more normal than not

There’s nothing that’s linear.

At least in my life, there’s not much that seems to travel in a straight path.

I set out on an adventure….take the first step…and then just kind of meander in a curving line towards what I hope will be a good place.

I guess I’m jealous of the breakdown that other people seem to talk about….the forceful velocity of a trip well planned….the journey with only the end in mind.

But, you know….maybe it’s the meandering that makes the adventure?

A simple trip isn’t an adventure until something unexpected happens.

A trip isn’t an adventure until you’re not sure exactly what you’re doing….but press on anyway, jumping down into the void and hoping that there’s a place to climb back up somewhere farther down the trail.

“Linear history of adventure”? Pshawwwwwwww.

Of course, it bodes well for the mental health of the people you’re traveling with to give some kind of indication that you know what you’re doing.

You have to appear to have a plan….you have to be able to mask your twisted little trail some….or people would be going crazy around you.

C…R….A….Z….Y.

That’s not a good thing.

I guess that you have to build a really strong and predictable frame to put the kooky adventure picture into as you’re painting it.

We get away as a family for some adventures as often as we can.

Jenny does a good job of planning.

I try to plan…but it’s usually just taking care of the vehicle and remembering my toothbrush.

She’s a better planner than I am.

The things that I remember the most about a well planned trip are the random bits of weirdness that we encounter in-between the planned parts….the Indian motel that had decent reviews ( “NO REFUNDS!! YOU BOOKED ONLINE!!! NO REFUNDS!!”)….the strange meals….the odd tourist traps that also had a restroom that we needed….what? There’s more…I’m sure there’s more.

Every trip has some kind of weird element….no matter how well layed out the itinerary is.

It’s the weirdness that makes it the adventure.

But here’s another meandering thought: What if you get so used to the weirdness that it becomes commonplace and kind of boring?

What if everyday, you wake up in a different place….some exotic locale….some mornings with a camel drooling on your forehead, some mornings with the tide threatening to take you out to sea, some mornings with….something else that’s kind of strange happening to you….and you experience these random bits of strangeness so consistently that it all becomes kind of routine and boring to you?

What if you look back and the meandering curvy trail looks kind of focused and straight if you can see it from the right altitude?

What if it wasn’t as strange as you thought it was?

All the history….you don’t plan a history….not completely, at least.

You plot a destination and hope that the wind is cooperating…you aim and let the arrow loose.

The history builds itself….little by little….chunks of time that only make any sense from a thousand miles….or days…. away.

And there isn’t much that feels very linear while you’re walking down a curving road.

All I can ever plan is the first step, anyway…who knows what will happen after that?

“Building a Mystery” Sarah McLachlan

There’s a big, 5 deep row of pine trees on the property we just bought.

Somewhere in its line of owners, one of the folks who lived there had connections to a family member who ran a tree farm….so there are a lot of interesting plants and trees on the land.

I guess that they planted the trees as a wind break….it’s a good-looking, giant hedge.

Yesterday, I was out doing some clearing and I started to trim up the lower branches of the trees so that you could walk around in there.

It’s like something out of a Narnia book now.

Not literally, of course….I didn’t find an enchanted wardrobe or anything….but it’s kind of interesting with its thick carpet of pine needles and the sunlight filtering through the dense upper branches.

Maybe I’m easily impressed….but it feels kind of “magical”.

It’s going to be another fun place for the kids to play when I have it all cleaned up.

Until I started in on the overgrown and dead lower branches, it was just another weird element in the conglomeration of weird elements at the new place.

When I couldn’t get in there to see what was going on it was a creepy bunch of trees.

Now it’s kind of magical.

Who would have thought it would be like that?

Pine forest….pine forest….pine forest….

My father and I used to get our hair cut at a place called Pine Forest Barbershop.

Butch and Leon….father and son.

My father would go to Butch’s side of the shop….he was the young one and would give my father the “old” haircut….the flattop….and I would go to Leon’s side for my hip long hair ….haircut.

Pine Forest.

We went there for years….I went there by myself later when I was independent and roaming around.

I’d go and get a haircut and then go eat some cheap Sweet and Sour Chicken at the Chinese restaurant a couple of buildings down the road.

It’s good to have some routines.

I don’t know if Butch and Leon gave the best haircuts in town…I think that they gave good haircuts….but I don’t really know.

It was good to go see them….see some familiar faces and feel like you belonged somewhere.

It’s good to feel like you belong.

It was just a habit….just another thing that I took for granted.

It was another thing that I did with my Father.

All of these moments….all of these mundane moments that go by too slowly….and then when they’re gone, feel like a cloud flying by in a hurricane.

I would dig out our septic tank with a garden spade if my Father could sit at the edge of the hole and visit with me while I worked.

This pine forest is carpeted with pine needles and filtered sunlight.

I build memories whether I’m good at it or not.

This is my shot to give something away before I go.

I wonder if the quiet routines will be the things that my children remember?

I wrote a post about Walt Stack yesterday that got me thinking.

The wheels were turning….the rust was flying.

While I was thinking, I thought of the phrase “I’m not there right now…”

What a great phrase!

It really let me off the hook.

Of course, it’s obvious that I’m not “there” right now. I sit and drive the mail, I sit and write this blog, I sit and watch other people carve out an existence in the deep north woods….I sit and watch funny people do funny things.

I sit.

I don’t get up at 2 in the morning and run 17 miles…or swim in the icy bay off the coast of California.

That’s not where I’m at right now.

The deeper I got into that phrase, though, the more I liked it.

It gives the false and nebulous impression that I might have been somewhere like it at some point in my life.

I was a world-class endurance athlete….sometime in the past….before I started “sitting” all the time.

Of course, that’s not true. I was a turtle….slow and steady….enjoying the wind on my face as I shuffled through another mile.

I wasn’t “elite” at anything.

But people don’t know that. They might think that I’ve retired from competition….or that I’m just taking a short break from being a world beater.

And, on the other end of the statement, it makes it seem that when the break is over, I’ll hit it hard again and burst from my shell and fly.

So…one magic phrase is explanation, excuse….and promise.

That works for me.

Of course, in Walt Stack’s case, I’m sure that one morning….maybe one very hungover morning, considering his habits…..he slipped into a pair of sneakers and walked and then ran out his front door to start a decades long odyssey.

He wasn’t….and then he was.

A wave of the hand….a blink of his eye….and he was off and running.

None of this happens by accident…none of this happens “to us”….but we don’t become something “grand” all at once, either.

I’m not there right now.

What’s the old phrase? “Wherever you go….there you are.”

Wherever….and always “someplace”.

The little spark that makes a little flame that makes the frog jump off the log…..no, that’s another story….that either makes something that warms and uplifts….or burns your house down.

“or burns your house down”? Crap….that’s not good.

That’s bad.

I stand and stare at the elephant with a fork in my hand….forgetting what I’ve heard about a “bite at a time”.

All I can see is what the end is supposed to be….to the point where I can’t make the little chunk I’m living “right now” better.

I need a better pair of reading glasses….I’m missing stuff that’s close at hand….I’m missing some details….I can’t read the instructions.

I’m not there right now.

It’s hard to be “present”….between what I remember about the past, and what I’m trying to figure out about the future, it’s hard to live in the moment.

I love the cloudy promise of a phrase like “I’m not there right now”.

I can make it if I can just figure out how to jump out of my own way.

I already know that.

Right now.

“Bail My Boat” David Wilcox

I don’t understand what they mean by “going postal”.

I mean, I’m glad that I don’t “get it”….that would be a bad thing.

I guess that some people get pretty upset when they fully realize that they’re just a cog in a big and impersonal machine.

But not me….I thrive on “cogginess”.

I’ve got a little core of individuality that nobody can touch, anyway.

Nobody sees it and nobody touches it.

It’s my secret place.

But this “going postal” thing is bothersome.

I don’t hear about a lot of damage caused by postal employees….but we have a reputation for being tightly wound springs….ready to go off while we’re driving around listening to reggae music.

I don’t think that’s necessarily true.

I might go off over something….but it won’t be about the mail.

“Going Postal”? Pshawwww.

What a bunch of weirdness. Why don’t they say “going ‘meat packing plant’ ” more often? That seems to be where the problem is….not the Post Office.

I was thinking this morning that I’m turning into the perfect Postal employee.

My eyes are getting bad and I’m feeling stiff and my middle looked suspiciously soft when I snuck a glance at myself in the mirror after my last shower.

I’m turning into the perfect mushroom who can stand sitting in a car waving his arms around with pieces of paper in his hands.

I’m perfect for the job.

Now, I may not be the most organized character around….I may not know all the rules…but I care about my customers and do my best to take care of them.

That’s kind of fun to handle things in a way where I don’t get in trouble for doing a bad job.

That’s a good thing.

This physical transformation is wacky to see.

I’m getting older.

Then I started to wonder if that downward slide towards soft and stiff (what’s that? an oxymoron?) was something that could be avoided?

Is that inevitable that we get kind of “old” when we get kind of old?

I know that doing the mail is pretty inactive.

I move around and stuff…but aerobically, delivering the mail is not at the top of the list of fitness encouraging occupations.

I’m a Postal Slug….like all the rest of them.

But is all of these physical changes something that I have no control over?

Is it Father Time who is doing this to me…..or just slugginess?

Can I fight this transformation without “going postal”?

I am going to have to sit at the computer and really spend a lot of time researching exactly how to combat the effects of sitting at a computer or sitting at work and the damage it causes to me….physically.

Or, maybe, I should just sit back on a porch somewhere and sip my ice tea and revel in the exchange of wisdom for my youthful vitality?

Maybe that’s when the real aging takes over? When we accept that we are OLD….and let nature take over and run its course all over us?

All I know for sure is that I’m changing….morphing….evolving like a radiated X-man or something…turning into Postal Slug.

I’m changing….every day.

I might have been 12 years old when my neighbor gave me 3 random 45s that his father was getting rid of.

It would have been right after we moved to Georgia….and it seems like I remember turning 13 that first year….so I might have still been 12 years old.

This song was one of the 3 singles that I was given.

I think that one was “Court of the Crimson King” by King Crimson….and I can’t remember the other one.

I put this on my little record player…and was transported.

I was informed….I was influence….I was transfixed.

“BE BLACK, BABY, BE BLACK!”

Grady Tate!! A cool singing drummer….

That was something I never heard sitting around the table eating lefse.

That wasn’t a sentiment that made any sense in a Norwegian household.

Anyway, this song became the subject of much internal reflection.

“You’re walking down the street and everyone you meet is going to step to the side and stare… cause you’re feeling good and you know you should because there’s black cats everywhere!”

I’m quoting that from memory.

All these years later, I’m quoting that funk song from memory.

I didn’t know how that would feel….to see everyone “step to the side and stare”.

I am a little white man.

That song was so cool.

Of course, it could have gone the other way(s)….I did have 3 singles now, you know?

I could have obsessed over the cool King Crimson song….and spent all my time waiting for the Fire Witch to come back to the Court of the Crimson King.

It could have all gone down like that….instead of me fantasizing about strutting around going “hoo, hoo…” and imagining altering my pigmentation for the sake of being a little bit “cooler”.

It could have gone so many different ways.

This is the guy who wrote “Be Black, Baby”….Eric Kaz.

Who woulda thunk it.