How did that happen?

As a kid, my mother would occasionally say, "You know, when you get older, time speeds up."

Back then, when she said it, I scoffed and sighed, wishing I was already older, that I was out in the world with so much ahead of me instead of bored beyond words staring out the window waiting for something to happen.

Two days ago I said out loud, "I am halfway between college graduation and retirement. These are things I have to think about."

That sentence is still echoing in my head. And there's this flavor of residual horror in my mouth.

Was I abducted by aliens? Was I lazy in remembering to enjoy myself? Should I have been more meticulous in my documenting of the life I've lived? Should I just try to forget it all or try to remember it all? Should I call my mother and apologize?

I think of her not only because she was so fond of that phrase I did not believe, but also because I am releasing the second book in my seven-volume "Little Deaths" series via Obelus Projcts tomorrow. The book is ostensibly about my father passing away when I was 13, on the second day of eighth grade. But it's really about my mother in many ways--about seeing her from an adult perspective for the first time in my young life, and realizing that she could not be many of the things I thought I needed her to be at the time.

Today, I am one year older than my mother's age when my father died. I cannot even fathom what it might be like in my current brain and body to have three children, a partner who has suddenly disappeared, and a lack of workforce skills or understanding of what to do next. I've of course experienced my fair share of deaths since that time. But writing this made me understand more acutely what it means to be the one who is still alive after a person is gone.

There are parts of this story of the year after my father's death that still make me cringe, tear up, smile, and even chuckle. I also know that one's faith is a very personal thing, so my story of losing it is perhaps not for every one; it's not universal. But it is true.

Time does indeed seem like it keeps speeding up, Mom. Let's stop worrying about it roaring past us as we stand there, feeling helpless. Let's run and catch up with it.

Deal?

Done. Now Start.

What's that annoying word people use to make you feel like you did something that's allegedly super-human?

Oh, right, it's "accomplished."

That word makes me feel like a part of my brain fell off and is now rattling around inside my head so that whenever I hear it, the sound of the word is overwhelmed by the perceived rattling of a chunk of flesh against my skull.

Not that I think this little book I am holding in my hand is not kind of cool. But let's be honest. I've not even managed to update this blog in years and I've been known to spend whole weekends watching YouTube videos. I've never adopted a "writing schedule" and I am totally unable to quote passages from my favorite books. 

But look at that: a book I made. Without necessarily holding on to some traditionalist view of what it means to be a writer.  There it is. And when I first saw it, I burst into tears. 

You see, I grew up pretending I was going to be a writer. I copied movie scripts and fictionalized them at age 12. I wrote horrible poetry--as we all do--at age 16. I crafted two novels in college and in my 20s that, even judging now, weren't so bad.  But writing as a way of life or a profession takes certain elements and character traits I simply don't possess. I realize now a big chunk of that is the complete lack of financial security being a writer entails. But THAT is an entirely different post. 

What I will say is that I am full of good ideas that never come to fruition. And I suppose many people who pursue any kind of creativity--whatever that means for them--would say the same. 

That little book in my hand was an idea that showed up in the chunk of my brain not rattling around against my skull about 10 years ago. I had written these three weird stories/essays about death because I was going to put together a book proposal and sell it to an agent and then to a publisher and I was going to spark some trend and someone was going to pay me a high five-figure advance because they believed they could sell me to The New York Times, Oprah, or at least Mental Floss magazine.  But. But. But. Wait. 

I'd worked in book publishing. I knew how this would go if I went down this path. And it was not how I wanted it to go. I didn't want to have to do this...song and dance...about what it "meant to be a writer." I didn't want to hope that selling myself meant finding someone "sympatico" or even sympathetic.

I looked to a musician whose work I very much admired as an inspiration. She had left her record label behind and decided to be entirely listener supported. I couldn't do that of course since I did not have 20 years of audience support. But I could find a way to make the book or books I wanted. Surely. What I lacked in financial resources I made up in my personal relationships. It turns out that when you tell people of an idea you have, they *support* you and they might even want to be *involved* in it.  My muses were my friends, ex-lovers, co-workers, casual acquaintances. I did my own grassroots PR for so long talking about these little books that when it came time to actually finish this first one, I knew exactly what to do.

I realize now I had some living I needed to do in order to make books about the dead. 

I needed to know exactly how to say what I wanted.

I needed to be comfortable with saying no. And yes. And I don't know.

It still took a few years past this point of having friends work in their spare time. Of fretting over a story tweak. Of wondering if this was just a vanity project by a middle-aged man. There are much worse vanity projects to have, let's be honest. And vanity is still the hope of telling a good story. Of showing how talented my friends--and artists in their own rights--are. Of wanting to share stories.

So I don't see it as an accomplishment per se. To me it was meant to be in one way or the other. And now it gets to be more than just something I told you once upon a time. It's an object. A story. A collaboration. A labor. A wish. A lark. A book.

xo-M

p.s. www.obelusprojects.com

One of Us, One of Us

I'm not going to pretend that I even understand all of the history, sociology, biology, literature, and more involved with the issue of marriage. (And not to sound obnoxious, but I probably understand more than a lot of people do.) But doesn't the notion of marriage seem like the equivalent of asbestos tile and avocado-green appliances? Just a little bit? An iota?

I am not trying to be cynical about the idea of spending a substantial chunk of your life with a person or persons who challenge you, complement you, teach you, love you, and who add to your world view as much as they do to your nighttime or morning routines. Those things are awesome and maybe the only time I'll use the word "blessed" in any way is when I think of the fact that I've had the pleasure of experiencing those things--and that I still do on a daily basis.

But there's this nagging thing about marriage for me: It just feels wrong--like a state of being with strings being pulled by the government and corporations to ensure that you act in a certain way and that you are tied in to an economic system that is short-sighted, mean-spirited, and that in the end does not let everyone enjoy the same benefits.

We have it shoved down our throats from day one--and have for a great part of the last century: This is what you're supposed to do. This is supposed to be what you want. Look at all the financial benefits to being married. You should find this or there's something wrong with you. Sure, people/animals (which we are) pair up, have sex, sometimes have kids/offspring, and sometimes stay together for a long time. Sometimes they don't. But who really has the vested interest in us being coupled, buying houses and cars most of us can't realistically afford, and keeping everything from Babies R Us to Crate and Barrel in business? Just because you love someone and possibly want to have a child, this is what you are supposed to do? Why?

There are so many tangents I could explore at this point--from the way the housing market is used to signify economic health in this country to discrimination against single people to the idea that religion is somehow supposed to be the bedrock of all of our social policies--but only if you're Catholic or Protestant. (But do allow me to say that I remain mystified by conservatives who say government should have little role in our private lives, but then run to the government to scream that same-sex couples shouldn't have any rights precisely because of their fear of what we do in our private lives.)

Do I believe everyone should have the same rights? Of course. But I worry that marriage as a "final hurdle" is really just part of a path to a false goal--one in which assimilation is prized more highly than anything else, and anyone who remains outside of these so-called norms is not seen as revolutionary, but, rather, a menace.
Then again, so many of us already do exist outside of this narrow, media-reinforced, capitalist-fed idea of what "normal" is. Remembering that, and relishing the ways in which to change it together, is an inspiring task.

Self-Discography #17: "Hot, Cool & Vicious" by Salt 'N' Pepa

I am not a black female rapper.

The fact that I physically couldn't be was only luck of the draw. Happenstance. It was simply a technicality. If I was supposed to be anything I wanted, this was something I was going to leave on the table, genetics be damned.

I banished the thought.

In retrospect, I know why, at the age of 13, this was my vision for myself. A childhood diet of sweet radio-friendly pop and disco, gloomy rock that was little more than a D&D soundtrack, and male MC-fronted rap that did nothing but boast about its importance and a desire to be indomitable created a palate that needed something else. Add to the mix two other details: my closest friends were all female; my school more black than white. Drop something like the irresistible "Push It" into the middle of that and suddenly ambition was everywhere--from simply wanting to dance better than your classmate to trying your hand at scratching out rhymes in your notebook.

I had a personal phenomenon on my hands in 1986, but not yet the brain to see what it meant: an acute mix of feminism, upward mobility desire, and the freedom to identify on a public level with two African-American women who were not dressed in low-cut dresses and playing the role of lover/girlfriend to any number of the world's Keith Sweats. These were gender roles turned on their heads. This was a reflection of the girls I knew--strong, funny, already their own people. And this flew in the face of all that was expected of me.

Gay boy in training. Posse of female friends. Salt 'N' Pepa. Yeah, it all makes sense. In fact, it's become a cliche now that pop culture nostalgia is something we consume on a daily basis. But when you first experience it, when you are so strongly drawn to something, you only know how you feel.
And what I felt was that I could play my cassette copy on my fake Walkman for hours on end, memorizing and mouthing phrases that would become part of my vocabulary--and often shouted/sung--for the next 25 years:

"You ain't gettin' paid, you ain't knockin' boots, you ain't treatin' me like no prostitute."
"Your mouth is gettin' sassy, don't make me have to hit it."
"And another thing? Please take off my gold ring."
"You ain't Alice, this ain't Wonderland."
"Have you ever been to jams where people just stand? They pay to come in and they don't even dance."

I knew then as I know now that "Hot, Cool & Vicious" is a bit of a mess: a murky mix of pop-leaning hip-hop with often-simple but still catchy rhymes, sometimes even repeating the same word to make sure it hangs together. But the simple, stuttering drum beats, hand claps, and deft sampling of classic R&B and soul kicks it into a category of its own. Salt 'N' Pepa were not the first female MCs, but their interplay, their attitudes, and the playfulness--the feeling of being in on a very serious joke--is still necessary, a reminder that your can define "femininity" (and by extension "masculinity") the way you want.

And I just realized.

If it's all about word choice, delivery, attitude, self-respect, and creating sex appeal based on your talent and brains as much as your body ...

maybe I really am a black female rapper.

From 1986.

Finally.

Flux/Home

"If I'd known leaving every home would get me here, I would have gone sooner."  

There's home to be found nowhere--stability in being thoroughly dislodged.

I try to remind myself of this before I go anywhere. I may only be driving for the pleasure of driving. I may be sitting on a plane for 12 hours to emerge in a place I feel I have always known. I long for home and long to be untethered. I dream of my own bed and dwell on those that will only be mine for a few hours--things to be seen and felt for a brief period before they disappear into my memory, objects I will never truly know again.

I had an English teacher in middle school who was fond of telling us to explain the moments between the moments. In other words, don't tell me where you went and the "foreignness" of it; detail the steps you took on the pavement. Describe how the air smelled in that moment you descended a flight of stairs. Can you capture the emotion of the music you hear while traversing a public square? It's a simple writing prompt, but I summon it whenever I can. I like to collect facts, but I am always interested in coloring in their outlines with those moments. Don't just keep a journal that's a black-and-white list. Make it an explosion of colors. Create your own synesthesia.

Forward/backward: dual vision. I feel it as a language. I can speak it, write it, but not clearly translate. Which is the point. My writing about the places I go is at once perfunctory, an outline, and utterly nonsensical--an inside joke I hope no one ever has to try to unravel. For someone who has been guilty of saying structure and clarity are the main tenets of my writing, the mess of these travelogues is, frankly, refreshing.

I am shelving and filing the notebooks today and packing a leather booklet and multiple pens. I am flexing the muscles in my fingers, wishing them into paintbrushes. I am dreaming of the countries I've waited 25 years to see. I want to make a home out of each of them.

Marveling

I never feel quite so typically American as when I get to drive down a ribbon of highway in the middle of a beautiful landscape.

Perhaps it's a moment for which only one raised on a steady diet of car commercials can pine: in which the asphalt is slick but not slippery, where the surf meets dramatic cliffs, where the snowy mountains beckon in the background. Of course, the underlying message is "If you can afford to buy this--and even if you can't, you should--you, too, can have this bird-like euphoria and throw off the shackles to experience nature without really experiencing it."

I just can't help it. I understand so clearly how much I like to drive, what a waste of fossil fuels it is, and how I've been force fed keywords and emotional adjectives about what that experience "should be." None of this, however, keeps me from feeling emotionally overwhelmed on a backroad, or from staring at atlases and maps, plotting a potential road trip. I want to see where the faint grey lines, in particular, lead. I want to have three weeks to tour through what some may consider a wasteland and others may be too nervous to explore. I think of the five or six states I have still not seen; I wonder how silent a place can be; I try to remember the last time I saw an explosion of stars overheard.

A few weeks ago, I shunned the interstate through the middle of California to thread my way up and over the mountains of Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. On this tiny road that seemed to serve no real purpose, there were almost no people--just a dry riverbed and giant pines growing up out of collapsed rock faces. When stopping to get a look at the vista of craggy brown mountains and scrub giving way to the secluded valley below, the only thing I could hear was the wind and a faint hum of insects. It impressed upon me the moments over the last 30 years where I've had these moments of falling in love instantly with a view and knowing I might forget the details: Badlands covered in fractured piles of snow and ice; a brilliant patchwork of New England fall as seen from a hillside; the dangerous beauty of the red rocks of Utah in July; a rain forest on the Oregon coast; an almost indescribable vista from an empty Alaska highway that runs in the steep shadow of a mountain chain.

I wish we were all allowed these blocks of time to explore our own country, to see what we often only get to imagine, and dream with these images burrowing into our brains. It's an ideal I will aspire to later in my life, I think. I make jokes of retiring in the California desert--of moving as far away as possible from the sound of helicopters, screeching brakes, and strip malls. But what I am really doing is writing itineraries in my head. I am memorizing routes, numbers, possible roads that could be washed out in the spring and closed in the winter. I am imagining roads that don't even exist. I am committing myself to a life in which marveling is as integral as sleep.

Liner Notes for a Lost Mixtape

Dear ____:

What do you want to hear? What state of mind are you in? What's happening, has happened, or maybe will? How do I remember you? How do I think of you when I am alone at 2 a.m.? When is the last time we talked? Did we laugh? Were you frustrated? Were you perhaps mourning someone who left you unexpectedly, or was it that you woke up from a years-long sleep and saw the world differently? I think I know.

The keyboard may fade into the ether. That guitar fuzz might come to an audacious full stop. This singer isn't the best, but damn, listen to those words. I see nothing wrong with book-ending '80s-inspired synth with heartland folk. You always did like to dance. We always did like to drive at night and smoke cigarettes and sing along until our voices were hoarse. I always wanted to be able to make sound like this. I always wanted you to notice why you're so special to me. Did you ever wonder, too?

Will these songs tell the future? Will they make you smile as you clean the house and dance along in the process? Or will you misplace this and find it years from now wondering what was happening the day you received it? Will that just dredge up a shard of the past you would rather forget? Did you think maybe I wouldn't notice? Did you believe I wasn't thinking about you? Do you understand how that isn't possible? I think--and listen--all too often.

Sometimes I want the music to go on forever--a constant stream into your house, your ears, filling any gaps that have been opened and feel empty. This is poetry. This is fortune telling. This is truth. My brain and my mouth won't get in the way. I feel it like a waterfall cascading upon my head, stunning and crisp. I want to sing to you. I want you to join in. There is still time to jump in the car in the middle of the night. There's still time to do the things we always wanted. You know that, right?