What doesn't kill you...

Part II?

I had more thoughts to share in my last post, but I felt it was starting to get long so let's make this a continuation of me finding perspective. I'm still flying solo with only basic navigational support, no editor, no muse, and pretty much staying away from everybody because I've been in some foul moods lately. I think I need to change my M-spiration and switch my Pandora back to Maroon 5 radio when I'm driving, since Metallica radio (although it seriously rocks) has really got me hating people right now.

Reflections

Taking this trip down memory lane over the last few weeks got me thinking. (Not that I need any help, I'm always thinking and usually I am thinking too much...WAY too much.) But, since those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it, here we go.

I took a step back, employing the Heineken® Uncertainty Principle (when I can know either my location or my speed, but not both - a mongrelization  of science I know,) and I ventured back to this time of year back in 2012. Just so you know where we're going with this, I'm going to have to back up a little, come back to here (where we've started) and then hit the big finish. I'll spare no commas.

Every year I make vague New Year's resolutions. I lack the proper focus to do much beyond that and I like to give myself some wiggle room. Specifics lead to failure. So I simply start the year with, "This is going to be my year." My year for what? Don't know. Could change. Maybe it's fitness, eating healthy, career progress, self-enlightenment, but I have deliberately chosen to be non-specific. Again, pragmatism isn't my strong suit.

The year was pretty tame. My wife and I planned on making another trip to Orlando as we did the previous year. This time we were just doing EPCOT at Disney and two days at Universal. We were all looking forward to the Harry Potter experience. We didn't account for my son's deathly fear of dinosaurs, so passing through Jurassic Park was an experience unto itself. It was a great family trip. But it paled in comparison to the journey upon which my family and I were about to embark.

I am going to give you the short version here with some brief grabs from another blog that I started on blogger in 2011, posted a couple of times in 2012 and 2013 and plan to revisit soon to get it going again. So, there will be more detail regarding the story I am about to tell on occasionalramblingsofanoldman.blogspot.com. I would prefer if you didn't cheat on me here, so I'm trusting you to come back to this spot later. There are also some issues with the order of posts because I went back and corrected some horrible spelling and grammar (plus added some random commas...just kidding) so my post from around mid-January 2013 is showing for today. Arghhh! Anyway, moving on...

Family Vacations

I have to explain what a Karwacki vacation is like. It started with my parents and our family trips. It's jam-packed from the first minute to the last. We never flew so there was lots of driving involved and that's a Dad's job. Not being chauvinistic, it was just our way. I accept responsibility for the safe travels of my clan, as did my father before me. But it can be tiresome, all that fun having. Generally, it feels like you need a vacation from the vacation that just ended. So it wasn't all that unfamiliar to be tired following a trip.

We were home for two days when the fevers began. And the night sweats. At the time, I didn't know there would be more. Lots more. (sentence fragment - but it's ok - I'm self editing.) I muddled through and followed my normal work schedule. It was almost a week of this garbage before my wife made me go to see a doctor. A trip to a local urgent care facility followed by a trip to the ER proved uneventful. I went back to my normal routine, armed with a Zpak to help me get better.

Only I wasn't getting better. I had daily fevers for most of three weeks, and now I was starting September and I was still sick. I had a visit or two with my primary care physician, who was baffled. I was starting to drop some weight and other than an elevated white-cell count, there wasn't anything the tests were showing to point at a diagnosis. So I kept on working. That brings us to a funny story.

At that time, I was managing a 3rd shift crew at work.  I didn't take very good care of myself, working too hard and rarely, if ever, stopping for a meal. I was taking acetaminophen for the fevers and it wasn't bothering to slow me down. But around the 2nd week in September I had an episode.

Now this is getting ridiculous

It was almost 2 a.m. I started feeling nauseous and I wasn't near a bathroom. I was just hoping to make it to one in time. I was having enough problems without the potential embarrassment of my maintenance staff having to clean up after me. Well, I made it to a stall, took a knee and braced for the worst. I'd like to say nothing happened, and it's isn't what you think, or what I thought was going to happen, but something did happen. I didn't get sick. But I did pass out. My next recollection was thinking that there was a strange pressure on my torso. When I opened my eyes, I was looking directly at the floor...with my chest laying directly on the bowl. Ever happen to you? No. Me neither. I just thanked God that I didn't go in. I might have drowned. Not how I would plan on going out.

Obviously, there was problem here. But I was living in the great state of denial, attributing it to stress and whatever else I could make myself believe at the time. I was even getting too tired to play soccer.

I played in an adult soccer league on Sundays. As my illness progressed, I had almost no stamina and my strength was diminishing. Every kick I made was weak and every run took all of my energy. I new something was wrong, but I wasn't trying too hard to figure it out. Then there was the fitting for my brother-in-law's wedding.

I had been fitted in July for my tux. My son was to be a ring bearer so he got fitted at the same time. It was about three weeks before the wedding when I took my son back to the shop and make sure he hadn't hit any sort of growth spurt. It was right about the same time as the blackout episode. The gentleman working there measured my son. No change. That's when I had him check me as well. Some people had noticed that I had been losing some weight.

He measured me and was surprised to see that my numbers had changed dramatically. My jacket went from 42 to 38. I lost 4 inches on my chest and 3 on my waist. Part of his shock was that he was the same person who had measured me 2 months prior. Clearly I was not well.

I really thought I was going to be able to make this an abbreviated version of my story. It took me two posts on my other blog, and while they are more descriptive, they lack the sort of style I've been able to inject here (why are you laughing? Never mind.) It's clear that I need my editor back, but I don't have the patience to wait until Monday when she's back, so I'm going to press on, no matter how ill-advised that is.

So I had two more syncopal episodes (sounds more manly than fainting,) one in late September that took me out of work (and I hear it was spectacular) and one in October that almost gave my younger brother a heart attack. You can read about those at http://occasionalramblingsofanoldman.blogspot.com/2012/12/starting-to-get-betterthen-not-so-much.html. 

My regular doctor still couldn't figure out what was wrong with me and I was starting to see an infectious disease specialist. There was also a neurologist that was coming into play with the blackout episodes. I was out of work for about 10 weeks during roughly 16 where I was sick.

I had fevers, sometimes twice a day. I was carrying a thermometer in my pocket and taking my temperature constantly. (my boss appreciated that I was at least doing it orally.) Usually. I hit 100-101 before the pills kicked in. I had night sweats. I was sleeping on the floor at home, on top of thick bath towels. I soaked through two a night and we were constantly washing them. I was just burning up, inside and out. I will never forget that smell of the sweaty clothes and towels. It was terrible. I was losing weight. It was at least 30 pounds, perhaps even closer to 40, in less than two months. As a bonus, I was passing out, sporadically, with little warning. Searching the Internet for answers I found that I could narrow it down to nearly 13,000 potential maladies.

If you've stayed with me this long, you deserve a finish. So finally, my fevers had become uncontrollable. I had a fever of 104 on a morning after a fever of 103.7 broke. After a crazy visit to my doctor, my wife took me to the hospital. She refused to take me home and demanded that someone in the ER admit me for more testing.

Have you ever been sick with a fever and you take something for it and then when you get to the doctor's office, you have no fever because you took something for it? Well it happened to me. Got to the ER and had a perfectly acceptable 98.2. But within two hours, it was 102.7. My wife and I were so relieved that I was sick. We were both starting to think that we were a little crazy.

I had a biopsy of two swollen lymph nodes in my neck and spent the weekend in the hospital. I was pale and tired. I received three bags of fluid for hydration and two units of blood. At least my wife had the sense to know that there was something really wrong with me because I was just plain stupid.

I probably already lost you to the two links, but if you came back you've earned it to see where I'm going. After a weekend in the hospital I finally got a real diagnosis. That's when I found out I had Cancer. It was looking like Classic Hodgkin's Lymphoma. And I was so relieved.

I was relieved because I finally knew what was wrong with me. Relieved because now someone could treat me with a purpose instead of shrugging their shoulders and sending me home with aspirin and antibiotics. Relieved because I knew I could get better now.

But I'm dismayed because I know now that it's going to take another post to finish what I started in the last post. Part III coming soon to a page near you in the continuing saga of the Incomplete Writer.

Finding some perspective

What a long, strange trip it's been

It has taken me a long time to get here, both at this point in my life andwhere I created this blog as a way to develop my writing and as a writer with stories to tell. My muse has been absent for a couple of weeks now. Between my schedule and my editor's, I haven't had much guidance there lately either. And with my muse nowhere to be found and my editor on a cruise (I guess everyone needs a break - even if it's just from me, am I right, girls?) I have carte blanche to go in whatever direction I deem fit. So let's recap my last post.

Every now and then I'm going to stray off the path. The title came from thinking I had more substance in some writing I had done years ago. Memories can make us fools. We remember the good and discard the rotten apples, but it's doesn't reveal the true, complete story. Life is full of crap. Ever read Facebook? I found a lot of crap in my old writings. But there were good things too. I found a book I purchased a few years ago, The Pocket Muse by Monica Wood (http://www.monicawood.com) She also has tips for writers on her website that are very helpful. Some of you reading this out there are writers too. We really should get together some time.

Her introduction struck a chord with me as her story has some similarities to my own. At any rate, The Pocket Muse is filled with some great idea starters, inspirational quotes and black and white photographs to spark writers to do what they do best, write. Some of the exercises are simple, much like my parking lot story from "Time for a little warm up," (which my wife is convinced really happened - which is supposed to be the reaction, right?)

All in black and white

I started flipping through her book, hoping for a page to speak to me. Every page has something to offer, but one jumped out first, regarding critics. She writes that every writer needs two critics - one to shower praise, the other to deliver the truth and respects you enough to tell you when something is not working. Any skill development requires encouragement combined with constructive criticism.

I struggled with this over the years. Quite simply, I've had a lifetime of people telling me that I've been doing such-and-such wrong (or that I just suck) and despite constant rejection, a thick skin isn't something I have fully developed. But I'm getting better. My wife loves everything I write. I have a few friends that have been very helpful in encouraging the little bits I have been brave enough to share as well. I didn't want that second critic.

My stories are personal. To dismantle them, was to dismantle everything I am. I needed to suppress that emotional response and become more pragmatic, be something I have not been to date. Let's just say that I'm good now. I have no positions immediately available for either critic, but I will continue to accept applications. Thank you for your interest.

You can't get there from here

Every story has its twists and turns, whether it's your own or that of a fictional character. The path isn't a perfectly straight line, even for those who tend to plan everything to the most minute detail. I started to look at what gets people through those critical junctures in their life. What helps them survive? It all comes down to perspective, broken down into four categories.

1. Crazy. You know some crazy people. They manage to come out on top no matter what is going on around them. No one can tell them what to do, especially that something can't be done, despite the odds. They fly in the face of convention and dare you to stop them.
2. Pragmatic. They're methodical, logical and sometimes stubborn. Kings and Queens of rationale. They're the kind of people that I would have liked to have had around me when I took that Introduction to Ethics course in college (which, incidentally has much more to do with being logical than being nice.)
3. Naive. They just don't know any better. Typically they're younger and lack the sort of experiences us old folks have had which make us jaded.
4. Lucky (Stupid.) They're like the cat dropped off a four-story building, always landing on their feet. They have no plan, sometimes no idea what is going on, but they come through every catastrophe unscathed. And they have no concept of how they did it.

I have been all of these at one time or another in my life, with the pragmatic portion being conspicuously absent more often than not. All of this was born from a situation I encountered in my life three years ago...but that's a story best saved for the next installment of the Incomplete Writer.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

I have good news, and I have bad news...

The good news is that I'm going to keep on writing here. The bad news is that I'm still awake again. It's after 1 a.m. and I dug up some old writings I had saved from between the time I was a Junior in high school to the time I was a Senior in college. And let's just say...I've seen less crap in a septic tank. I said I was going to be honest, right?

There are some salvageable ideas buried in there, but some of it is going to be like polishing a turd, it ain't never gonna be a diamond. A double negative. Slang. My editor will never let me live that one down. I'd be better off trying to slip in a one sentence paragraph.

Green Bottle Theory

I was first introduced to this concept in high school by one of my science teachers. The theory is that when you get stuck on a problem, you take a step back, grab a green bottle, and eventually you'll discover a different approach and, potentially a solution. Given my proclivity to liven things up a little and put my own creative spin on things, let's rename it. We'll call it the Heineken® Uncertainty Principle. (It's a pun. You'll figure it out, eventually.) We're going to go real-time on this read. I'm going to go grab a green bottle and we'll take it from there. (Stick around. This could get interesting.)

Intermission.

I couldn't find a Heineken® but did locate a Yuengling®, and I'm starting to think of a Larry Miller bit I saw on YouTube about the five stages of drinking. Most of it doesn't apply here but the part about the math regarding how much sleep you're going to need in order to function the next day is apropos. So anyway...

The not-so-good book

It's not a book, a binder, really. One hundred and fifteen paces of drivel. I retyped a lot of handwritten garbage in order to consolidate ideas a lot time ago. Let's see here...I wrote about a girl. Then a semi-salvageable quote, then I have no idea what this is, then more about a girl (same girl.) Page 4 now, oh, more about the same girl. Then girl again and another semi-salvageable bit of prose. Oh wait, page 7...it's about a girl (different girl, same crap.)

Now we go into my dark period. A depressing poem (no doubt about a girl.) Some bitter poetry, oh yeah, I remember this. That was my Sylvia Plath phase. No good teen writer is without one. If I'm rambling here, blame it on the A-a-a-a-a-al-co-hol. Page 12 has some interesting stuff. Ready?

"I used to know who you were,

From the early years of your childhood

and becoming a young adult.

I remember it all.

You have grown in many ways,

And in many different directions.

Now, I follow you on a different journey.

You have followed the straight and narrow path...

Until now.

And at this very moment, as I stand here today,

I look into your eyes and I see nothing.

I do not know you anymore."

I turn from the mirror and walk away.

Hey. That's deep when you're 16. At least it wasn't about a girl. I'm not really sure what it was about, but I don't think it was a girl. After that there's more "poor me" crap and some more about yet another girl. I might have to skip the murder mystery genre and start reading Nicholas Sparks or something.

Time for sleep

God, don't I wish. Now I'm just keyed up. It's 3:04 a.m., but I did find that sleep essay that I referred to in the post "I can't sleep" back in August. It wasn't quite as good as I remember it but I know exactly when I wrote it. No lie. I dated and time stamped like nearly everything in the book. Yeah, I threw a "like" in there. Hey, we're having a few drinks and sharing here, aren't we? Sure we are.

So I wrote this on 11/20/1991 (2:06 a.m.) Know what that means? That at 18, I was just as dysfunctional as I am right now. But at least I'm not writing about a girl. Now we're skipping along to page 45, where I basically wrote a little about a girl...and I was happy. Yes. You heard that right. It was Friday, October 16, 1992 (@ 12:30 a.m.) But a funny thing happened. Somewhere between the handwritten copy and the printed version for the binder, one of the three pages went missing. Actually, it burned in a small fire. I hated candles for a long time after that. I think I might have written about one once...ONCE!

The time has come now to write about another girl, who will most certainly inflict bodily harm once she reads this and realizes that I have spent another night writing instead of sleeping. Then I'll be less figurative and more of a literal...Incomplete Writer.

Honesty is the best policy...kind of

Begin deep breathing exercises, now...

I started to write this two days ago, but I had to stop. Too much like a rant. I've learned over the years that sometimes I need to count to 10 before I speak, send or post. Occasionally I have to count a little higher, like to 1,000, until the moment passes and I can function as a human again. Not everything is fit to publish. And honesty isn't always the best policy.

When I was a kid, I played role playing games on a TI-99 4a where you had to type the instructions and read the results and they ran on cassette types. But that's not important now. It just means I'm really old. What is important is there was honesty. Truth. Simple.

Now of course, at times, honesty came after getting caught, but honesty was pure and unadulterated. But let's face it, the present day world wouldn't appreciate the story of George Washington and the cherry tree because long before he confessed the marks on the tree would have matched the axe, where particulates would have been found, plus DNA and fingerprints would have convicted him before he had the chance to come clean. Honesty is a murkier subject now. What does that mean for a writer?

Honest...and open?

A writer has to be true to his characters to be honest with the reader. But choosing when and where to reveal insights are critical to advancing the story line. Much as in real life, people do things that seems out of character, but that's what makes a story interesting isn't it? So timing is everything with honesty. And how honest do you need to be?

There is a fine line between truth and being brutally honest. A friend asked me one time if I thought he was crazy. He was being honest with me, so I was honest with him. My answer was supposed to be no. I meant it to be no. But essentially my explanation was sort of a yes...to him. But I didn't say that he was crazy, not in so many words (although it is apparent that I use more words than are necessary and sometimes the message can get muddled.) I should have started with "No." Honest. Then I could have talked about my observations of his behavior, the way he reacted in certain situations, the way he shared ideas and interacted with people. I could have avoided the brutally honest answer, and the confusion.

Typically, those who are open and honest are respected, even if the message delivered is painful to hear. The writer is guarded, performing the balancing act of being honest with open and honest (or brutally honest at times.) My writing to date has been me sharing my personal experiences. Honesty plays best here, even if it can be a little on the dramatic side. But in order to develop as a writer, and create some interesting reading, I need to move closer to the black side of the dichotomy, playing within the shades of gray (not THOSE shades, just being general here.)

Sorting it all out

I have always loved murder mysteries and detective shows. Columbo, Charlie Chan, The Thin Man, are some of my favorites. Sorting through all the accounts, each individual story, trying to determine what information you're being given, is all very challenging. And you get all sorts of levels, honest information, lies of omission, and outright deceit, and you have to put it all together to get at what actually happened. It's an arena I definitely plan to explore in the near future.

But for the present, especially since school has begun again, the holidays are right around the corner, and my time isn't always my own to use as I wish, I have decided to review some more of my old writings and ramblings. Most of them are more than 10 years old, some of them go back almost 25 years. There should be good material there, even if not in it's entirety, but just snippets that need some polish.

Character building

The relationship between reader and writer is similar to a marriage. It's isn't always pretty. It isn't always perfect. But if each is willing to grow together, the results can be wonderful and rewarding. And since this is really the courtship phase, we have some catching up to do. I didn't start writing like this. My style and outlook developed over time. In between new ideas, I can share some old ones with you. We have a lot of ground to cover so we'll have to get it going.

As we hop in the WABAC Machine (the reference is from the original and remake - so you don't have to be that old to get that one) I promise I will be honest with you, my reader. But I won't always be open. Does anybody want to be in Stephen King's head? Gotta be pretty creepy on the inside considering what has come out of it. You don't want to be in mine either. It can get kinda dark up there (plus a bit cluttered) and they have yet to make a CFL or LED that's going to get the job done, so let's reserve our conversations (where obviously I do most of the talking - if you know me, you're laughing yourself out of your chair right now) to the parlor or the coffee shop down the street, some place comfortable enough or where you can make a break for the door if you feel the need to escape.

I'll be honest. I have changed this post several times and edited myself over two days. My editor has been busy and I've been out of town a bit over the last week, so I've been distracted to say the least...just taking it day by day, as the Incomplete Writer.

The Long Way Home

I don’t know when it was that I felt I had become an adult. But sometime between when I left home in August to return for my senior year of college and now, I felt I was there. I was driving into work for my third shift job at the newspaper, following a full day of classes and my 2^nd shift job at the mall. I was not only a college student, but a working man with little time for sleep. A prophetic foreboding to say the least, but surely this was not the lifestyle of a kid.

Work was pretty pedestrian, nothing extraordinary tended to happen in the mail room. It was just the last place the newspapers passed through in the morning on the way to boxes and doorsteps across the central part of North Carolina and some into Virginia. It was time to punch out and go home before I knew it.

When I got home from work everyone in the apartment was awake, which was odd. They were all hanging out in the living room when I came in the door; my two roommates, and their girlfriends, my girlfriend and another buddy who was crashing for the night, which was slowly giving way to morning.

The phone rang shortly after my entrance. I raced to grab it, stepping on the sofa and jumping over the back to take the most direct route. To this day, more than a dozen years later, I still don’t why I reacted the way I did. It could have been a wrong number, or anything else for that matter. But at that moment I just knew there was something wrong at the first sound of the phone.

My Mom was on the other end. I don’t remember the whole conversation, or even if there was one to speak of, but the sound of her voice and the way she said, “It’s your father. I don’t know if you’ll make in time,” will stick in my mind forever.

I have packed for week-long vacations and weekend jaunts, overnight stays and road trips, but I have never packed for this…this…whatever this was. I was in a panic.

I ran to my room and grabbed a suitcase. I started throwing things in, whatever I could grab. My eyes welled up to the point where I could barely see. I was hardly functioning as my vision blurred with tears and my mind was racing. I had to get home.

My friends struggled to keep up. At first they were stunned. They wanted to know what was wrong. Adrian already knew. He had been with me at the beginning of that week before we returned to school. My father went into the hospital the day before I left with an unknown source of pain. He was disoriented from the medication he was on, but I never once thought it would come to this.

“It’s my Dad. I don’t know if I’ll make in time,” was all I could muster as they satisfied their curiosities and tried to find ways to help. I repeated the phrase several times, as if repeating it would allow me to find a way, to indeed, make it in time.

My girlfriend insisted on coming with me. I told her she needed to stay and concentrate on school, but she was very persistent about helping me through this…this…whatever it was. I felt so unsure about everything right now. We grabbed some of her clothes that she kept at my place and threw them in the suitcase as well.

In what felt like an instant but was almost certainly too long to begin this journey, we grabbed what we had collected and rushed out to my car so we could make the trek, ideally, in time. In time for what I couldn’t fathom, all I knew was that I needed to get on the road.

Normally, the trip from school to home was about 8 hours. It would seem much longer. I was already tired from a full day of classes and working at both of my part-time jobs with just a quick nap in between. It must have been just a little before 5 a.m. on a misty Saturday morning when we made our way out of town.

I had followed this route at least a dozen times before. I was effectively on auto-pilot, which was a good thing, one less thing to think about.

Crystal didn’t seem to know what to say, which was just as well, since I didn’t really feel in the mood to talk. My mind began to wander into unfamiliar territory.

What if…I didn’t want to think about what if. I wanted to think about anything other than what if. I wanted to think about his pain, his struggle, his fight for his very existence. I tried to think about the World Series.

It was October 23^rd and Game 6 was tonight. I hadn’t gotten the chance to watch much, with school and work keeping me pretty busy. I was carrying 15 credit hours in my major and working 2 part-time jobs which filled about 50-60 each week not including drive time.

Maybe everything would be alright. Maybe this was just a scare, a false alarm. We could watch the game in the hospital, cheering our hometown heroes.

We were a Phillies family and the Phils were down 3 games to 2 to the Toronto Blue Jays with the Series coming back home to Philadelphia. I just knew they would battle back. My Dad and I could watch the game tonight, me at his side, the way it should be…the way it should always have been, the way it could be, at least one more time.

But in the back of my mind I knew it wasn’t going to be alright, it would never be the way it was.

I started to remember the times I had with him. I remembered the time when I was in second grade. We had some special event at school that day, because I remember I was wearing one of my favorite shirts, one I got from baseball camp that summer. I was in the back corner of the yard, a nice little wooded spot away from the house, with my two neighborhood friends, Kim and Danny. We had a lighter and one cigarette. I don’t know who brought it, but we were prepared to experiment with some big kid stuff, some grown up stuff. I’m not sure how we got caught, but I know it was before my turn. I think he hollered for me, he might have even been able to see us from the back door where his office desk was.

I remember the yelling when I got inside. I don’t remember what he said but I remember the look on his face, the anger, the disappointment. I got grounded for a month that time.

Then I remembered the time I accidentally over filled the kerosene heater out in the garage. The fuel back washed all over the floor. He yelled then too. I remember trying to look down, hoping to avoid the fire in his eyes as he tore into my heart with his words about carelessness. I was always doing one irresponsible thing after another.

I don’t know why these times came to mind. I tried to turn to happier times, family trips, ball games, quiet nights at home. I tried to wrap my mind around the times when his eyes sparkled with the delight of a child. A rare instance for any adult, especially one as focused as my father.

I remember when I hit my only legit home run in Little League. I think my Dad was there for that. Yeah, he was there, I remember, as the fogginess began to subside.

I was 12 years old and we were playing in a tournament hosted by our arch rivals from the next town over. They had this fireballer, Tommy Czarsasty. We hadn’t touched him all day when I stepped to the plate with 2-on and 1 out, I think, with our team down 3-0. I missed a bunt sign and summarily drilled an inside fastball down the left-field line. I was happier than I had ever been in my entire life to that point. My Dad may have even chased down the ball for us. I still have the ball. Dad always made sure to get game balls from my big games. I keep them on a shelf at home with some of my trophies.

Home.

They say you can never go home again. I don’t know who “they” are, but I’ve heard that “they” have said that. That’s when I had this particular epiphany. This is exactly what they meant. I couldn’t go home again. I wasn’t terribly sure where home was right now. Was home the place where I grew up? The place where the swing once hung from the tall pine tree in the backyard? The place where I played wiffle ball with my friends and ran through the sprinklers on those hot summer days? The place where my Dad taught me to play baseball, ride a bike, and always do my best no matter what the challenge I was taking, big or small?

Or was my home a little off-campus apartment with my friends? The place where I was making my new life; where I was becoming my own man, the man my parents brought me up to become? The place where I shared everything with the love of my life, every struggle and every triumph? The place where I figured I would lay my head down every night until the next phase of my life would begin?

Regardless, I knew that the last time I went home, just a week ago, would be the last time I would ever see the old place. A new day was dawning…right before my eyes…whether I was prepared for it or not.

I’m not exactly sure what nondescript piece of highway we were on when I gave up the wheel. It was either the tree-lined nothingness between Durham and Petersburg, Va. along I-85 or the mostly tree-lined nothingness of I-95 north of Richmond to just south of Washington, D.C. At any rate, Crystal convinced me to let her drive and I was too tired to be macho about it.

The bad thing was that now without the focus on driving, I had more time to think. That was really the last thing I needed to be doing. My mind became cluttered with memories of my father, and the way I left him just five days ago..

My buddy Adrian and I took the train up to Philly. He was to be my traveling companion for the drive back, a 500-mile trek with my new wheels, a metallic light blue ’78 Camaro I was buying from a neighbor back home. We got in Saturday. Adrian went to visit a friend of his in Philadelphia and I went to spend time with my family at home in South Jersey.

The day was mostly uneventful, just hanging around the house and going out for dinner. When Sunday came around, my Dad wasn’t feeling too well. While my brother and I spent most of the day watching football on TV, he lay on the couch in the front room, with my mother checking on him constantly. It didn’t seem like anything major at the time. His Rheumatoid Arthritis would really take him out of commission sometimes. Other times it was the medication for his arthritis pain or inflammation that would make him feel terrible. My Mom seemed really concerned, more than usual. She wanted him to go to the emergency room to get looked at by a doctor.

It was late in the evening when he finally agreed to go. She drove him to Mount Holly to their ER some time after 8 that night. My brother and I stayed put, hearing from her several hours later that he had been admitted to the hospital “just for observation.”

I was to leave on Monday, pick up Adrian and head back to NC. I stopped at the hospital for a brief visit that morning. There he was, lying in his hospital bed, awake, but not really able to stay alert. He was there, but not so much, if you get what I mean. I only spent a few minutes talking to him. Every now and then he would ask me wasn’t I going to be late for the movie. I kept telling him I wasn’t going to any movie. So I didn’t know what he was talking about. I never really figured out where he was in his head then. The conversation wasn’t important but I do remember how it ended.

“I love you, Dad,” I whispered in his ear as I leaned over to give him a hug.

That was my Dad’s one big rule. He never let my Mom leave the house without a kiss and an “I love you.” There were always happy goodbyes for everyone in our household. And there was always lots of love at the end of our telephone conversations since I had gone away to school.

Even if he didn’t realize it at the time, I left him with “I love you.”

Somewhere awash in the memories and emotions and regrets I fell asleep. Again, I didn’t know what boring stretch of asphalt it was that we were on, but I know it was before D.C. because that’s where we got lost.

Now, Crystal is a great girl. She’s got a keen sense of sight a magnificent sense of touch, she’s got a sense of style and taste, she’s even got a little sixth sense at times, but her sense of direction didn’t make this particular trip. Somewhere in the mess of highways and byways that is Washington, D.C. she took an exit she shouldn’t have. I mean, really shouldn’t have.

When she woke me up we were closer to nowhere I had been, than somewhere I had been. The neighborhood was unfamiliar and a tad uncomfortable, it would have been downright unpleasant had it not been daylight. I have never been more thankful for daylight.

We drove until we came across a semi-recognizable thoroughfare (at least to me anyway) and, luckily, found our way back onto I-95 North. I re assumed piloting duties shortly thereafter.

The rest of the trip lacked the sort of driving focus I had before I relinquished the driver’s seat. My mind wandered and my anxiety grew. But I was on automatic pilot in extremely familiar territory now, so no thinking required here. A couple of hours later we were just about to the house.

I still don’t know why I went directly to the house and not the hospital. I had been to the hospital just a few days earlier and yet I went to the house, like I just automatically knew I wasn’t going to be able to see him again. Part of me wanted this trip to be over, and I think, deep down, I knew, it would never really be, over.

When we got to the house I wanted not to cry. It was the first time the thought even entered my mind. I guess it was the first moment that I made the conscious realization that he was gone. We pulled into the driveway and my Uncle Glen was working on my Dad’s car. I got out and started toward him on my way in. A slightly dirty air filter lay on a red shop rag on the ground in front of the car, a used oil filter beside that with empty oil containers and various tools strewn about the concrete.

He was a large man (to me anyway,) broad shoulders, former football player, a Good-

'Ol boy from Virginia, with just a touch of that drawl from his upbringing combined with the managerial professional voice that came with his responsibilities, a full, rich voice that commanded attention and was definitely manly. I thought the man was an emotional rock, a solid man with a granite disposition. Few would undertake routine vehicle maintenance at a time like this, but what he lacked in outward emotions he made up for in focus and determination. I think he was determined not to cry just as much as I was. Both he and I would disappoint, at least a little, on this occasion.

I hadn’t seen him since our last family Christmas dinner more than 10 months ago, or perhaps it was the Christmas before. Always a firm handshake and smack on the shoulder with a “How’s it goin’ there?” A polite, direct, manly greeting. Today was much different. Not even a half-hearted attempt at a smile. Arms out slightly encouraging the hug that would follow; an uncomfortable approach for him because it wasn’t his way. Uncomfortable for me because I knew what it meant. But that all went away quickly. The sadness in his eyes caused me to well up, but no tears were allowed to stream down my face. Not yet.

The hug was brief and no words were exchanged. He was allowed to fortunately resume the mindless tasks at hand as I turned toward the garage.

I gave a nod to my Uncle Conrad who was raking leaves in the backyard. He was watching my younger cousins play as he worked on his chores. He managed an unconvincing smile in front of the children as continued his efforts.

My girlfriend slowly followed behind me as I went through the garage and took the two steps up into the house. I opened the door and turned to go down the hallway which on a normal day was only about 40 feet to where everyone would sit at the kitchen table. It felt more like 40 miles.

My mother was sitting at the table with my Aunt Jayne, who got up when I came inside. My Uncle Dennis was there too, standing back toward the living room.

My legs felt heavy as I journeyed down a hallway which I had run a million times as a kid. It probably would have been less if I had heeded the typical parental suggestion of “Alright, inside or outside,” as my Mom always used to say. I wish I could take away this one last trip.

When I got to where my mother was she stood up. Her eyes were red and her body weary. I could tell her trip had been much further than mine as I wrapped my arms around her.

“He’s gone,” she whispered in my ear and grabbed me tightly.

This is a good place to stop. The rest gets more mish-moshy (more?!) and I'm not really sure how far I'm going with this story. Plus, I still have the most recent round of changes from my editor to work (this is my 5th rewrite, without any help) so I hope to post that in a month or so. Maybe I'll have an ending by then...or not. Even then it will be just one story or many, from the Incomplete Writer.

Making an impression

More powerful than a locomotive

Immediately the image of Superman popped into your head. Without launching into a diatribe on the subjects of either Superman or General Semantics (which we WILL cover later,) words paint a picture in the minds of those reached, whether those are written or spoken. However disappointing this may be, I was simply referring to my mental train, which is back on track after being derailed some days ago. I was inspired by an unexpected source and the train gradually gained speed.

One never knows when the muse will speak, but she whispers in the ear and dances across the synapses a midst the gray matter; the subtle mistress enticing you to write though it is not what you had planned. Phrases continued to leap across my brain, which led me to a Victor Hugo quote:

“Intelligence is the wife, imagination is the mistress, memory is the servant.” 

I like it. But it's a little obtuse. So I played with it for awhile and came up with the Dr. Seuss version:

"First we learn, then we create. And finally we regurgitate."

 Not my best work, but that's what we're getting to (even though I'm taking the long way around.) And now this is no longer another one sentence paragraph that will make my editor insane.

Doctor Who?

So, I'm winding down for the night and I'm channel surfing. I spot Doctor Who on the guide. The episode is Vincent and the Doctor. Hmmm, I think, browsing the description and reading that the Doctor and Amy travel through time to locate Vincent Van Gogh. That sounds interesting. I love Doctor Who and I've enjoyed an art museum or two in my day.  I wasn't expecting this to lead to so much more. (I also wasn't planning to be awake at 2 a.m., but my friends, here we are again.)

There were two pieces of dialogue that struck a chord. The first was the delivery of the Museum's Curator, goaded into commentary on Van Gogh's work by The Doctor. He and Amy had brought Van Gogh to the future to get a first-hand account of his significance, so in this fictional account, he hears:

"Van Gogh is the finest painter of them all. Certainly the most popular, great painter of all time. The most beloved, his command of colour most magnificent. He transformed the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty. Pain is easy to portray, but to use your passion and pain to portray the ecstasy and joy and magnificence of our world, no one had ever done it before. Perhaps no one ever will again."

Van Gogh is moved to tears, overjoyed at the critique. It reflected my own sentiment that pain is truly easy to portray. We are prone to find the negative more believable. We are more able to connect with pain, the kind we've experienced in our own lives. The ability to turn that into something positive is extraordinary.

The second line was delivered by the Doctor in response to Amy's disappointment that despite them bring Van Gogh to the understanding that his work was revered, he still met with a tragic and untimely death. He consoled her with:

"The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice-versa, the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant."

Ron White said it best

I'm going to break the mold here. I'm going to post twice tonight. This was merely the prequel, or as Ron White once said, "Now I told you that story to tell you this story."

Over the years, My writing is comprised of poems and essays. I've penned some lengthy journal entries and written love letters. I have some short stories in my stable as well. There is one I am quite fond of and I have been working on it sporadically over the last 20 plus years. It is long overdue to be complete, but it has a life of it's own. It has be reworked several times and I am still unsure of how it should end. I have shared it with select individuals over the years, but it is time to start sharing some actual writing here, so I will post a portion of this story as my second entry tonight.

I would share the whole story but as I mentioned before, it isn't finished yet. What else have you come to expect, from the Incomplete Writer?