criticized and looked down upon by the person in charge (who, thankfully, was no relation of mine—in fact, I’m convinced she was from Omicron Persei 8, and was married to a certain ruler there named Lur…). There were some other events that transpired to make said person dislike me to an even greater degree, but those events were neither life changing, nor pertinent to this story, so I will leave them out.

I had been working in this restaurant for about two or three weeks, when the event happened. Someone had called the front desk with a to-go order. I was–for all intents and purposes–a bus boy, had never taken a to-go order before, and didn’t really know what I was supposed to do. So I wrote the order down on a scrap of paper and went hunting for someone who wasn’t preoccupied (which, by the way, is not a realistic goal for someone working in a restaurant).

I headed to the kitchen by way of the lounge, which was a quicker and quieter route during the dinnertime rush. The front desk was maybe twenty restaurant paces from the kitchen (I say restaurant paces because there is a certain meandering, casual speed one is expected to maintain in the eating area, in order to promote a relaxing environment for the patrons). And after about ten of these twenty paces, I started to feel very strange.

My body felt weightless, the floor distant. This induced a profound sense of vertigo and I stopped for a moment to catch my balance before continuing my restaurant paces to the Kitchen. This is when I realized that all the hustle-bustle noises of the restaurant took on a decidedly underwater tone to them. It was not unlike swimming in an abysmal river. The deeper you dive, the darker it seems to get, and while you can still hear what’s going on above the surface, it mostly sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher saying, “Wa-wa-wa-wa…” Then came black bubbles, roiling closer, engulfing my existence, welling across my vision like tar until everything faded away into nothingness.

———————————————————————

Get Technical with Professor Charlie!

My seizures occur in the frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes of the left hemisphere. When a seizure occurs in only one hemisphere, it’s known as a Partial seizure.

I have experienced two different kinds of Partial seizures. The one that occurred in the restaurant is a Complex Partial seizure, which describes a partial seizure in which one loses consciousness. Although loss of consciousness occurs, often times the person will appear conscious, and continue performing repetative tasks. In my case, I continued walking to the kitchen where I stood around until my middle brother showed up and asked me if I needed help, to which I responded with only nonsensical language until I emerged from the seizure.

I also have Simple Partial seizures, which refer to a Partial seizure in which one remains conscious. There is quite the variety of symptoms for this type of seizure. For me, the seizures effect the sensory part of the brain, and result in intense, indescribable pain. I have also fallen due to seizures a few times. I’m not sure if this is some new seizure development, or if I’m just getting extreme vertigo and falling is a side effect.

Copyright (C) 2009 ThePontificators.com

South across 9th St, a four lane road cluttered in heavy California traffic, a family of seven Mexican immigrants are working a hot grill; catering to an insanely long line. Curious, and more than a little hungry, I position myself at the crosswalk and wait for my light to turn.

It’s hard for me to stand still without letting my knees bend a little. My feet beg me to sit down, worn out from roughly 5 miles of walking all around the show floor. I’m weary of the large crowds, the flashing lights and heavy techno music of the exposition. Beyond my hunger, I’m looking for rest. The heat of the afternoon intensifies my discomforts, causing beads of sweat to appear on my brow.

The cars stop, the light turns from STOP to WALK, and I cross the street to the adjacent sidewalk where I catch my first glimpse of what the Mexicans are cooking. Large hot dogs lay in rows along the griddle – meaty, horizontal cylinders wrapped in strips of fatty bacon. The street chef taps one on its side with his tongs, and it rolls over lazily, like a log floating down a river, exposing the crisper red bacon that had just a moment ago been pressed tightly to the heat.  Small beads of hot grease pop up like excited jumping beans, enjoying the bustling cocktail party of the grill, complete with its own sizzling orchestra. On the opposite end of the griddle, rows of onion slices and green bell papers enjoy the show of protein from their vantage point, caramelizing at their ends. The smell is intoxicating.

The food line moves quickly, and I as get closer to the grill I can hear the broken communication between the vendor and his customers. First the customer says, “One dog please.” The vendor then asks, “Water?” “Sure,” the customer responds. The street chef then turns to his daughter – at best guess 9 years old – who is guarding a large gray garbage can full of ice and bottled waters, and gestures for her to give one to the patron. The customer smiles, pays $2.50 for his food, and the transaction is over. Simple. Fast. No hassle. I smile to myself; it’s a brilliantly run operation.

Finally, it’s my turn. I follow the customs I have just witnessed, asking for one dog. I say yes to the water, and watch the vendor speak in Spanish to his daughter. He then takes one of the bacon-wrapped hot dogs with his tongs, lays it in a bun with hot onions and bell peppers, and squeezes from a plastic bottle a thick beige colored sauce, laying it in a perfect line straight down the center of the hot dog. I hand him my $2.50, take my hot dog and water, and head back across the street where I can enjoy my newfound delicacy.

I sit under the shade of a small, leafy tree, set my bottle of water down between my feet, and, grasping the bun with both hands, direct the hot dog towards my mouth, taking a generous bite. I don’t know for sure if it’s my fatigue, my hunger, or a combination of the two, but it tastes so good, and I don’t know how to say it better than that. The meat of the dog isn’t overpowering, the bacon adds subtle hints of flavor instead of that all-too-familiar gristle-like taste. The peppers and onions work to neutralize the heaviness of the meat, and the sauce adds a perfect touch of tangy sweetness.

As I turn to wave to the Hispanic family, thanking them for their wonderful product which is still making my cheeks bulge, my eyes catch the sad story of how L.A. works. A police car slows and stops at the curb next to the hot dog grill. I can see through the driver’s window the passenger window roll down. The driver’s partner sticks his head out. He doesn’t speak a word; he simply stares at the vendor and his family. The policemen have no intentions of arrest, they are simply looking to scare them away, and it works. The Mexican street chef shouts a few orders in Spanish to his family. They quickly throw a lid on the can of water, throw their supplies in a white plastic bag, and hurriedly scoot everything around the corner, down the street, and out of site. The police officer ducks his head back into his cruiser, rolls up the window, and they drive off in the opposite direction, content in their display of power.

I finish my food with a fresh sense of guilt, washing it down with the ice cold water. Finding a trash can among the maze of geeks, I throw my garbage away and head back into the Convention Center. My spirits had just been raised with the witness of close family and great food, and dashed only moments later by a badge and a gun. As I flash my ID to the security guard standing outside the show floor, I wonder how often the Mexican street chef and his family set up shop each day, on some empty street corner, only to be chased away by law enforcers with no intention of enforcing any laws at all.

That night, in the hotel room, my father and I discussed the events of the hot dog grill. It turned into a gripe session about power, government, and cocky police officers who loved throwing their weight around. With no appreciation for the heart in the struggle of life, and no intention of standing for any laws, these egotistical, lazy “jock-cops” simply throw their weight around, creating fear in innocent people trying to make an honest living, and not solving any problems at all.

The next day, as I stepped out of the Convention Center once more, looking south across 9th St I saw the Hispanic family selling their wonderful food. I smiled, gave them a big way-to-go cheer in my mind, looked both ways, and jay-walked towards my new favorite restaurant: the 9th St Grill, home of the world famous Mexican Bacon-Wrapped Hot Dog.

It’s like that shy girl at the school dance. She’s pretty, and you notice most of the boys glance at her a lot, but nobody asks her to dance. She doesn’t wear the world the way most of us do. She is looking for someone who knows her, to take the slow road of conversation and long walks. People secretly feel sorry for her. Then someone comes up and just talks, and smiles a lot. He walks her home.

I heard the President talk about “the American way of life.” He spoke as if it’s something we need to protect, and I found myself nodding. But that night I dreamed of all the places I’d been, and people I’d met. There was that waitress in Atlanta who served me fried catfish and called me “Hon” from under hair like a yellow thunderhead. There was that black man in the Chick-fillet who stared at his food and softly sang the first line of “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay” over and over. There was that homeless man with the sign that said “will work for food” who when I gave him an apple, threw it at me in a rage, and that other homeless man who picked up the thrown apple and started eating it. I dreamed of that 19-year-old “elder” ringing my doorbell, that biker who stopped and helped me change a tire when my arm was in a cast, the lounge singer in that little club in Chico who played an old strat-copy accompanied by a drum machine. And now I don’t know what “the American way of life” is, even if the President does.

I want to drive across America. I don’t want to take any main route. Instead, I’ll drive around in every state, stopping at little diners, and asking the local folks where the best swimming holes are. I’ll spend time poring over maps, looking for the smallest roads, the windiest routes. I don’t think taking those little roads will change me much, but I think they were built by people like me, for people, just like me.

Copyright (c) 2006 – thepontificators.com

But moralities and isms don’t apply to the mountain.  They are on it, to be sure.  There is a moralities cave: it is very winding and dark and damp and twists around many corners and has more paths inside than one can count. It looks much like the isms cave.  But the morality is restricted to its cave, it does not come out at night to torture or tempt other caves or crannies.  It does not lay itself down on top of ancient Greek History and declare that it is wrong that mostly it is only the men that are visible to the gazers, and not the women. The women are still there, they are just in shadow.  Everything that has ever been is there, somewhere, on the mountain.  Whether or not these things are visible to those who watch from below or who climb and explore does not change the fact of their existence.