Thinking

I was sitting on the toilet in the bathroom of a café, thinking. I was thinking about my mother. I realized that ever since I had gotten into a big fight with her in January, she has not said “I love you” to me at the end of our phone calls like she always had. I thought that and then I thought about how strange the thoughts we have in the bathroom are. I also thought that when I got out of the bathroom, I wanted to share this thought about my mom with Martina, who was sitting at a table in the café, waiting for me to return.

When I got back to the table, I noticed that in my absence Martina had ordered another latte macchiato with oat milk. Before going to the bathroom, I had said something to her like, “We should probably order another latte macchiato.” I had taken one too many sips of hers after finishing my espresso and I had thought it’d be a good thing to do. In response, she had said, “Yeah, it’s OK,” a sort of non-committal statement, I had thought, but now to my delight there was a brand-new latte macchiato on the table for both of us to enjoy.

“Wow, cool,” I said.

“Yeah, it’s OK, don’t worry.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“No, it’s no problem,” Martina said. “I just thought it would be nice if we had another ‘Hafer’--uh, oat milk latte.” She had corrected herself because “Hafer” means “oat” in German, and I had long ago taught her the English word “oat.”

“You know what’s crazy?” I said, just after taking a sip of the latte. “Remember how I told you how I got into a big fight with my mom last January, the one where I said, ‘What is it then? Are you in love with me, am I your boyfriend?’ and all that crazy Freudian stuff?”

“No,” Martina said. “I don’t remember that; you didn’t tell me that.”

“Yeah, Martina, I told you. I said all those crazy Freudian things to my mom.”

“Oh, yes, yes,” she said. And I saw by the look in her eyes that she really did remember, so I continued.

“Yeah, since that fight, my mom hasn’t said ‘I love you’ to me when we get off the phone.”

“Really? Aww . . . ”

“Crazy, right?”

“Yes, I think that’s hard.”

“Yeah,” I continued, “it’s like, wow. I mean, I know we got into a fight, but that was a year ago, or almost a year ago, and since then she hasn’t said ‘I love you’ to me. I don’t know whether she wants me to say it first or what, but . . . ”

There was a small pause. Martina looked like she was considering something. Then she said: “I think it’s hard for your mom. I think the whole situation is hard because you can’t see your mom. When you see people, you can see in their expression that they love you, or they can touch you or give you a hug, and you can know that they love you.”

“Yeah . . . ” I said. 

“But I think in the case of your mom, it’s hard for her sometimes. I think, from what you have told me, your mother is a person who is very hard on the outside, but very soft and very gentle on the inside. When was the last time you went home?”

“2015,” I said.

“2015? OK . . . Oh . . . 2015?”

I knew that after telling Martina the year I was last home it would take a moment to register. After all, it has been four years, and often after I tell people the year of my last visit home, they need a moment to compute how many years have elapsed since that last visit and then another moment to consider what the implications of such a gap are. With Martina, it was no different.

“Oh, wow,” she said. “That’s a long time.”

“Yeah, it is. . . ”

Moved

By this time, Caro had already moved her mattress to the floor. 

We had been living as a couple in my apartment for over a year. My mattress had been too hard, the one she had had too soft, but when we put them on top of each other, the bed was just right and we even called it our “happy little cloud.”

By this time, though, Caro had already moved her mattress to the floor.

I had noticed a change in Caro after I got back from a one-week vacation in Italy with my mom. Instead of coming home at normal times, Caro began coming home very late at night. She began talking of needing space and an apartment of her own. “Do you realize that I have never had an apartment of my own?” she had said.

One evening after work I came back to our apartment to find that she had taken her mattress off mine and had set it on the floor. She told me that this was where she would now sleep. She just needed more space of her own.

By this time, Caro had already moved her mattress to the floor. 

One morning, not too far from the end of our relationship, I was sitting in bed reading while Caro was just waking up. She often slept later than I did. There, lying on her mattress, she rubbed her eyes and looked at me. I decided to get up and join her on her “bed.” We talked lightly and easily; there was no rush; it was a Saturday morning. At one point, I began reciting William Butler Yeats’ "The Lake Isle of Innisfree." I know the poem by heart.

"I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade . . ."

When I was finished reciting the poem, Caro said, “That’s nice.” Upon hearing that, I began to recite another poem, but she immediately stopped me. “No, don’t ruin it,” she said. "Sometimes less is more." She had really liked the piece, I guess, and had wanted to let it, and only it, sink in.

By this time, though, Caro had already moved her mattress to the floor.

Safe Travels

The first thing I thought when I boarded a bus to take me home from work today was that the guy sitting closest to the door looked weird. His eyes just looked strange, and I didn’t like the way that he looked at the person who had boarded the bus prior to me. There was a seat open next to this strange looking guy, but I decided not to take it for obvious reasons. Instead, I walked to the rear of the bus and took a seat next to someone there.

When the bus began to move, I took out my phone and began reading the online Cliff’s Notes for Hemingway’s short stories. I had just begun to read the criticism for another of the stories when I was interrupted by the man sitting next to me. He had taken one of his earbuds out of his ears and was holding it toward me, like an offering. He wanted to know if I would like to listen to his music with him.

At first, what this man had just done didn’t even register; I was too busy trying to figure out whether I knew him not. He was in his early 20s, had red hair and glasses. My first thought: “Oh, no. I just want to read my Cliff Notes in peace. Did I just sit down next to someone I know?” But then I realized that in fact I did not know this person; I did not know this person and yet for some reason he had just asked me if I would like to share his earbuds with him and listen to music!

“I’m fine, thank you,” I said, declining the offer.

“OK. Safe travels,” he said. He then put the one earbud that he had had held up to me back into his right ear.

Though I was shocked that a stranger had just asked me to listen to his music with him, the words that he used after I had declined his offer soothed me -- “Safe travels.” In fact, I kept repeating this phrase of his over and over to myself, almost like the recitation of some mantra, and doing so neutralized any feelings of awkwardness that the interaction had produced in me.

It wasn’t until I had gone back to my reading that I caught a whiff of alcohol. When my seatmate had asked me if I’d like to listen to music with him, I hadn’t smelled any alcohol. But now after he had opened his mouth to speak, I did, and that made things clearer for me.

I do admit that before having smelled the alcohol I had created a story in my mind about this man and why he might have asked me to listen to music with him. Perhaps he had seen me reading a text in English and was listening to music with English lyrics and for some reason, some crazy reason, thought that I, a total stranger, would like to listen to his music with him.

But now it was clear. This man had been drinking.

When I got off the bus, I made sure to say bye to my seatmate in a hearty fashion. After all, he had wished me safe travels. But he didn’t reply. He didn't even look up.

Chess Game

I'm super proud of the following chess game, maybe the most proud out of any chess game I've ever posted on my blog. Reason being . . . well, there are a few. After the game, when I analyzed my moves with a computer, the computer said that I played with 93 percent accuracy. That is really hard to attain, no matter how hard one tries. Also, I played with a lot of patience. I first dealt with and repelled many of the black threats to the queenside before turning to black's kingside. Often when one plays chess, one wants very badly to attack. However, in certain positions one first has to concentrate on defense before doing so. Also, I have studied the opening that is played in this game, the "Sicilian Defense," for many years, and I was able to apply a lot of my knowledge. Enjoy.

"ANNA"

I can still remember how my 3rd grade classroom looked. It was a big room with desks in the center not in rows but in islands. We sat at islands made up of about five desks. Some of the desks faced the blackboard, which was in the front of the classroom, some faced the windows, but from all of the desks one had a good, clear view of the blackboard.

On the walls of the classroom there were displays featuring work that we, the students, had done. Some of the best art projects were hung up at these displays, as were top-scoring quizzes. There was a sheet of oaktag on one of the walls, the one next to the cubbies, and on this sheet of oaktag was a list of all our names, and next to our names, stars. For every “100%” we got on a spelling test, we would get a star. I had always thought how easy it would be to steal stars away from other students and put them next to my name, but never did.

The teacher we had for 3rd grade was Mrs. Bell. Mrs. Bell was nice but she was a person who could be stern. You didn’t feel like you could just do whatever you wanted in Mrs. Bell’s class. I remember one time I was with my mom near a local bank and we ran into Mrs. Bell, and I thought that perhaps I would be in trouble, but Mrs. Bell said nothing bad about me to my mom, and the whole interaction went off without a hitch.

In those days, the teachers in the elementary schools were almost religious about checking homework and Mrs. Bell was no exception. When we wouldn’t do our homework, she would write it down in her book as an “X,” and if we got enough “X’s,” it would affect our report card. The fear of getting an “X” was enough to make me think twice about not doing my homework, and to the extent that I can remember, this system of Mrs. Bell’s was mostly successful.

Nevertheless, I remember a new rule that Mrs. Bell instituted after enough students had repeatedly failed to do their homework. Instead of coming around to check to see if we had done our homework or not, Mrs. Bell said that she now wanted us to come to the front of the class, where she would have a desk set up, a desk separate from her main one. We were to come up to that desk, where she would would be sitting, and show her our homework. If we hadn’t done our homework we were still to come up to the desk, and it would be there that we would report that information.

Obviously, this new system was designed to strike fear into our little hearts. It was one thing to tell Mrs. Bell that we hadn’t done our homework as she passed around the class with her marking book. It was another thing entirely to have to stand before her and report that we had not done what we were supposed to have done. How awful that would be, I had thought many times, having to report your dereliction of duty to the teacher while the whole class listened on!

In fact, it was the fear of such embarrassment that lay behind an act of subterfuge I carried out one day in class.

You see, in order to prove to Mrs. Bell that we hadn’t done our homework while waiting for our turn to be called up to her desk, she had told us that she wanted our homework always to be signed by our parents.

Normally, this was not a problem, but on the day that I actually hadn't done my homework and needed to do it while waiting for my turn to come to her desk, it was a big one.

After finishing the homework -- I think it was a spelling assignment -- I sat at my desk and wondered what I could do. Well, there was only one thing to do. And that was forge a signature. But there was an inherent problem with this idea. My mother had a flowing signature, with curves that were graceful if not flamboyant, and I would never be able to reproduce such a thing. However, my grandma had been up in New York visiting us from Florida and I had remembered how she would often talk about her arthritis. I didn’t know what arthritis was, but I knew it was some kind of disease of the bones, and I knew that it was painful. I also knew that it could affect the way a person wrote, especially if the person had arthritis of the hands. So, on the top of my homework I wrote in all capital letters, as straightly and as neatly as I could, “ANNA.”

Finally, it was my turn to go up to the front. After handing over my paper to Mrs. Bell, I waited a few beats before explaining that the reason why my grandma had written her name in such a strange and primitive way was because she had arthritis. I remember thinking I was going to be caught. But, instead, Mrs. Bell just checked my homework and didn’t say anything, and I was able to return to my seat in due course.

It wasn’t until many, many, many years later that I realized how brilliant I actually was that day.

The Relationship Is Over

This is just a little writing exercise. Enjoy.

One day while walking downtown I ran into a person I knew, and we began to talk about his relationship. He told me that he and I probably wouldn’t see each other again for a long time because he was getting ready to move to his girlfriend, who lived about 500 miles away.

I told this person that I was very surprised that he was moving away because he had always told me how much he loved the city that he and I lived in. He said that he knew, but this arrangement he had worked out with his girlfriend was for the best. His girlfriend, he said, had children who still attended grade school, and she had a job that required her to work where she currently worked. He said that the plan would be to live in this new city with his girlfriend for some time and then to move back to the city that he and I both lived in and loved. Again, I was surprised by the news, but I wished the man the best of luck.

A few months later, I saw this man again, again by chance. At first I hadn’t even remembered our conversation about his plan to move, but then it dawned on me: Wasn’t he supposed to have moved away? I asked him what the situation was.

“That’s not happening anymore,” he said, referring to the move.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because the relationship . . . It's over.”

“What? Really?"

“Yup, it’s over. The relationship is over.”

Chess Game

I'm very proud of this chess game. Even though it ended after my opponent made a blunder, I feel as though that blunder was the product of all the pressure that I put on him throughout the entire game. I have the white pieces.

Amanda

When I was in high school, I knew a girl named Amanda. Amanda was really sweet. On my birthday during my sophomore year, she surprised me in study hall with cupcakes that she had baked for me. Before that, I don’t think any friend I had ever had had ever baked for me, and the gesture obviously made a big impression.

I remember one Saturday night during my sophomore year, I went over to Amanda's house. She had a den and I remember that we sat there, listened to music and talked. The only song I remember listening to that night with her was Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You.” I don’t remember exactly what we talked about, but it was a wide-ranging conversation. I do remember that we ordered Chinese food and, unfortunately, it got me sick.

A few years later, when I was a senior and about to graduate, I asked Amanda to sign my yearbook. This is a tradition that we have in the U.S.: getting your friends to sign your senior yearbook. The unwritten rule of this tradition is that you, as the signee, must write a sincere message. I remember exactly what Amanda wrote. Apparently, during that wide-ranging conversation we had had that night, I had told Amanda that I liked being creative not only in one way but in many ways, and I never wanted to limit myself when it came to my creativity. Amanda remembered my saying that, and in her message to me wrote that she will always remember that night in her parents' den and how I said I never wanted to limit myself creatively. But the best was how she ended her message. With an imperative: “Don’t ever limit yourself, Chad.”

Break on Through to the Other Side

Standing in front of the grave of Jim Morrison in Paris the other day, a thought I had struck me.

Jim Morrison is buried in the Pére Lachaise cemetery, a massive burial ground located in the east of the city.

Many famous people are interred at Pére Lachaise (pron. pair-le-CHEZ), among them are Oscar Wilde, Chopin, Gertrude Stein and Edith Piaf.

Nevertheless, despite all the famous people buried at the cemetery, the grave of Jim Morrison is the only one that is walled off by Plexiglass.

Which was the thought that had struck me.

Standing there in front of The Lizard King’s tombstone, I thought, “Wow, out of the thousands upon thousands of people buried at this centuries-old cemetery, only the grave of Jim Morrison, a 27-year-old American musician, is walled off by Plexiglass.

It was an interesting thought, and after a while at the gravesite, thinking on this thought and others, I decided I’d had enough and to be on my way.

But I still wasn’t satisfied with this only-Jim-Morrison's-grave-is-protected thought of mine. How could it be, I wondered, that this guy, this crazy musician, out of all the people buried at this cemetery, is the only person whose grave needs to be protected by Plexiglass? How could it be that out of all these writers, politicians, poets, dancers, philosophers and architects only Jim Morrison’s grave needs to be walled off?

And then it hit me.

You can’t fuck to architecture.

9/11

Lying in my bed this morning, a thought I had struck me. Looking at my clock, which is near my bed and also displays the date, I saw that it was September 11th. Upon seeing the date, I thought, “Wow, it doesn’t feel like September 11th."

Other September 11ths, you see, had sort of felt like September 11ths. What I mean by that is, I had always been able to sort of feel the day, the gravity of it. I had always been able to place myself somehow into world events and reflect on what it had meant for it to be September 11th, another year later.

But not this morning. And that was the thought that had struck me. “Wow, September 11th just feels like any old date." But it’s not, which is why I thought I might share some of my remembrances from that day, 18 years ago. I hope you enjoy and appreciate the piece.

My very first encounter with the tragedy that was September 11th was the sound of my college roommate’s voice, waking me out of my sleep. Jake and I shared a small room on the second floor of a dormitory that was a part of SUNY Cortland, my college. I had been sleeping but was awoken when Jake, who had already turned on the TV and saw the news, said, “Dude, it’s World War III.” When I finally came to, I think I must have asked him what he meant and after I did, he replied, “The Twin Towers are down.”

I remember thinking to myself, “What?” But the funny thing is, right after Jake explained to me what had happened -- by then it was a little after 10:30 a.m. and both towers had already fallen -- I immediately comprehended it and understood it. There was no moment of, “No, this can’t be real.” Perhaps Jake’s original statement, “Dude, it’s World War III,” was more of a shock. That I needed a minute to understand. But reality set in incredibly quickly after I saw the footage on the news. Perhaps I comprehended everything so quickly because I still was able to recall the first time terrorists tried to destroy the Twin Towers, in 1993.

The next thing I remember from that day is a basketball court at my college. The administration had decided to cancel all classes, and many of us students didn’t know what to do. Being that we were in the center of New York State, about 215 miles away from New York City, we weren’t in any danger. We were in New York, but it was almost like we, the students, were a world apart. I remember the basketball court because that’s where Jake and I decided to go, to blow off steam, I guess. I remember that at the basketball court -- there were actually several of them, all adjacent to each other -- the sun was shining. Many people recall how on that awful day, the weather, ironically, was beautiful. About 25 kids were at the court, and even though we did play (or just shoot around, I’m not sure), we kept taking these big breaks to discuss the matter. I can’t remember the discussions, but I remember that court.

There are just two more things that I remember. I remember that later in the day, around sundown, I got a call from my mom. My mom wasn’t in New York when 9/11 happened; she was in Paris traveling with my aunt. However, when she finally did get me on the phone that evening, I remember feeling surprised after she told me she hadn’t at all been worried that I might have been in danger. I mean, I guess that makes sense, considering that I went to college, like I said, 215 miles away from Manhattan. But I remember having thought that maybe my mom had concocted a scenario where I went into Manhattan over the weekend or something. However, when I ran this idea by her, she said she thought that I was crazy, that such a thought had never crossed her mind. I remember my mom telling me that it had been difficult to get through to me on the phone because she kept getting that message when too many people are trying to use the lines at once: “All circuits are busy.”

The last thing I remember from that day is having talked with my friend Nina on the phone. Nina had been a good friend from high school and was living in Manhattan, on the Upper East Side, near the East River. To varying degrees, Nina and I had kept in touch after high school, but on that fateful day, I called her just to see that she was OK. I remember on the phone hearing a degree of fear in Nina’s voice -- which was strange for her, because she was often very cool and collected -- and her telling me, “Chad, there’s smoke everywhere.” She was about eight miles from Ground Zero, but of course there was still smoke by her, and that was the one thing that I remember her telling me, “There’s smoke everywhere."

Walking a Fine Line

Maybe I'm pushing the envelope, or walking a fine line, with this next piece. But it's all just writing, and it's also a bit of experimentation. I hope you enjoy.

In 2004, I read the book “In Cold Blood” for the first time. “In Cold Blood” is about the murder of  a prominent family in the American heartland. The book is groundbreaking because of the way its author, Truman Capote, structured it. When the book opens, we are in the presence of two men. We are not sure who these men are. We are not sure if we should like these men or not, but we are in their presence, and after a while, we develop a type of sympathy for them. One man’s name is Dick and the other's is Perry. As time goes on, we start to develop much more sympathy for Perry. Perry is a sort of likeable misfit. He's not great at making decisions, so we can’t say he’s a leader, but he lives by his word and he doesn’t do anything immoral if he feels he doesn’t have to.

Eventually, we learn that Dick and Perry are the bad guys in the story, that they, out of greed and desperation, will murder the four members of the prominent family, the Clutters, “in cold blood.”

I mention "In Cold Blood," not because of the interesting way it was structured, but rather, because of one detail in the book that I’ll never forget. That bad guy, Perry, had had a lot of pain, a lot of body pain.  I forgot why, but he did, and in order to ease that pain, he used to take a lot of aspirin. But he wouldn’t take it in any old way. He would chew the aspirin. And he wouldn’t chew the aspirin sometimes and swallow it other times. He would always chew it.

I never forgot this small detail: that Perry chewed his aspirins; that he was in that much pain and that desperate that he chewed his aspirins.

Now skip ahead about 13 years, to 2017, to the last months of a 10-year relationship that I was in. I absolutely loved Maya, she was great, and, after all, we had been together for 10 whole years. But in the end, it just wasn’t meant to be no matter how much I wanted it to be, and Maya and I were fighting. We were fighting a lot. We were having the type of fights where I would say, "Look, that is white and Maya would say, "That’s not white, it’s off-white," and we would just fight about that. The fights were killing me and as a result of them, I would get headaches, lots of headaches, cluster headaches. Eventually, to try and get rid of these headaches, I would chew aspirin. And many times it worked. When you chew aspirin, the medication enters you your bloodstream a lot faster. I must have chewed aspirin at least five times during those final months with Maya.

Now skip ahead about two years, to January 2019. I’m in a relationship with Caro. Caro followed Maya. Caro had been super calm. In fact, that was one of the things that attracted me to Caro. She was very zen in many situations and she hardly ever raised her voice. When I met Caro, I was still having residual effects from the breakup with Maya: namely, I was still having headaches. But after a few months with Caro, the headaches stopped. That my headaches stopped was something that Caro would always ask me about and remind me of. She would say, “How have your headaches been?” and I would always say that they have gotten much better. But Caro knew what the source of those headaches had been, and every time she asked me, “How have your headaches been?” I felt as though she were really saying, “Isn’t it great to be with someone who is not as shrill as your ex-girlfriend?”

But then things started to go south with Caro. I won’t go into it, but the relationship started to give me major stress.

I knew that things had come full circle, so to speak, about one and a half weeks before Caro and I broke up. That’s because on that day, I stood in my kitchen with a glass of water in one hand and an aspirin in the other but ultimately put down the water because I didn’t want to wait that long. It was the first time I had ever chewed an aspirin while dating Caro. It was also the last time.

Chess Game

I'm really proud of this chess game of mine. (I have the black pieces.) Reason being, I recognised the opponent's threats very well and didn't crumble under the threat of them. Instead, I waited for my chance and took it. Move 29, Queen exchanges at a6, was a blunder for my opponent because it allowed my knight to reach g3 on the next move, and the check that my Knight gave once it reached g3 proved fatal. Still, a well played game on both sides.

High-wire Act

Below is just a creative little exercise in anthropomorphism. Enjoy. 

When I step in my stall shower and see a spider on the ceiling, I think to myself, “Look at that . . . a spider hanging by a thread.” I call it a “thread.” However, once I start the water and it begins to fall and rage to the floor and continuously flow down the drain, I look back up at that spider and now think he is up there on a tightrope, doing a high-wire act.

I watch him. He has started to move. He is not moving frantically, but he has started to move. From where he is, he should not be getting wet at all. Still, this is a raging shower and he must feel some moisture. I watch him. First he makes his way into the high, right-hand corner of the shower stall. Once he is there, I say to myself, “Smart spider. Go to the corner, that’s right . . . It’s safer there.” I soap myself up and wash my face. I look up again. The spider is still in the corner but he doesn’t seem content. Some of his legs are moving. He decides for some reason to pass right over me. I’m not exactly sure what he’s doing, but, darn it, he’s going for it. I personally don’t think he is going to fall. Millions of years of evolution have prepared him for this kind of situation. He’s moving. He’s directly above me. I go back to my showering. I’m not looking at him, but I’m imagining him. More specifically, I’m imagining him landing on my head. But then I tell myself, “Chad, is that a crazy thought or is that a crazy thought. Why would the spider want to come down closer to where more of the water is, and of all places, onto your head? That would be like trying to land a plane where the storm’s the strongest. Millions of years of evolution have prepared him for this moment. Do you honestly think he’s going to do something as stupid as land on your head?”

I look up. At first I see nothing, but then I notice that my spider friend has cleared the entrance of the shower stall and is now on the bathroom wall. He did it. He could have just stayed in that corner and remained dry. But something told him that he should do his hire-wire act over the most intense danger -- over the Grand Canyon, so to speak -- to reach greener pastures. And he did it. He did it because he knew he could do it. Millions of years of evolution had prepared him for the moment.

An Encounter

In the summer of 2017, I began a relationship with Caro. I had met Caro in an aerobics class. Our first interaction was at the back of that class, by a wall on which the aerobic mats were hung up and stored. For some reason, Caro and I were the last two members of the class to get mats that day, and even though we didn’t know each other, we immediately began laughing the moment we came into each other’s vicinity. A few months later, we saw each other at a train station in a borough of Hamburg called Altona and began talking. The rest is history. 

One thing I learned very quickly about Caro was that she didn’t like to be idle. She liked doing things. She liked adventure; she liked travel. She liked to be in motion. I also learned that she expected me to be quite active, too, that lying around the house when the sun was out really wasn’t acceptable.

As such, it should come as no surprise that on one Sunday afternoon a few months into our relationship, Caro and I headed out on a day trip. For a while it had been fun to do things locally, but it was time for a change of scenery, or at least Caro thought it was, and in all honesty, I had no problem with going somewhere new. The place we settled on for that afternoon was Finkenwerder.

Finkenwerder (pronounced fink-n-VAIR-duh) is a rural township on the south side of the Elbe River, about 10 miles west of downtown Hamburg. There is not much in Finkenwerder. There are fields, apple orchids, places open for cherry picking in the summer and then apple picking in the fall, cross-timbered farmhouses and fenced in areas where sheep graze. Finkenwerder’s one claim to fame is that it’s home to an Airbus production site. The plane-making site, which has its own runway and control tower, is massive and is almost a city unto itself. 

Caro and I said that our plan once we arrived in Finkenwerder that day would be to take things as they came. Because Finkenwerder is best reached by ferry, we thought we would just take the ferry and see what awaited us. At the time, I had just gotten back into basketball, and Caro had played the sport in the past, so we decided to take a basketball with us on our journey. The idea was that maybe if we found a court we would shoot around.

When we arrived we stuck to our “plan” and just began strolling. I was somewhat familiar with Finkenwerder because I had taught English at Airbus for several years, and Caro was very, very familiar with Hamburg in general, so no matter what we were not going to get lost.

After a few minutes of walking, we came to the main thoroughfare of the township, a street on which one can find two-story houses made of brick, charmingly outmoded looking shops and a few restaurants. There really isn’t much in Finkenwerder, especially on a Sunday, so we jumped at the first chance we had at eating. We stopped at a restaurant and ordered pizza and ate it out front, al fresco.

After the pizza, we decided to keep strolling around and maybe begin to look for a basketball court. It was around 6 p.m. and there was still plenty of light, but the sun had just begun to go down, and though everything appeared pleasantly golden, it wouldn’t be light out forever. I’m not sure what Caro and I talked about as we walked, but I must have told her something about all the adventures and misadventures I had had teaching English at Airbus.

Eventually, we found ourselves on a side street, away from the thoroughfare. The street led to an apartment complex and I thought there might be a basketball court somewhere among the apartment houses. After weaving our way through the buildings on several narrow paths and finding nothing, we arrived at the end of a dead-end road that was flanked by two long, one-story buildings that looked like barracks. These barrack-looking buildings were actually outdoor storage units for the residents in the apartment complex. It seemed as though Caro and I were completely out of luck. But just then, I noticed that up the road there was a park and in the park a basketball court.

We were happy about finding this court and the small victory it represented, which makes what happened next all the more ironic.

Across the street we saw a man talking to himself. Or talking to us. It was hard to tell. What was clear was the man was disturbed. We had to walk by him to get to the basketball court, but Caro froze.

“Come on,” she said, “Let’s walk this way.” She wanted us to walk a little bit out of our way to avoid the man.

But I thought, No. We’re going to go straight on. We were the only three people around and I thought it would be safer if Caro and I just went straight through the danger, as it were. I remember a little bit of adrenaline going through me, but also not being all that scared.

And so Caro and I marched right on. I put my arm around Caro’s waist and we walked, and the whole time I looked the man in the eye, and not only that, I looked at him with a look that said, “Yeah, what the fuck do you want?” Essentially, I was going “all in.” I definitely did not want a confrontation with this person, but figured it would probably be safer to pretend I was 0% scared. Secretly, there was also a small part of me that wanted to impress Caro. There was a part of me that wanted to show her that she could trust me and could feel protected in my company.

As Caro and I walked, the man held my gaze and kept talking, but he also kept walking. Once we passed him, I looked back over my shoulder to see what he was up to, if he was going to do something weird. I wasn’t scared to look back over my shoulder to show that I didn’t trust the man; I didn’t.

When we got to the basketball court and were finally “out of danger,” Caro and I talked for a little about how we both didn’t like being in dangerous situations. I think I told her a little bit about some of the strange situations that I had sometimes found myself in, growing up in New York and how I had handled myself in those situations. I remember thinking that Caro didn’t seem too impressed with my stories. She also didn’t seem that impressed with my “brave” behavior a few moments prior. Instead, she seemed more upset, or frustrated, that things such as what had just happened can happen and that people can make you feel the way the man had made us feel. But there wasn’t any mention of my standing tall or of my taking her around when there was “danger.”

Eventually, Caro and I began doing what we had come to the basketball court to do, shoot around, and once we did, the negative feelings began to lift. After a while, I asked Caro if she wanted to play one-on-one. When she agreed, I thought I would win handily. After all, I had been playing basketball regularly again for about three months by then. But Caro was in better shape than I was. She was also tall and could play defense very well, and she had these amazingly long, Vishnu-like arms that seemed made for swatting. But, really, and most crucially, she was fitter than I was. Where I was huffing and puffing and pouring sweat, she was absolutely fine, and in the end, she beat me.

"Once Upon a Time..."

Yesterday I saw "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" and loved it. The movie was my favorite of the year so far. It was funny, dramatic, moving, thought-provoking and downright sorta fascinating. Here is something that I wrote before I saw the film, while waiting in the concession area of the cinema. Enjoy.

***

There are four faux Hollywood-Walk-of-Fame-styled stars on the floor in front of the cinema's concession stand. The names say, "Margot Robbie," "Al Pacino," "Brad Pitt," and "Leonardo DiCaprio," in that order, from left to right. I'm sitting in a booth across from the concession stand, eating a small popcorn. In an hour or so the movie "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" will begin. Hence, those stars. They are part of the promotional materials for the film.

On my phone, the Wikipedia page for Sharon Tate is open. Sharon Tate is portrayed in "Once Upon a Time," and I had navigated to the page because I had wanted to learn a little more about her. I was surprised to learn that Sharon Tate was active as an actress for so many years, from 1961 to 1969. I was also surprised to learn that she was said to have had range. I had always thought of her as just a bit player. I skipped the part about her death and its aftermath.

Sitting at the table next to me here in the concession area are two girls. The girls are in their very early twenties. One of them is American and the other is British. At the far end of the concession stand are two cash registers where the movie tickets are purchased. Two men who seem to be friends are talking to the girl behind one of the cash registers. She has just told them that "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" is basically sold out. They can't believe it and are looking at a monitor on which the theater's seating plan is displayed. The men are wasting their time. Or, rather, they are wasting their time if they want to sit next to each other. About half an hour ago, I was standing where these men are now, looking at that same screen, and what I saw surprised me. Usually, there is a lot of green on that screen. What I mean is, the color green is used in the electronic seating chart to indicate which seats in the theater are still free. So green is the color that you look for when the cashier shows you the monitor. After you buy your tickets, the seats you have purchased turn white in the electronic system. Whenever I come to this theater, there is always green on that monitor, always. However, when I looked at the screen when I got here earlier to buy tickets for "Once Upon a Time," nearly the entire plan was white. There were only a few dabs of green. About 10 seats were still available, but none of the free seats was next to another one. If you came with a friend, you two would have to sit separately from one another. If you sat in the first row, you would only be one seat away from the person with whom you came. If you wanted to sit deeper in the theater, forget it. The free seats there were deserts apart.

Watch Out

I got a great reaction when I told the following story recently. Enjoy.

When I was about three years old, my mom took me to the house of one of her friends for the afternoon. The friend had a pool. He had a son, too, about 10 years old, and my mom thought it would be nice if she brought the son a gift. So before heading over to the house that day, we went to Toys "R" Us. There, my mom bought two battery-operated watches, one for the son and one for me.

When we got to the house, my mom gave the watch to the son. I already had mine on. At some point, this boy and I decided that we would go into the pool, in the backyard. I took off my watch before going into the pool. The boy, however, didn't. He went into the pool with his new watch--and broke it.

The boy was very upset. After all, he had just gotten a new watch, and now it was broken. In an effort to smooth things over, my mom got an idea. She figured that I, being only three, would have no clue if she exchanged the boy's broken watch with my working one. But she was wrong.  When my mom and I got into the car to leave that evening, I noticed that the watch that I was currently wearing did not work. I remembered that the boy had made a big stink about his watch no longer working and I put two and two together: My mother had exchanged the watches!

I couldn't believe it. I immediately told my mom that I wanted my watch back. To be honest, I'm not exactly sure what my mom's initial reaction was. I have vague memories of her being surprised that I knew the difference between a broken watch and a working one. I remember clearly, though, the course of action that she took. She apologized but said that it would be too embarrassing for her to retrieve the working watch. I'm pretty sure that she said that she would get me a new watch. I know for certain that she took me to a nearby deli and tried to make up for her act of subterfuge by buying me candy.

Unfortunately for my mom, she has never lived this story down. To this day, I still remind her of the "broken watch" and how she tried to foist it on me to make "everyone happy.” Close, but no cigar.

Hemingwayesque

As I've written probably 100 times by now on this blog, I'm rereading Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms." Below is just an awesome, Hemingwayesque passage from the book. Enjoy.

If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry. 

"Kristen Crying"

Here's a true story from my past. I've changed some names, but everything else is true. Enjoy.

One night in the fall of 1996, I sat with Kristen, an ex-girlfriend of mine, in a Dunkin' Donuts and held her hand as she cried. It was weird because Kristen never cried. In fact, Kristen had always told me and several other friends that she and I had in common that she hadn’t even cried when her mother died. Kristen's mother had had breast cancer and we would always ask her, “Kristen, how is it that you didn’t even cry when your mother died?” and Kristen would always answer, “I just didn’t. What do you want me to tell you?” But now here Kristen was, at a booth in a Dunkin' Donuts on Long Island, resting her head on her forearm so I couldn’t see her face, crying. I was sitting across from her holding her hand, but she wouldn’t look at me, nor would she talk with me.

A few months prior, I would have been ecstatic if Kristen would have allowed me to have such intimate contact with her. I had dated Kristen for a brief period in the winter of 1996. I had really, really liked Kristen. She had beautiful eyes, cat eyes, and I had really liked her sarcastic manner. But then only four weeks into our relationship, a mutual friend called me up to say that Kristen wanted to break up with me. This mutual friend, Jessica, said that Kristen felt compelled to end things because one of Kristen's friends, a girl I also knew, had had a crush on me for a long time and had never been comfortable with Kristen's and my relationship.

The excuse sounded like bullshit, but there was nothing I could do. I remember meeting up with Jessica and Kristen a few hours after Jessica delivered the bad news and crying into Jessica's shoulder as Kristen stood nearby.

In the months after the break up, Kristen and I remained in contact. Actually, we remained friends. But the type of friendship that developed after the split was a strange one, as it soon became evident that I was willing to do anything for Kristen. In fact, during the summer of 1996, Kristen's wish was my command. If she’d say, “Jump,” I’d said, “How high?” If she wanted a pack of cigarettes, I'd buy her two or three packs. Sometimes, she would bring me over to a group of her girlfriends and would show them -- literally show them -- the type of power that she had over me. She would say to them, “Chad, tie my shoes” and like a good, trained monkey, I would. The friends would often ask me, right in front of her, “How could you do that, Chad? How could you let her treat you that way?” I didn’t really have an answer. I wanted Kristen and only Kristen.

But then the new school year started. I was a freshman in my local high school that September, and a few weeks after classes commenced, I got to know a girl, a senior named Mona. Mona was a super popular girl who actually drove a BMW convertible to school. As luck would have it -- and, really, it must have been luck or something -- Mona had had a big crush on me. When Mona and I began dating in late September, most of my friends couldn’t believe it. (Even I couldn’t believe it.) But Mona and I were a couple.

It didn't take long, though, for Kristen to get wind of my new relationship. See, Kristen and I didn't go to the same high school -- she went to school in Queens -- but we still had many of the same friends, and it wasn’t long before she learned that I was with someone else -- and an awesome someone else.

Still, because Kristen never hinted that she still had feelings for me, I didn’t think she cared about my relationship with Mona. I was so convinced of that, in fact, that as she sat there in that Dunkin' Donuts booth that night, I was sure that she was crying about her mother. I wasn’t positive about the date of her mother's death, but I'd thought that the anniversary was soon approaching or had recently passed. I never got a word out of Kristen that night. I only got her holding, and sometimes squeezing, my hand.

Then, a couple weeks later, I was on the phone with Jess, the girl who had told me about Kristen's wish to break up, when I asked her what had been wrong with Kristen in Dunkin' Donuts that night.

"What do you mean?" Jess said.

“Well, she was crying all night the other night,” I said.

“You mean at the Dunkin' Donuts?”

“Yeah. Was it the anniversary of her mother’s death or something?”

“Chad, what are you talking about?”

“What do you mean, ‘What am I talking about?’ She was crying because of something with her mom, right?

“Chad, she was crying because of you. She was crying because you’re with Mona now; you’re gone.”

To this day I think back to this story with Kristen whenever I think about how hard it is to truly know someone.

Chess Game

I'm really proud of this chess game of mine. Reason being, it's the type of position I don't like and don't feel comfortable in, yet I still won. White (me, in this case) has to walk a tightrope throughout the duration of the middle game before he can start attacking. Luckily for me, my opponent disregarded his kingside safety, which I exploited with my 23rd move, Rxh7. After that, it was pretty much lights out. God, I love chess. Enjoy.

How Much Is That Rollie in the Window?

As I was walking through an affluent neighborhood in Hamburg called Eppendorf the other day, I noticed a store that sold antique clocks and watches. Because I was on the phone, I didn’t stop and look in the shopwindow. However, after wrapping up my phone call nearby,  I returned to the store.

In the shopwindow, I saw many watches on display that didn’t excite me. I don’t know all that much about watches, and {most of the watches just looked like timepieces from, like, an era long ago. Still, there were a few watches I did like. There were several antique Rolexes set up next to each other, and one in particular really did it for me. It was black with a leather band and it had a black face with a small crown where the notch denoting "12" would have otherwise been.

I was attracted to this black Rolex because it didn’t look like a Rolex. First of all, the band was leather and the watch itself wasn’t that chunky, which I find Rolexes usually to be. I came up with a price in my head. I thought maybe between 325 and 700 euros. I knew I couldn’t afford the watch no matter the price, but I was curious, so after working up the nerve to go in the store, I walked down the steps that led to the door.

Inside, the shopkeeper was busy rearranging a display in an adjacent room. Still, he stopped what he was doing momentarily to greet me. He was standing by the doorframe separating the two rooms of the shop, just inside the other room.

I didn’t waste any time -- I honestly felt a little awkward in there -- and said in my nicest German, “Sorry to bother you, but I’m a little bit curious about that Rolex in the window.”

To my relief, the shopkeeper immediately took out a key and opened the shopwindow display case and took out the watch. Again, I didn’t want to waste his time, so I flat out just said it: “How much is it?”

“This one,” he said, turning over the watch, “it’s 3,200 euros.”

“Oh,” I said. “I’m very sorry. Wow. I didn’t think it was going to be...wow, OK. That’s all I needed to know.”

To my relief, his expression didn’t change at all, nor did he put back the watch. Instead, he told me why it was that expensive.

“Of course this watch is going to be expensive, ” he said. "It’s from the ’60s, it’s in very good condition, and you see this” -- he shook the thing -- “it’s self-winding. It’s an automatic watch. That makes it's a lot more valuable.”

He then went to the display case and took out another Rolex. “This one,” he said, “you have to wind it by hand; it’s not automatic. This one is 1,200 euros.”

“Wow,” I said. “I had no idea.”

“Yeah, when they say the word ‘perpetual’ that means they are automatic. You see this?” He came a little bit closer to me and brought the watch a little higher. He was pointing to the watch's face, just below the iconic crown. “It says Rolex Oyster Perpetual. 'Perpetual' means self-winding, which means it's always going to be more expensive.”

“Wow, thank you so much,” I said. He shrugged his shoulders and waved his hand, as if to say, "No problem at all." I told him again thank you, and as I was leaving the store told him that maybe one day I might be back. I meant it, too.

I Can Write Like Hemingway! (Part 2)

In a 2015 blogpost, I showed how Hemingway’s style could be imitated. Hemingway has a very terse, a perhaps overly terse and rugged, style and in his writing relies sometimes on certain, well, certain gimmicks. Granted, they are gimmicks he probably invented and are still used to this day, but Hemingway's writing, though absolutely astounding and gorgeous, can be a bit gimmicky sometimes.

Nevertheless, I thought I would have a go again at trying to write in the Hemingway style. I’m currently rereading "A Farewell to Arms," or, for all my German readers, “In Einem Anderen Land,” and I thought, for giggles, I would recount a trip I recently made to the Alster and an interaction I had there in Hemingway style. Enjoy.

***

When I got home after my first appointment this morning, I wanted badly just to take a nap. However, the dog needed to go out. So instead of lying in my bed and closing my eyes, which I had wanted badly to do, I got the leash and the harness and fastened the harness around the dog and headed outside.

It was cooler outside and I let the dog off the leash the moment I walked off the grounds of my apartment house. Filou frolicked on the banks of the waterway that led to the Alster. There were no swans or other waterfowl eating from the hanging leaves of the trees that line the banks, so it was a peaceful walk.

At the Alster, I took Filou off the leash and allowed her to run. I had brought only my book with me and had decided to read as she ran alongside the lake. It was cloudy and slightly humid and there were not many people at the Alster. This was fine because I was more easily able to read and walk at the same time, much more easily than on days when many people are out because of the sun.

My intention initially had been to walk with Filou to a bridge about three-fourths of a mile from where I had let her off the leash, but a little bit before I arrived at the bridge, perhaps 200 feet before, I felt tired and hungry and the humidity was getting to me so I decided to turn back. I was reading and walking and walking and reading and reading and walking when I felt something hard and wet at my ankle. Filou had dropped a stick at my foot. She wanted me to play with her. I looked at her, the stick, her again and then I looked at the water. I picked up the stick and threw it in the water. Filou jumped in after it with a huge splash and I watched her. It was very peaceful watching her. It was early and it was very quiet and I was able to hear the lapping sound of the water as she swam toward the stick. It was very quiet and the water sounded very nice and it wasn’t too hot and I watched as Filou brought the stick up on land, dropped it and then shook herself off. I threw the stick in again, and again, she jumped in after it, this time jumping before the stick even left my hand.

As she was swimming, I wondered whether blue algae might be a problem. Last summer there were many cases of blue algae due to the heat and there had been warnings not to let dogs in the water but I couldn’t remember having read anything in the papers this year and no other dog owners had said anything to me so far, so I continued throwing the stick and she continued fetching it.

The book I had brought with me was very good and very interesting and I was thankful that I had brought it and I had even begun to forget about my hunger. Filou was at peace and happy getting exercise and I had begun to feel all right when a woman addressed me. I turned around to confirm that the woman was in fact talking to me.

“Ist das eine gute Idee?” she said. She was pointing to Filou, who had just come up on land with the stick. I immediately knew what she was talking about.

“Was meinen Sie?” “What exactly are you talking about?” I asked, out of respect.

“Kommen Sie aus England oder sprechen Sie Englisch?” she replied. I said yes.

“Well,” she said, “I think there is blue algae in the water. That may not be good for them.”

“Really?” I said. “Because I was thinking that. I had been thinking to myself, ‘Is it safe this year?’ and I hadn’t heard any reports about blue algae, so I just let her--”

“Yeah, there have been reports,” she said. The woman’s dog was standing right beside her. It looked like a poodle.

“Ah, OK,” I said. “Then...it’s out of the water, Filou.” Filou was looking up at me. “Sorry,” I said.

“I’m not 100 percent sure, but there have been reports on the radio. You know what you should do? The Elbe. At the Elbe they can swim.”

“Ah, OK.”

“Yeah, you know where? You know--have you ever heard of this place called ‘Strandperle’?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of it.”

“It’s at Ovel--”

“Ovelgönn--”

“Ovelgönne,” she said. “There. It’s a great place; they can swim there and it’s very nice. You can go right there.”

“And it’s fine for them because there’s a current, right?”

“Right.”

“Great...well...thank you.”

The woman’s dog had climbed onto the roots of a tree whose roots were growing sideways.

“...She likes to climb.”

“What kind of breed of dog is she?”

“A Lagotoo Romagnolo,” the woman said with immense pride, almost singing the name. “An Italian water dog.”

“Great,” I said, “very pretty.”

“Yeah, she loves to climb. But yours...” she gestured toward Filou. “...Those eyes.”

“I know,” I said and then put my finger over one of my eyebrows and moved my eyebrow with it to draw attention to Filou’s cuteness and her ability to use her eyebrows to persuade.

The woman laughed. “Yes, of course,” she said.

“All right, then. No more swimming for Filou, I guess. But it’s better that way. Better safe than sorry.”

“Yes, but Ovelgönne...it’s perfect.”

“Thank you,” I said, and after we exchanged a few more words, we took our leave from each other. Filou still had the stick she had been fetching in her mouth, but I knew that I would no longer be throwing it in the water. I didn’t know exactly what blue algae did to dogs or why it was so bad, but I knew that it was bad and in the papers they had made a big deal about not allowing dogs into the Alster when blue algae was there.

Mittendrin

Just some thoughts here...

This morning when I was sitting in the train going to work, I saw an ad for a community event. In the ad's headline was the German word "mittendrin." Seeing this word reminded me of my ex-girlfriend. She would always make fun of how I pronounced "mittendrin." In fact, often, to show me how wrong I was pronouncing "mittendrin," she would repeat the word with an overly strong American accent. She would also mock me for how I would often say, “mitteldrin” instead of “mittendrin.” But she mocked me in the latter case more good-naturedly.

After having all these thoughts about "mittendrin," there, sitting in the train, I thought about the time I said something to my ex about her English pronunciation. She had been singing a song, and after she was through, I’d said, “You know what’s weird? Usually, when foreign people sing in English, they lose their accent. But you don’t exactly.” I was able to recall exactly what she had said in response. She said, “Do you think I like that you say that?”

The Effect People Have on You

It's amazing the effect that people can have on you.


Today I had been sitting at a café doing some writing when an old woman with a walker approached me at my table and asked me if the chair opposite me was occupied. When I told her it wasn’t, she sat down. Initially, I had no problem sharing my table with this woman. But then she began talking to me. Yup, talking to me like it was the most normal thing in the world, even though I was in the middle of writing.

The woman spoke German without a hint of a dialect, or at least it sounded that way, but she didn’t enunciate well, and I had a hard time understanding her. I guess she was saying something about how there was too much traffic in the neighborhood and that there were always cars rumbling down the street in front of us. One thing I clearly understood was that she had just been denied access to a bathroom in a local grocery store and had returned all the items that had been in her basket in protest.

At first I tried to be polite and listen to what this woman had to say. However, I soon realized that if I kept on being polite, she would never stop. And she didn't. As I was trying to write -- I had only managed to write one sentence since she had taken her seat -- she continued to talk. After repeating the bathroom story for something like a third time, I heard her say this: "It's so expensive in this neighborhood. I swear, I get the feeling sometimes that if I moved out of my apartment and let five years go by, I wouldn't be able to afford my place if I ever tried to come back.”

I had been holding onto the hope, however tenuous, that I was still going to be able to write with her sitting there. However, once she began complaining about the price of rents, I knew that was no longer going to be a possibility.

So, after telling myself “not to force it,” I took out a book that I had brought with me and began to read. Oddly enough, it was only moments after I had begun reading the book, the thing that I thought would calm me down, that it happened -- anxiety.

I got hit with a mild wave of anxiety. The wave was not all that intense, but it was enough to get my heart beating quicker and me perspiring a little more. For a few intense and uncomfortable moments, I was reminded of times when my writing had been hindered by other anxieties that I'd had. Essentially, I was having anxiety about anxiety, and as I sat there in my seat, the world momentarily felt grim.

Thankfully, I've become something of an anxiety expert over the years, so I knew that what I was experiencing would soon pass. But for a bit of time, I was having real trouble taking in the words of my book.

The woman, meanwhile, was still talking. It was a mixture of her sort of talking with herself and sharing some comments with a few people she seemed to know on the street. She attempted to address me directly again, but when she did, I totally and unashamedly ignored her. Over the years, I've noticed this about myself -- namely, if my anxiety gets triggered, I get unfriendly. So I wasn't surprised that I continued to flat out ignore this woman even though I knew doing so was sort of rude.

Eventually, the words of my book, "A Farewell to Arms," started to make more sense, and I started to feel myself relax. Still, I was conscious of the woman and kept wishing she would leave, just leave. After about 10 minutes, she did, and even though I kept my eyes on my book when she got up, like I was lost in deep concentration, I was glad.

Soon after, I noticed that an older couple, a man and a woman, maybe in their 50s, had sat down at the table that was behind me. When I had first arrived at the cafe, two young mothers with their children had been at that table. At some point, though, the mothers had left and this older couple had taken their place. Both the man and the woman were laughing heartily about something, and as they were I made eye contact with the woman. She held my gaze and continued to laugh and smile, and in that moment, I felt relief wash over me.

It's amazing the effect that people can have on you.

Poem: When the Day Is Over

I really like this one. Enjoy.

When the day is over
And the crowds thin out
And all the white walls look purple,
I'll be out, kicking around,
My mind running 'round in circles.

When the wood doves take
Their places in
The trees where they've built nests,
I'll embrace the world as is
And hope just for the best.

And I'll walk and walk and walk and walk:
I'll walk without an aim
'Neath skies that good and bad men walked
Before I had a name.

And I'll dream of days when those I love
Felt no hurt or pain,
Their eyes a sparkle when I would
Disembark a train.

I'll dream of days
And walk on by
And thank God I'm alive
To see these skies of amethyst,
To live the gift of life.

Thanks For...

Thanks for saying that, that we lightened up the mood, that’s really sweet of you, but you guys just focus on getting better and doing your thing. Obviously, that’s what’s the most important thing, and then we’ll figure it out from there. It’s no worries, man; it’s just some flowers, but obviously we wish you the best, wish the baby the best, and I’m sure it’s gonna turn out great. Just let’s get passed this sort of rough patch. 

All right, I hope you have a good day. It's fucking hot as hell, so stay cool. 

Poem: A Butterfly From the Night

A butterfly from the night
That’s one way to call it.
Others might a moth
But let’s go with it.
A butterfly from the night
Flitting around the room
Attracted by the light
Attracted to my room.
A butterfly’s a butterfly
By any other name
A butterfly of the night
A moth, it’s all the same.

Villanelle

When I write poetry, I usually don't follow any form. I mean, I want my poems to rhyme; in fact, I think the best poetry is that which rhymes. But other than that, I just usually let it rip. However, form is, or at least can be, important. One form of poem is the villanelle. Basically, a villanelle is a poem with two rhyming refrains, which appear over and over again as the poem progresses.

So in one of the most famous villanelle's, Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night," the lines, "Do not go gentle into that good night" and "Rage, rage against the dying of the light" serve as the villanelle's two alternating refrains.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I mention all of this because recently I thought I would try my hand at writing a villanelle. My composition is below. I hope you enjoy it.

"Now I Know I Laid Wreaths at Your Feet" 

Now I know I laid wreaths at your feet
Though there were a few times I was out of my mind 
Now I know I was not incomplete. 

Now I know that you were the heat 
Though there were a few times I believed in your lies
Now I know I laid wreaths at your feet. 

Now I know the word "hurt" and "mistreat."
"Unfair," "denied," "unfair" and "unkind." 
Now I know I am not incomplete. 

Now I know how I was in deep 
Though I felt with my heart and saw with my eyes 
Now I know I laid wreaths at your feet. 

The heat, the heat, the heat, the heat 
You were the one from fire who cried. 
Now I know I was not incomplete. 

Now, alone, the rustling leaves 
I hear and see, past clouds to the sky
Now I know I laid wreaths at your feet 
Now I know I am not incomplete. 

Poem: "My Last Impression of You"

My last impression of you

Was a masterpiece

A form of mimicry so good

You had yourself to laugh

At 

The timing that I had

And the screwed up face I made

And the place I took it to

Even though I'd been betrayed

The last impression that I had

Of you, the one I made

A masterpiece of mimicry

So good I felt ashamed.

Poem: "Always Filled with Happiness"

Always filled with happiness
After I see you.
Before we meet, however
You're not a person who
I want to see, I dread the thought
In fact of meeting you.
Always filled with happiness
After I see you.

"One True Sentence"

Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know. 

Recently, I have been rereading Ernest Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast," a memoire about the author's life and times in Paris during the interwar period.

Among the many things talked about in the book, Hemingway gives us insight into what his writing process was like when he was living in the City of Light.

The quote above refers to a mantra Hemingway would say to himself whenever he was trying to write but was stuck. He would tell himself, essentially, not to get caught up in the thought of how daunting writing a novel, or writing in general, could be, but instead to focus, at least initially, on writing that "one true sentence."

So finally, I would write one true sentence, and then go from there.

I've always been fascinated by Hemingway's idea of "one true sentence," and the small piece below, which is biographical, is inspired by it. Enjoy.


***


I remember one time fighting this kid Craig for what he did with my hat.

I was on the middle school bus after school and one of my friends had snatched my red Philadelphia Phillies hat off my head and had tossed it to another friend of mine. The two were playing keep-away, which was fine until the hat landed in the hands of some kids I didn’t know. When these kids refused to give my hat back to me, the mood changed.

After all, the hat they were tossing around wasn’t any normal hat. That hat was the hat that kid Bo wore. Bo was a kid who used to ride his bike around my old neighborhood, Forest Hills, bullying people. He was a tough kid and he always wore this red Philadelphia Phillies cap. When I moved away from Forest Hills to a place called Great Neck, in Long Island, I decided I was going to reinvent myself as a tough guy -- I was going to be like Bo. So during the summer before middle school, I bought a red Philadelphia Phillies hat, the same one Bo had.

And now here that hat was, being tossed around the school bus by people I didn’t know. The cap flew back and forth over the rows of seats until it landed in the hands of Craig.

Craig was someone I only knew by name. He was scrawny and very innocent looking, the type of kid that still wore sweatpants to school, which was totally not cool back then. I didn’t know Craig, which was why the tension became palpable when he became the next recipient of my flung-around hat.

“Give it to me,” I said, looking Craig in the eye. He was sitting in the seat right behind mine. He returned my gaze, but threw the hat to someone else, nevertheless.

“You’re dead,” I said before turning my attention to the person who had just caught my hat. “When we get off this bus, you’re fucking dead.”

I don’t know if Craig knew I was serious on the bus, but he certainly did when I got off at his stop and started to push him. “Come on, you little shit,” I said. “You’re cool enough to throw my hat around, come on...” But he didn’t want to fight me.

I remember feeling tough as I pushed Craig, with a few schoolmates looking on. I felt like I was Bo now, and I was going to make a name for myself. I remember yelling at Craig and him just walking on, walking on toward his house, not wanting any problems. At one point, I pushed him very hard from behind, the way some people had done to me in Forest Hills when they had been giving me problems.

Eventually, I grabbed Craig in a headlock and we wrestled on someone’s lawn. I landed a punch on his head and it probably hurt my hand more than it had hurt him. But, in my opinion, I had proved myself. I was still too young to know that such behavior was not cool. I was 11 years old and I was  showing that I wouldn’t be fucked with, which was much more important at the time than any possible repercussions that might have come from my behavior.

Poem: "On Her Trajectory Through the Universe"

On her trajectory through the universe
On or off course
Of course we'll have a laugh, and laugh
About this shining star
This meteor, this asteroid
This creature born on Mars
Flying through the universe
Light, on fairy wings
Picking up that astral dust 
Killing all the things 
She made and things that made her up
She pulls like gravity
A whirlpool down, round, to the floor 
The dark bed of the sea
A place where all the energy 
Shrinks neatly to a size 
Smaller than a nickel, larger than a dime 
And in that spot, round and dry 
(a miracle, it's dry) 
Lie the answers of her birth 
Lie the reasons why. 

Poem: "I Think It's Pretty Clear"

I think it's pretty clear
I think you would agree 
I think it's pretty clear by now 
You, me. 
I think it's pretty special and 
I think it's pretty sweet.
I think it's pretty clear by now
I think we can agree.   

Poem: "The Advice"

Oh. She wanted the advice.
I didn't think 
She wanted the advice. 
Ok, I'll think. 
OK, I got it, right 
This is what I'd do 
If I were nine and nine again 
If I were you.
I'd play it as it goes, but I'd
Protect myself as well 
'Cause good things don't come back around 
Once they've gone to hell. 
So take these words, I do impart 
These chestnuts, wisdom, gold: 
To you yourself be true, besides 
You're old but not that old. 

Poem: "When I Looked Into Her Eyes"

When I looked into her eyes
I felt a wave of electricity go through me
Sitting there on the bench, sunset time it was
Her eyes were like the mystery 
Painted on the walls
Of pyramids or grottos
Sometime before the fall
Of ancient governing bodies
Her eyes were like the sun
Shining on a silver lake
When the day is done
When the light is right and one
Feels a sense of peace
Something like serenity, something like release
A thing that’s sharp and buzzing and
Electric in its way
Alive and right and lively and
Thankful all the same.

Poem: "Coincided"

Coincided, the heart divided
St. Germain. 
There goes that train. 
Coincided 
The heart united
Tuileries, the pain subsided 
Growing pains and hearts divided, coincided
Crack-cocaine. 
Derided, chided, denied and righted 
Gustav Eiffel, I. M. Pei
The boulevards, wide, bright and lighted 
Bridges, walkways, alleys, trains

Coincided with it all.
So let the chips where they may fall.
And let the pain, besides, subside like rain
On paving stones of St. Germain. 

Poem: "Moratorium"

Moratorium

 Legit.

 Keep it hard and real.

 A man of fucking mystery

 A man of steel.

 Moratorium, "genau"

 Exactly as they say

 Moratorium, unbudging:

 I've tried the other ways.

 Moratorium, mirage;  chimera, keep away

 Moratorium, in blood

 An oath to healthy stay.

Poem: "Cross Me Off Your List"

Cross me off your list, your list
Cross me off your list.
Whatever list you had, you can
Cross me off your list.

Doubt I don't you, benefit
Of the doubt, I don't
Doubt the things you doubt and doubt
I
Doubt the things you won't. 

Break it hard, hark!, break it fast and 
Smash it, crash it, crash.
Just wipe me off that list of yours
Fast. 

Hard Times Are Over

I love the staccato pacing of the lyrics to this song. Enjoy.

It’s been
Very hard
It’s getting
Easier now

Hard times
Are over
Over
For a while

The leaves are
Shining in the sun
And I’m smiling
Inside

You and I
Watching each other
On the street
Corner

Cars and buses
And planes and people
Go by
But we don’t care
We want to know
Want to know
In each others’
Eyes
That hard times
Are over
Over
For some time…

Poem: "Child's Play"

He was a reflection of our evil
Not Evel Knievel 
A reflection of our people 
And the cruel ways we can be. 

A reflection of the sea, he
Reflected back the sky
In the manner sharks exist
And birds of prey dive. 

He was a reflection of what’s there
We know
Yet, also know that we
Have the human touch 
--It's love--
Unlike he. 

Poem: "Others Couldn't Take It, No"

Others couldn't take it, no
Ready, no, they couldn't 
Wouldn't, couldn't, I'm not sure
All I know they didn't. 

Strains of plain the others had
Couwagulated to
Bands of inhibitions
Uninhibited with you.

Relax, relax, it's something new
Relax, you've earned this right
Relax, it's only natural like
Day goes down to night.

Don't tip your hat or show your hand
Others couldn't know
What goes on when light inside
Is like chiaroscuro.

Poem: "Insofar"

I love you insofar as I can use you.
I love you insofar as I can abuse you. 
I love you insofar as I can cruise to
A better station, place or point
A better standing in 
The institution of my choice
A better place within. 
I love you insofar as I
Loved the others, sure.
Whatever you would like to hear
Nameless here forevermore. 

Poem: "Whatever Luck I Get It's Not"

Whatever luck I get it's not 
That luck evades me
Whatever luck I get it's not
That luck escapes me 
I had it once that luck I got
One Friday afternoon
I got a call from one who made
Her mind up way too soon
Or so she said on Friday when
She called me back again 
Whatever luck I’ve got it’s not
The luck I’d like and when.