TreeTopViews

I look at the old photograph by my nightstand, and there is my mother and father and my three children – as children. it’s almost regal in appearance. I feel sometimes I could reach out and touch them. It’s almost as though if I turned around they would be there. They’re not of course. My father died in the mid-60’s and my mother died in the spring of ’93. But my children are thankfully moving on in real time. They are kids in the photograph, with silly grins on their faces. Well, my daughter, who was at “that” age, is not grinning.

You would notice my missing wife. I’m pretty sure she was having a nervous breakdown, which was the occasion for the visit from my parents. I’m just as sure I was the occasion for the nervous breakdown. That was almost 50 years ago. My oh my, how time flies.

Such is the power of old photographs. My breath catches in my throat. I almost slip into morning for what is no longer there, and perhaps never was – memory being the trickster that it is.

I have not been back to Corpus Christi since leaving in ’69. In my mind, I think of that waterfront scene and imagine it the way it was. Of course, it’s different now. It would be interesting to go there and see if I could find the spot where that photograph was made – in much the same way these historical re-constructionists now do on TV. I would stand in that exact spot and take a picture and then I would be sad. So, I won’t do that.

I had driven my parents and the children out to the waterfront to see the water. It’s what you do. Just being there, near the ocean, is somehow enough. Many believe it is where it all began. We are drawn to the sea and we are drawn to the mountains. We find solace there in the “everlasting” hills, the endless rhythm of the tides. We take our fill of the comforting sameness that we find in those places. A temporary relief from the shifting realities of our daily lives.

I enjoy living near the sea. Being there is like an infusion of personal power – even hope. I touch it’s waters and feel in that touch a connection with every shore, every bay, every stream that flows into the sea. There is something primal going on there. OK, that’s kind of a stretch but you know what I mean.

I have spent significant time walking in the southern Rocky Mountains, living out of my pack. I always felt I belonged there. So did everyone else who ever visited there, I suppose. But can you forgive me for thinking it was actually true? Each time I left to drive home, I felt sad, as though I were really leaving home.

Each of us, I believe, finds a place in our daily lives that offers some semblance of that sameness and dependability that we find in our retreat to the sea or mountains. Our familiar spaces. It’s why we meditate. Dream. Walk on the beach, trek in the woods or have a beer on the deck.

My special place is my little room through which I can navigate with my eyes shut. I sometimes think, “This is it!” But, I never could be successfully consistent. I often become bored with the “self” I have found and want to do something drastic, like move the furniture around. Sometimes it is not that comforting to look around your special place and realize that the cluttered self you see is indeed the cluttered self you get. Well, I’m working on it.

I was talking to CA just yesterday about moving things around in here. Desk over there, couch in the other corner. I think my couch is too big. I know my desk is. Something more modern, perhaps, that would be more representative of who I am – I think. There I go again.

Wouldn’t it be funny if we found that we did not need to run to the ocean or climb the mountains to fine tune our identity – that all it takes is to move the furniture around? I’ll let you know. Now – I’m going to need a little muscle power. Anybody want to come over and help. Wait, I’ll clarify that: anyone want to come over and actually move this stuff for me? Maybe you’ll find your “self” under my couch, cavorting with a wild herd of dust bunnies.

Some time ago I mentioned that my new Levi jeans would not be washed, if not forever, at least for a long time. Well, they got washed anyway and no harm was done. What’s a firm resolve without a little soft yielding anyway?

So I was cruising around and ran across this blurb about a famous outfit, makers of must-have jeans in the one to two hundred plus dollar range. Now if you need to spend two and a half bucks for your butt hugging pants ( and I will concede that I have seen a few butts that could stand a little hugging ) then just go for it. But apparently these folks do offer pricy jeans for that special person who can drop $250 for their feel good pants. Cheaper than a series of visits to your neighborhood shrink, to be sure.

These people have raised the bar yet again by offering scented jeans in fragrances like apple, banana, eucalyptus and grapefruit. Wait – grapefruit? One has to wonder how many washings such jeans can survive and still smell like you just spilled your salad on them. I mean, raspberry?

I think I’ll go with neutral denim for less than $50 and hope for natural environmental aromas. You know, as in sitting on an ice cream cone, or actually spilling salad in my lap.

After wearing mine for a couple of months and deciding to wash them, I ran the old schnozola test. I bunched them up and sniffed them before and after the Tide treatment. I could not detect a remarkable difference.

There is this one disclaimer that I must mention. I can’t smell much anymore anyway. One of the side benefits of outliving your olfactory membranes.

Anyway, I’m not worried. I don’t remember anyone ever trying to sniff my jeans. OK, there was this dog. Her name was Daisy.

Through the years, I have asked various people one of my favorite questions: “Did you ever want to run away?”. I have gotten all kinds of responses, but a singular characteristic of them all was, to some degree or other, in the affirmative.

I worked with this guy once down in Baton Rouge in a chemical plant where tetraethyl lead was made. It was an extremely volatile and toxic substance that was added to gasoline. We were having a smoke about 3 AM in a designated area. I said to him, Dub – not his real name, of course – you ever want to run away? He looked at me and said quite enthusiastically, “EVERY DAY!”

He went on to say that each working day, as he drove to work, he had this strong urge to keep on driving north on highway 61 rather than taking a left turn down that mile long road toward the Mississippi where we worked at Ethyl Corporation. I confessed that I had that exact same urge. Neither of us had much from which to escape. Good families. Nice cars. Comfortable homes. And we talked about that.

What was it then? About half way through our second cigarette – we always managed two in our fifteen minute smoking break – we both decided that what was at the root of our daily angst was our truly meaningless work. Neither of us felt that what we were doing was all that important. It paid well and there was a certain amount of security. I mean, what do we tell our grandkids? We made antiknock compound so your car wouldn’t make noise going down the road? The thought did not inspire me. We both had a good laugh about that as we went back to our unit.

We thought we must have made a wrong turn somewhere back there and so every day we entertained the fantasy that if we just had a chance to begin life again we could do it better. We would find meaningful work to do. Happiness. Contentment.

Three years into that job, I quit and took my toddling family off to college. That’s the kind of impossible stuff one does when one is young. I never knew what happened to Dub. There were times in the years ahead that I didn’t know what had happened to me. I did look for meaningful work and found what I considered, at the time, to be just that. I’m not as sure now as I was then.

There is no question about it: there are situations from which it is wise to escape. A demeaning job. A demeaning relationship. A demeaning attitude. Some of us have experienced such life altering exits. Most of us have passed that left turn into meaninglessness and stayed on Route 61 North, at one time or another. For a few miles it’s liberating. Then your baggage catches up. Your mail gets forwarded. Unless you are in the Federal Witness Protection Program, your identity stays with you, however you want to interpret that.

The only fix for this unrest is finding something to do that brings meaningful peace and joy. Happiness. It may not be profitable. “Meaningful” doesn’t have to mean money. I actually never heard of money being the root of all meaning. It doesn’t have to be trendy. Who cares what the temporarily famous thinks or does? For most of us, what we are doing now is it. If you add up all the days of your life, the total amounts to what life is today.

I’d love to be able to change some of the numbers in my past. You know, make today’s total different and maybe better. Waste of time. Instead, for now, I think I’ll have a cup of herbal tea and a cookie. I’ll open my Robert Crais thriller and settle in for the evening. How’s that for the meaning of life?