11.28.2011 And Now, We Return You To Your Life, Already In Progress

Like awakening from a dream, or exiting a movie that sweeps you away, rejoining the rest of the world is like stepping off a playground merry-go-round. There's an abrupt shift in speed, perception, mindset, emotion. And periodically, I find that sensation when I become engrossed in reading, projects, music, anything that absorbs my attention & separates me from my routine. Which is frequently. 

I'm not alone. Someone looks up and remarks, "Oh, look at the time!" I have yet to learn to meditate deeply. However, I "throw away the clock" when I pop weeds from the lawn. It's a cinch I will never overtake them, but the small progress I make is secondary to the soothing, repetitive motion. It's almost hypnotic. I've been surprised more than once when a passing doe snorted her warning to her fawns, having tip-toed to within 50 feet of me.

When I jogged regularly, I would similarly pass into that ethereal realm, attuned to the rhythm of my shoes contacting the path, my breathing audible in my ears, peripherally aware of danger such as dogs or bicycles while detached from the scenery outside my own skin. Any interaction with a pedestrian would bring me out of my revery, a struggle to merge back into the current time zone. Would it surprise you to know long drives put me in the same state?

I drift almost trance-like into that state of suspended animation when I sit down to my keyboard and pull up a blank page, rather like the white sheet in the adjacent typewriter, reminding me of my Dad's old portable. And I am home. Everything brings to mind a familiar passage I've read, an experience or sensation, analogies by the score, a funny story. Old friends. Then a phone rings, real life intruding on the past, or the future-tripping.

If these experiences resonate with you, I have companions on my journey. I welcome you to this adventure!

11.22.2011 I Come By It Naturally

11.22.2011

Seems the small community newspaper editor put a limit on published opinions from my father, as did the larger metropolitan papers. Often tongue-tied in person, he found print more patient, less demanding, inflection bound in adjectives rather than subtle facial expressions, less intimidating for an engineer who planned out the most superficial conversations. Did he change the world with those views? Did he change his world?

Within the first year that I was involved in a small start-up, I stood before a very large state agency hearing, the lone voice calling for specific safety measures in the workplace. Stakeholders unanimously overrode me, citing expense, but it became law. Even the federal government adopted this measure. And although I was warned that inevitably someone would perish on the job, no one came close. This, in trades which run double the average risk. Did I change the industry?

We both found our voice. May you find yours.

11.17.2011 Why Aren't You Writing? First Post

11.17.2011

First Post: At Bumbershoot, a few years back, a palm reader stood in the shade of a building, an enormous woman dressed ridiculously in a black-and-white striped short-sleeved shirt, holding a rhinestone-studded leash which ended at a tiny Chihuahua, stretched out as far as the tether would allow. Her handwritten sign, black marker on a scrap of cardboard, proclaimed her occupation and price. As I approached, the dog pulled even harder at its line, and a skinny man intercepted me to collect the fee, silently holding out his hand, evidently her (self-appointed?) agent.

I recall almost none of the details she read from the furrows in my hand, and related to me, except that they seemed on target. The only question she asked has followed me all these years. Somehow, she knew my secret desire, my guilty pleasure, that outlet I denied myself because I imagined it unworthy of the precious time invested. Rhetorical in nature, that query has encroached on my conscience since that fateful moment. I have been unable to ignore it, erase or delete it, and until now, incapable of finding an outlet. 

Hence, the name of this blog. 

My father was an engineer, kept a journal he called Wage Slave which outlined the unremarkable events of an unremarkable life. Since his passing some years ago, I have occasionally perused the pages of his journey across this planet. New dimensions of his personality emerge from those pages, painstakingly chiseled out of a portable manual typewriter - a luxury he allowed himself, I think - and another, more complex man takes shape before my child's eyes. Four over-sized volumes fill a handled file tote.

With reading and writing, perhaps I can liberate us both from that wordless tomb.