In Absentia

"Non male loquare absenti amico"

Speak no evil of an absent friend
Titus Maccius Plautus (254 BC - 184 BC)

I've been absent. 

Oxford defines absence as 'the state of being away from a place or person' and 'the nonexistence or lack of'

That's how it feels. Like being away. It feels like nonexistence. 

It's coming into the longest, darkest nights again and true to the season for me...it's just flat-out the toughest time of the year.

When the daylight is so short...the world is a harder place. It's been that way as long as I can remember.

Learn to pronounce

 

Pushing through is hard. It's hard to talk. It's hard to engage. You just do and that's about all you can do. 

You put on your face like you put on your coat before you go out the door. You dance on the thin edge between smiling and not. Patience is a virtue you struggle to find. Your fuse is short and easily lit. Everything aches. Sleep is a troubling thing. You find yourself at the window with the 'thousand-mile stare'...watching but seeing nothing.

It's isolating. Surrounded by everyone, you're lonely. You miss people. You miss people forever gone. You miss people across town. You miss people across the room. You miss people because they don't seem to miss you. You wish some old friends would call but you hardly know if you can answer or what you'd say if you did. You miss them but can't bring yourself to reach out yet again. So you wait. There's been so many times...

And frustrating. You wish everybody wasn't angry all the time. Smiles without fangs. Laughter without snarls. Conversations without rage. Simple words with nothing underneath. Hoping you can say something...anything without some kind of awful consequences. For a break from absolutes.

And exhausting. Time is relentlessly out of synch with the hour. Little things become big things as fast as flipping a coin. You fear that anything you do for yourself takes away from someone else. You wish you didn't feel like you have to be everything to everybody every day. You wish for a lack of crisis...lack of doubt. You wish you could rest enough to somehow not feel worn out. Weariness walks with you and whispers defeat.

And yet...

Yet still somewhere under all the dark you hope for warmer days and dreamless nights. A tiny hope for quiet and calm that seem so very far right now. For even a few things to be alright.

It's only that little thing that keeps you present perhaps. Small it may be but it speaks to the hard winter and the wind. It says that spring will come. It says you're not completely alone. It reminds you that it might not always be so dark if you can just hang on.

Yes...just hope and hang on. If it's all you can do, it'll have to be enough. Make it through today. Make it through the week. Lean in through the month. And hope that one day soon the sun might shine a little brighter, the ice could find itself in a puddle, the Hope Tree will bud and...with a little luck...absence itself might just be absent for a while.

Casually Cruel

Anyone who knows me knows that the holiday season and I will just never get along. November and December are awful for me year after year and nothing ever seems to change it. I've been down this road before...the fake happiness, the overwhelming capitalist nightmare of Black Friday and Cyber Monday and whatever other commercial madness that comes along, fake friends, fake all of it.

This time around there's another wrinkle that is making me miserable. I call it 'Casual Cruelty' and in the last few months, a wholly depressing number of people have perfected the practice. It consists of just being mean and not really thinking anything of it...hence casual but cruel nevertheless. 

I've heard people in common conversation say things like, "Immigrants should just be rounded up or shot if they try to come in illegally" or "If someone gets in my way protesting something, I'll just run 'em over" and "I'll fight in the streets if anyone tries to give me a shot"...like asking for the salt...casually offering to kill someone for the unconscionable sin of being someone else or disagreeing with them. Not even a thought of what that might be like. Who you might be doing it to. Why you'd even think like that. People just do. Apparently, everyone needs to die for everything. 

Ask someone to wait a minute...get shot or beat up. Forget a turn signal...get rammed. Work on a school board...get death threats. Teach...get death threats. Work in food service...get death threats. Work in healthcare...get death threats. It never ends.

The idea that people 'deserve' what they get is just awful. 

Asylum seekers were just asking to have their kids taken away and lost when they had the audacity to seek asylum here. Addicts deserve to suffer because they 'chose' that life like it was picking a color for the kitchen walls. Women should carry every pregnancy to term because they weren't chaste enough for the Evangelical crowd. Lazy people on public assistance should be cut off and pull themselves up...get a third job, forget medical care and just 'want' to be successful enough because needing a hand is a character flaw. We can't 'afford' to help people because if they were us they wouldn't need it so it must be their fault.

Casually Cruel. Name calling. Bullying. Intimidation. 'Karen' going ballistic over nothing at all. 'Fuck Biden' flags on thousands of front lawns. Petty, adolescent, self-absorbed, entitled cruelty for the sake of it. 

A scowling madman spreading hate and more cruelty nightly to legions of the dedicated. Millions of nodding followers thinking this is all ok. Just say 'socialism' and anything goes. 'They' who are not 'us' must have brought it on themselves.

People deciding it's good to ban books they don't agree with. People who've never read 'Fahrenheit 451' or '1984' and never will because they're gleefully burning copies of them by the dumpster-full. 

Whole swathes of people deciding that we should teach only that which doesn't cause 'distress'...to white people. 

People who've never read the Constitution railing about our 'Christian' country and threatening anyone who doesn't subscribe with execution.

It's evil and it makes me absolutely furious that there's even a debate over it.

Möbius On My Mind

I'm still processing. It all seems so overwhelming. RvW is gone. Human rights are once again on the chopping block. Half the country is on a gun binge and apparently willing to die or kill for them. Corporate America is happily gorging itself and starving it's workforce. Policy compromise is DOA. An entire political party gleefully endorses an outright fairy tale. People are scared and worried. I'm one of them.

It's the way I am. I can think my way around most debates that drop in my path and actually like working my way through them. I'm not a scientist or an academic but logic and facts make sense to me. Over the years, I've developed a low tolerance for simplistic arguments and buckshot analogies. It leaves me nervous when so many people have not.

The gleeful disregard for verifiable information is one thing I never saw coming. A sizeable portion of the body public seems bent on denying logic or proof. Everything that doesn't fit is fake. Or someone got paid to say it. Or just call everyone a pedophile or groomer and go happily and confidently on your way. Facts are flexible things that bend and twist to meet an end. It isn't what you know...it's what you believe. It isn't what you can prove...it's what's been approved. Anyone who isn't with you is against you. There will be a purity test administered for admission to your chosen faith system. It's a zero-sum game and there will be no negotiation.

Möbius was right in more ways than he ever could have imagined when it turns out literally everything tends to be one-sided. The world has become his eponymous strip that always circles itself back around to the beginning.

That might be why I'm having such a hard time. Everybody is yelling. Everyone is so very sure they're right and everyone else is a monster.

I've been debating gun rights over on my other social media and keep running up against the same big-brush arguments over and over. Now it's Roe v. Wade. Next it'll be January 6th. Then inflation. Then...well pick one. They're all complicated and deserving of consideration but memes and sound bites drive the discussion to a tabloid level. And it's self-reinforcing thanks to algorithms that drive clicks to the very same lowest common denominator that will generate the most likes and sell you the most stuff. It's so very easy to live on Möbius' strip where all things lead back to where you started and there's only one side no matter how you slice it. Your friends are there and they all agree with you. 

And yet, there are so many really important things going on all around us and much as I'd like to turn off the world, I can't just ignore it and wait silently for whatever happens. If you don't engage you could find yourself sitting fat, dumb and happy when the roof caves in. 

I'm unsure what to do or even if there's anything I can do. I think I should do something but where to start? I vote of course but I'm only one drop in an ocean. I can donate to what I consider worthy causes but how much difference can it reasonably make? I have to earn my way so how much volunteer time can I commit to? I raise an occasional stink on Facebook but I'm very much aware that you can't change the world by arguing on social media. Nobody is listening no matter how civil and thoughtful the post or how narrow I try to keep the focus. But then...is it doing anything anyway? Is it teaching the proverbial pig to sing? Wasting my time and only annoying the pig?

It's frustrating. So I'm processing. With any luck, I'll figure out if not what to do then at least which way to start. If all I can do is flirt with disaster with the keyboard warriors I guess that'll have to do for now...but I doubt it'll be the end of it. 

As always...more to follow.

For Maple

A few days ago, I got to meet Maple at last. Maple Rose is my first grandchild and what a sweetheart she is. After some unavoidable delays that meant she was over a week old before we were officially introduced, she didn't seem to mind and so another adventure begins.

I'd forgotten what it's like to hold a baby human. They're so tiny and fragile and wonderful. My son handed her to me and just like that, I went swooping back to the first time I held him when he was born. All the worry and hope and joy and love that you pour into those little bundles looks up at you and life is suddenly different. 

You realize that she's seeing all things for the first time and in the whole of the world that'll never ever be again. You're watching something that happens every day but truly happens only once. That time when everything is new. It's absolutely wonderful.

Welcome to the world Maple Rose...you stole my heart from the first. 

May all things be wonderful for you now and onward. May you be as sweet as your namesake tree, as rare and beautiful as your flower and even if you come with a few thorns...well that's ok too. You're in the best Mom and Dad hands I could wish for and I know they'll love and teach you well. I would wish that you always look at the world with wonder in those eyes like the first time and reach for all you can like you reached for my fingers. 

So off you go with all my love little one. Life is suddenly different once again.

The Wizard (Part 5 The End Of An Era)

 So Rollerworld rolled on. It was a dream and a nightmare all at once. There were some really, really good skaters around and we'd be on the floor for hours sometimes. People came from out of town but we started to realize they didn't come back very often. The writing was on the wall.

We still ran some huge sessions in the winter but summer was just dead. There was never any air conditioning so even night sessions were sometimes nothing but sweat baths. Leaving the doors open to get some air invited bugs, a parade of kids trying to sneak in or out, more trouble with alcohol and the inevitable fights. On humid July and August nights, it was exhausting to get through six hour sessions...even if only 20 or 30 people showed up.

Suddenly, things weren't so bright as they'd been in the beginning. One of the owners converted the old lounge/office/locker rooms from the tennis courts into an apartment of sorts and lived there full time early on and nothing good came of it. I wondered often how they got this one past the zoning officers but nothing seemed to happen. 

This guy was sketchy at best and even though he made me a 'manager' (which meant pretty much nothing except I worked more), I very much doubted what we were up to.

At some point, he brought in a half-built hotrod coupe and a worn out Caddy limousine that were supposed to be classy but just seemed shoddy as hell. There was a lot of pretenses going on and there started to be an undercurrent that all was definitely not well. He eventually made a pass at my girlfriend and that was nearly the end of all of it. Yeah...things were going downhill fast.

Through all that though, we skated. We tended to travel more to other places since at that time, there was dozens near-ish to choose from. Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, anywhere we could find. Everywhere, skating was still big but the cracks were showing.

At work at RollerWorld, we seemed to have more troubles. To get more cash at the door, they allowed people in that in times past we would have barred. Drunk kids, non-skaters just hanging out led to fights in the bathrooms and parking lot. We apparently couldn't afford security anymore so the off-duty cops disappeared and it got worse. We started hearing that parents wouldn't let their kids come anymore. Some of it was the owner's predilection for partying and young girls. There was a fight in the restroom that ended up with a razor blade and a badly cut girl. It was like a downward spiral. 

I stopped being a full-timer and only worked a session or two skate guarding or running the DJ booth. The fizz was gone and it was time to call it a day. There was no money so it was back to only running the lights and heat when we absolutely had to. The snack bar didn't have snacks and the rental skates were falling apart. I can't really remember the last time I skated on the big floor but I know by then it was just dirty, cold and dismal. There had been too many bad nights of finding drunks in the dumpster, breaking up fights in the bathrooms, cleaning up puke in the corners and watching it all fall apart. The monster went under and became a mall. Last I knew, there was still a couple of the stores in it with hard rock maple floor that once upon a time...had my wheels on it.

For a while, I wound up working at a rink in Camillus where I'd load the saddlebags of my Harley with skates and records and ride up to do sessions on the weekend. That was fun for a while too but in the end, they couldn't keep it going for a lot of the same reasons and it folded up when the money ran out.

RollerWorld had a brief and awful reprise at another location in an old building downtown. The same creepy guys took a shot at doing everything on the cheap once again after it failed so spectacularly the first time. The floor was flakeboard and absolutely the worst. The roof leaked. It was full of really shady people. The sound was recycled from the place on Triphammer Road and was also really bad. I went there once, stayed about an hour and vowed never to do that again. It closed up for well and all after only a few months. I never felt bad about it.

So it all came back to where it started. The rinks were gone and have never yet returned. I'd like to think the craze will come around again someday before I'm too old to totter around the floor but I'm not counting on it. 

In the meantime, I still skate when I can. Someday I'll be retired and hopefully can still show the newbies a thing or two. I've got a couple of grandkids to get on wheels someday as well so I can't give up yet. 

Playing In The Dust

There's some old shades looking for attention this morning. I think I woke up and found them by the nightstand asking to be remembered. They can't be ghosts because they still live in my memories but they sure do go back a long, long way. Must be they needed a visit from the old guy before the rush of every day takes over again. They know I won't forget but still rattle the attic door once in a while to make sure I'm paying attention.

Some of my earliest haziest recollections from childhood were there. More feeling than memory but apparently still hard-wired somewhere between my ears. I remember...

All of my life I've had a faint, black and white picture stored away in a dusty place where I keep all the oldest things I can still find. It's only a moment like a photo but one that has been there always. If I had archives, this would be the first entry...

I can see my mother sitting in a chair in the house where I grew up. And I know it's me seeing her, not something someone told me that I turned into a memory. I'm looking up at her. I can't see her face but I know it's her. I know that I am very small because I know she's holding me in her lap and saying something that I can't understand. But I know it's her voice and that somehow everything is alright. It was safe and cozy. There are no colors, no words, just feelings that I can only describe as love. It's so vague that it doesn't seem real but somehow I know it is. There's nothing before it and nothing for a long time after. It is very old and much treasured. Very small and yet somehow very valuable. I suspect it's the very beginning of me.

What would make that tiny slice of time turn into something I would still remember now and again after all these years? I'm sure it came from something that actually happened but is it possible for someone who couldn't have been much more than a baby to even form a memory? I suppose it must be because there it is, still living amidst all the trillions of other events and recollections that are my life. I hold onto it like an anchor. It feels somehow like it shouldn't be lost.

It doesn't intrude but no matter how many times I visit that place, it never changes. I don't know how I know but I don't doubt it was real and true. And try as I might to look deeper into the dark, there's nothing I can find that goes back any further. Was that the moment I woke up in the world for the first time? Does everyone have one of these that they've forgotten or buried? Why can I still find it when I usually can't remember a phone number or what day it is? 

It makes me wonder sometimes how much that one almost lost instant so long ago affected everything that came after. Did that form the first step in the line of all the rest? What would I have been like without it? Did the anchor I grabbed actually steer the course? 

I suppose a Freudian would have a field day with thinking like this so maybe I'll dedicate this remembrance to science someday. I don't know if my donor card covers it like it does my kidneys and lungs but who knows? 

There is a saying that anything ever put on the internet lives forever. If that's true then when I hit 'publish', that gauzy little ancient slice of me will become something that finally got out into the world. 

Maybe that's what the shades wanted all along. You're welcome.