Who Dad?!

Interlude

Things are getting so strange, I feel I must counteract what feels like an unraveling and reach out with some gratitude.

Dear Social Media Family:

the ones who post and the ones who don't; those I never hear from and those whose voices are always heard; those the camera loves more, or less, than others; the ones I've offended and the ones I can't quite understand; those I've traveled with, or towards, or from; the ones I admire and the ones who inspire; those I've wanted to love, once loved, still love, and never loved; and to the adversaries who became friends; the co-conspirators and even you whacky ones; the cartoonists, comics, musicians, artists, scientists, photographers, and fellow singers, all gathered here; those who will read every word and those, both living and dead, who won't; the former (and present) classmates, colleagues, students, teachers, partners, neighbors, and survivors of all kinds; those who were extraordinary gifts of fate and chance, which include the relatives of blood, life, and marriage; a reproductive mate and an offspring; and, of course, to every one who ever struck a golf ball and wondered at its trajectory . . . to each and every one of you, with hand on heart, I salute, smile, nod, and thank you for your presence in the haphazard composite architecture I gratefully call my life.

That helped.

And it also got me thinking about what a salute is. We know it from its military usage signifying order of rank and respect, but its origins perhaps stem from when knights in armor would raise visors to divulge their identity.

The similar hand motion remains but with little of the original motivation. What has been lost is the critical piece: the revealing of the human beneath the armor.

Now, the armor is invisible, fashioned into the warrior's persona, so there is no gesture, actual or symbolic, that would allow the humanity to emerge.

I wonder how much of modern soldiers' suffering —PTSD, depression, suicide — is a direct result of not being able to shed their armor?

I suppose I unconsciously chose to use that word because I am grateful for those who are revealing something of their true selves to me and for those who are accepting and acknowledging what I am attempting to share of myself.

Everything I begin to write leads me somewhere unexpected. It is an older man's version of creative mining. But I did not always have the commitment to the craft.

I once questioned a now celebrated author when he was unknown to others, but sat at the desk next to mine at the University of Arizona. We were fellow teaching assistants. He was older and a degree ahead. The conversation with him I most remember began when he politely refused yet another afternoon bar invitation, preferring instead to stick to working his craft. I didn't understand his priorities then.

In the forty-some years since, his literary ascension is easy to follow. Mine requires explanation. However, on the verge of turning 69, I finally understand what he meant when he explained that it was simply more painful to not write than to write. This was not an attractive endorsement to my twenty-year-old ears.

Nor did I feel as the star of the UA Creative Writing program I was in did when he said, "I'd cut my balls off for a place in literary history." His work was what we were all eager to read back then. No one knows that star of yesteryear today. Last time I ran into him, he was no longer writing, but had found something in therapy and relationship that finally saved him from the excess of living the image of the wild writer's life.

As a young man, I was both drawn to and repelled by his apparent lack of fear or boundaries, while uninterested in the drudgery of the craftsman's life. Today, after all the challenges of actually living rather than deciding a life, I can say what is true for me: I love language, discovering where it leads and what it reveals. If any of my words can assist or inspire another, the blessing is doubled.