Yup. That Sounds Like Me

Soooo....yeah, I was an Army officer. That fact tends to throw people considering my personality and what they assume military men are like, stereotypically. It was a hell of a four years. September 11th happened while I was in Artillery Officers' training. I was stationed in Germany. I got deployed to Macedonia and Iraq.

I also was a platoon leader for two platoons. I was fairly good at getting my guys to do what they needed to do and I sheltered them from a lot of the "Higher"-driven make-work. The soldiers typically liked me, for the most part, at least as much as they could an officer.

That said, I got out in 2005 and I've had a lot going on since then. I've forgotten some of my exploits. I was chatting with an army buddy today and he hit me unawares on one of my more notable incidents:

"We had one of those 'Auction off your job for a day' fundraisers and you made the kid who paid for your job review badly written awards while you went down to the motorpool and witnessed 13Bs [Artillerymen] being absolute dumbasses (because you were SPC Carpenter for the day)... The entertaining thing to hear from you was about your whole trip down to be with the guys where you spent all morning doing things like 'trying to hit golfballs back over the fence with mattock handles' and 'playing hours of video games', but they thought it was all cool because it didn't matter that you saw everything because you weren't the Platoon Leader for the day."

I don't remember that, but I'm proud of me. I wish I'd kept a journal.

Anybody, Really

I'll think of you every once in a while. Not at all as much as I used to, of course, when my brain was wired to all things you. No, that took a long time to break from, that focus.

Your scent. Your warmth. Your smile. The delight of your laughter. That casual, tender stroke of hair. I'll catch an echo of those and then there you are, alive in me for a brief moment.

Your scorn. Your dismissal. Your eyes, so striking, made ugly in anger. Hurt. Pain. Broken trust. Mistrust. Distrust. Banishment/exile. All that, too, comes roaring back when you pop in my mind.

You jolt and then I put you out, though, yes, sometimes, of course, I let you linger and I wonder on what might, what could have been.

If it could have been repaired, it would have. It took a long time, too long, to let you go and move on. The hardest lesson is what is is what is and always has to be.

And yet, you flash in every once in a while.

The Gap of Dunloe

We walk amongst unbridled majesty.
The air is brisk yet invigorating;
I press forward to become enveloped.
You dawdle, whine, and complain, see nothing.

I don't forget that we are animals.
I can smell the weakness oozing from you,
Bright, as though it were a widow's perfume.
Instinct overcomes my trained compassion.

I succumb to the urge to dominate;
Not physically, I have control for that,
But I unleash the full brunt of my will,
No longer hiding my contempt for you.
I sneer and condescend. You, mouse. Me, cat.

At peak, basking in your bewilderment,
I catch hold of a glimpse of honest pain.
At once, the predator evaporates,
As I, the man who attacked flesh, remain,
Ashamed and truly apologetic,
Amidst the embers of the loved one torched,
Ultimately, for no greater purpose
Than what was already known: that I could.

Though we soon finish the Gap of Dunloe,
The struggle with the beast has far to go.

The Process

I have often heard and read that the key to being successful at writing is writing every day, making sure to set out a block period of time to make sure that you write. Hemingway blocked out four hours each day. He would revise for the first two hours what he'd written the previous day and then he would write for two hours.  Clearly, that worked for him.

I use him as a base of reference, not as a comparison, when I say I cannot, and will not, do that.

There have been been several times in my life where I have written every day for hundreds of thousands of words. If I gained any benefit from that, it was from the mechanics, perhaps. While some might offer that writing daily helped me find my groove, I would counter that it also helped me dig a rut.

At this point, I should be very clear: I'm not opposed to writing every day, or writing massive quantities. What I am opposed to is forcing myself to write when I am not inspired or in the creative mindset.

I have a creative mind, or perhaps simply I have an ability for creativity. That being said, my mind is not always in a position to create. There's a time for living and there's a time for writing and when I'm not in a place, mentally, to write, I don't force it. I can't force it.

If I'm not writing a journalistic or autobiographical piece, I will simply wait. Creatively, I find my periods of not writing, "regular life", to be almost as helpful as when I am writing. I never really know when "creative mode" is going to get switched on. Something, or someone, will strike me out of the blue and then I try to take advantage of it until it runs out.  My best comes when I am irritated or agitated by something and have to get it out. It builds and builds, until it bursts out. Even then, once I finally have the idea, it doesn't all come out at once, necessarily.

My usual problem is not that I do not know what to write, but, rather, I know what I want to say but not how I want to say it. As I know what I want to say, I could bolt it on, but that is the mechanical fix. I want organic. I want it to be grown, not built/manufactured. Thus, when I get "Writer's Block", I stop writing.

As I don't write for a living, I can afford to be patient. I'm aware of my stalled project(s) when I have gotten stumped and walked away from it/them. I may even continue to write at that time, just about other things. I've come to trust that, even when not actively thinking about them, my subconscious is testing all of my experiences against my problem. For me, thinking and observing, and not writing to write, are the best path forward.

I wrote "...this...country" in about three hours. The short story that I'm trying to get published, "Homecoming", I wrote over the course of a week. That was over a year ago and it's my last completed short story. I have another, much longer, story on the shelf until it is ready to be completed. I have gone months and years on projects, waiting for "creative mode" to kick in over long periods of "regular" life. I wrote my novel over the course of three years, typically in week or two week bursts (And typically when away on vacation, because the somewhat pleasant distraction of menial tasks and mucking about with friends are the killers of my writing).

If I feel very strongly about the project, it usually doesn't take very long for the path forward to pop in. Sometimes, it does take a long time. Sometimes, I do not finish and the project dies. Hell, if I'm being honest, most times the project dies. And I am absolutely fine with that. Because what tends to happen on the ones that die is that later they get repurposed and used for new projects. Until, ultimately, I put out something I was inspired to write and that was meant to live, I will wait.

The poem I did about sailing came about from me thinking for a very long time on how I wanted to tell the story of getting caught in a storm on the ocean with my friends this past June. It was in the back of my mind for months and months. I assumed it would be a multi-thousand-word first-person-narrative short story or essay (and it still might). Instead, it came out as a poem in the course of an hour, and all the hellish fear and terror that I felt over the hours at sea was mostly left out, or perhaps was distilled and molded into an experience that I didn't necessarily have, but that was true for me nonetheless.  It became what it needed to be.

I've been "switched on" for about a month now, since a new friend sent me some of her writings, which is why I've posted a lot more than usual on here.  For the past week, I had been working on a new story that was going along quickly and smoothly until I hit that "how do I want to say that" point.  I was even talking to another friend about it last night.  I slept on it and, POOF, the way forward popped in my head this morning as I was dressing. I suspect I'll be finished later today or tonight and that it will be one that I will try to publish.

I have babbled on and on about this for a reason (besides narcissism...well, mostly).  If you're an attempting writer, see what works for you.  If the discipline to write is really what you're lacking, so be it; write every day. Block out your time.  If that's not it though, I would recommend patience, and I would tell you that it's okay not to be writing.  Living is preparing to write so you can launch into it once you're ready.

Lance Armstrong As Turnus

Perpetually bad people can (and do) do good. That's what makes them so destructive, because they gain trust that way. Perpetually good people do not do persistent bad.

Lance ruined people financially, went after them in court.

If a billionaire donates $500 million to the hungry, but smothers 5 children, he's not a great philanthropist; he's a murderer.

Benefit and sorrow are not a balance sheet where, as long as positives outweigh negatives, it's all okay in the end.

Lance did not simply deceive. He attacked. A child behaves that way, you can forgive and continue to observe and teach and they will grow out of that abject selfishness that allowed them to do that to others. If they don't progress/grow and remain that way as adults, they are sociopaths.

Sociopathy is incurable. Adults cannot grow a conscience. If they didn't arrive to adulthood with one, they won't ever truly have one. They are chameleons not empathizers. The only, ONLY, way they might is through a genuine revelation of faith because that is the purest expression of otherness. Faith and goodness are not proven through good acts but doing good acts necessarily flow from faith and goodness.

When adults like Lance Armstrong "apologize" and "seek forgiveness",  it is almost always when caught/trapped by their lies and not truly of their own sincere desire to repent.

I look to see whether those asking forgiveness and mercy do so because they feel bad for themselves (selfish sociopathy) or they feel bad for those whom they hurt (developing empathy). I have been both at different points in my life. I have dealt with both types in my life. The truly empathetic are worthy of forgiveness and it should be given.

The selfish/sociopathic?

"Great Turnus sank, his knee bent beneath him, under the blow.

The Rutulians rose up, and groaned, and all the hills around

re-echoed, and, far and wide, the woods returned the sound.

He lowered his eyes in submission and stretched out his right hand:

‘I have earned this, I ask no mercy’ he said,

‘seize your chance. If any concern for a parent’s grief

can touch you (you too had such a father, in Anchises)

I beg you to pity Daunus’s old age and return me,

or if you prefer it my body robbed of life, to my people.

You are the victor, and the Ausonians have seen me

stretch out my hands in defeat: Lavinia is your wife,

don’t extend your hatred further.’ Aeneas stood, fierce

in his armour, his eyes flickered, and he held back his hand:

and even now, as he paused, the words began to move him

more deeply, when high on Turnus’s shoulder young Pallas’s

luckless sword-belt met his gaze, the strap glinting with its familiar

decorations, he whom Turnus, now wearing his enemy’s emblems

on his shoulder, had wounded and thrown, defeated, to the earth.

As soon as his eyes took in the trophy, a memory of cruel grief,

Aeneas, blazing with fury, and terrible in his anger, cried:

‘Shall you be snatched from my grasp, wearing the spoils

of one who was my own? Pallas it is, Pallas, who sacrifices you

with this stroke, and exacts retribution from your guilty blood.’

So saying, burning with rage, he buried his sword deep

in Turnus’s breast: and then Turnus’s limbs grew slack

with death, and his life fled, with a moan, angrily, to the Shades."

http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/VirgilAeneidXII.htm

Simple. Hard.

They did wrong, so I did wrong.
They do wrong, so I do wrong.
They will do wrong, so I will do wrong.

Or

They did/do/will do wrong.
They are them. I am me.
I do/will not.

Mary Elizabeth Lattimore Connor d.2004

I remember
You'd need a chisel to get those damn lemon drops
Only eaten when I couldn't coax proper candy
(So almost never)
On the end table. Next to the show couch no one dared touch
Under the antique lamp that didn't get turned on, unless by you
At Christmas, the glass would fill with minty chocolate candies
But my, isn't this rose sofa gorgeous and comfy?

A smile. A hug. A kiss.
God knows I wasn't worth any of it.
Asking what I did that day
What does any kid do?
Or adult for that matter

You brought forth:
an aeronautical engineer
an artist dreamer
a cowboy pilot
a career officer
their children:
a mathematics professor
a nurse
whatever the hell I am
a social worker
entrepreneurs
a lawyer politician
their children? infinite possibilities

You created. 

the girl who went to Baylor for a time and wrecked her leg in a car crash a few lifetimes before I knew you
with the streaked perm that became ever grayer as they are wont to do if folks are honest

I watched you wither
Become a husk

I wasn't there when you left
Couldn't be

I always remember you