Follow Your Bliss…
Well, that was Joseph Campbell’s advice anyway. And I liked it. I guess he was basically saying that the best way to approach life is to do what turns you on. Follow your passion. So when I look at various peers my age and see numerous and impressive accomplishments from people I admire and who are now at the top of their various fields…I get a bit defensive. OK, I kid that I “never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up…and I still don’t” ha ha…but I‘m too quick to equate that uncertainty with a lack of traditional “success“. In general, we all understand it to mean something …less. I settled, or maybe I did well in something that I never really cared about. But either way, there remains the inference that I need to justify my existence. My old roommate, Eric, designs one of a kind equipment for leveling and laying sod on major sports fields for name teams and colleges. Where did he get that? I guess he followed his bliss for making a better mousetrap and it brought him to the top of his field. Alex is a successful and sought after artist. Clyde is president of the Days Inn chain. Howard went from being an introvert heading out in his little boat to get away form people, stoned, fishing off of the coast of New England…to being the largest supplier of Golden Crab on the East coast. He flies his catch to New York City for shipment to China. They love the stuff and pay top dollar. Brooke came from money and made more. He’s got the picket fence house in Pennsylvania, the house at the Jersey shore, and a condo in Florida. Fucking perfect.
Me? I’ve got a modular home in a middle income development and an unimpressive resume. If someone asks me what I do, they’re asking me to give them a yardstick with which to judge me. If I tell them that I’m a realtor, that is often the end of it. Boring. When I say: “I’m a writer.” the inevitable next question is to ask if I’m published, as if to imply that there is no value in what I do if the answer is “no”. Too often we do judge a book by its cover.
But here’s the thing. The perspective of old age is helping me to erase my own guilt, my lack of having some kind of “thing” or pinnacle that I can point to and say: “I did that.” So now I look at my two daughters, both very successful as people in this world, and take some partial credit: “I did that”. Carla and I just celebrated 35 years together…we did that. Each step along the way, every old picture, releases a flood of great memories that cause me realize that I’ve been following my bliss all along. My passion for my life itself has been my life’s work. I’ve tried to make every day a great day, to celebrate the moment, to stay in balance…and generally, I have. From my perspective, I’ve lived an enviable and sensuous life…from the smell and feel of fat baby feet, dancing in the air when I would gleefully nip at a toe, the wind driven rain in my face trying to shove a cold hand down my flapping jacket collar, a dog that smells…like a dog, doing her eager best to give me a deep French kiss. These things. An intimate moment with a stranger, sharing an insight sparked by similar experiences, Carla’s hand on mine. These things, a lifetime filled with a million of these things. That’s what I wanted all along…and I’ll happily point to this life and say” “I did that”.
We went to the AYCE oyster roast at Crescent Beach last night. What a sweet deal that is, every Saturday night. They hold it on a property that sticks its nose out into the Intercoastal so you’re surrounded by water and a bright sky full of stars. A raging bonfire next to water as flat as glass splashes bright paints across the surface, reflecting the dancing flames. Everyone bellies up to long tables, waist high, mounded with piles of steaming oysters, hot sauce, shucking knives, gloves. The beer and soda is iced down in chests the size of steamer trunks… help yourself. Homemade chowder, grits, brownies for dessert. Stuff yourself with oysters, sit around the fire with a beer and a bunch of people, mostly local, that if you don’t know them personally, you certainly have many friends in common. Other than the bonfire, there are no lights by the water so the stars hang low, engulfing. Conversation is peppered with the splashing sounds of fish jumping; the fresh salt air scented with burning oak. It’s probably as close to heaven as this guy is ever going to get...
Waking up abruptly, I stare wide eyed at the clock on top of the armoire. It’s 2:55. My hours are 8pm to 3am so I‘m right on time.. Although I appreciate the comfort of the bed, as soon as my eyes open it feels more like a cell, confinement. There’s a laundry list of things to do waving for attention in my head like the human signs who dance on the side of the road, bullying other, more serene thoughts. The TV is spewing in the great room, ignored by Carla as she taps away on her keyboard, occasionally laughing at posts from her musher friend in Alaska. Then she’s singing off key to Johnathan Edwards and the Seldom Scene vocals on “Blue Ridge”. She’s in her big chair, curled up like a cat on soft pillows with matching cable knit Afghans. Strong coffee, fresh ground, calls to me. My favorite time of day. Carla tapping her fingers with the occasional glance up at a Gorilla gently showing off her baby on the Geographic channel, I have the kitchen to myself. Peering down into the great room from the window over the sink, all I can see of Carla is her knees. Dogs sleep around her as if they had been tranquilized and thrown up into the air to land in seemingly torturous positions that oddly encourage deep sleep punctuated by flailing legs and low growls for assorted villains in their dreams. Juicing oranges from our tree, frying powdered cakes of crab, shrimp, and fish, Pandora plays classic country tunes; old friends. Merle sings of “livin right and being free…” as I prepare a small plate for Carla. Her appreciation is high on my list. “How do you like the crab cakes? I added diced green onions this time. Paula Dean has a recipe that uses them.” Coffee in hand, I’ll go nest with Carla in the big chair. We talk, share time, warmth, agreement. But ultimately I can’t sit still and have to go into another room to tap my own fingers on my own keyboard. By 6am I suggest: “You look sleepy, don’t you want to go into the bed?” She vehemently denies any need for sleep. Five minutes later she’s out cold. Turning off all the electronics and darkening down the room as the sun just begins to color the sky, I head back to my computer to catch up and start my day. At these times, everything is in balance. Appreciation of that fact reminds me of what I recently told a young friend of their new baby: “Cherish every minute, it all happens at lighting speed.” and I make a mental note to take my own advice.
Fifty years ago we would have been eying the candles on the Advent wreath hung between us as we sat facing each other in the choir stalls up by the alter. Counting the candles down with each Sunday service, week by week, we eagerly approached the big day at what then seemed to be a snail’s pace. As Reverend Hardman pontificated to that captive audience, I was hard-pressed to think of anything more boring than having to sit quietly while that martini sodden windbag vomited on the willing sheep. My mind raced to get away from him…and to kill time. If I squinted at the back of the oak pew in front of me, I could see the face of a mountain man in the grain of the wood. He was a friend of Davy Crockett’s that I recognized from the TV show. John McGroarity sat in one of the pews opposite me, surreptitiously darting his tongue in and out around his lips and acting like he was loosing his mind. He did that pretty frequently, trying to make me laugh. A few weeks after he started his little show, he told me that he was “eating pussy”. Of course neither of us had ever even seen a pussy, much less “eaten“ one. I was unsure of what they actually looked like but apparently John had gotten a hold of a porn magazine somewhere that showed a man “eating” a woman’s pussy. He kept promising to bring the magazine to choir practice to show me, but he never did. It was just too hot, too volatile, to risk transport anywhere. And so, on those achingly boring Sunday mornings in December, that held the ultimate prize at the end, I sat, trapped. Squinting at Davy Crockett’s friend, the mountain man, my eyes reluctantly pulled up to catch a glimpse of John eating pussy, I fought sleep. The drone of Reverend Hardman’s narcotic assault urged me to close my eyes and shut him out. But then, finally, it was Christmas Eve. The Advent wreath had just one candle left burning, and there was only a short, troubled sleep between myself and Christmas morning.
It was the sound of birds vying for landing space on the feeder just outside the open French doors to our bedroom that first woke me up. They pulled me slowly from another dimension where people and places I’m familiar with had been put into a blender and served up like some odd Dali Gazpacho. Apparently my feeder is too small to warrant an air traffic control bird so the bickering and diving was chaotic. Of course the Blue Jays bomb in whenever they damn well please. But it was nice, I liked it. Looking past my feet I could see the first fiery clouds peeping up over the distant tree line as the sun prepared to take the stage. An older lady paused to let her poodle sniff the bank on the other side of the lake, then walked off upside down in her reflection that waved and stretched out over the water. Carla was sleeping soundly next to me, reassuringly. It all made me feel unusually…celebratory.
We had postponed making a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, waiting until Ruth was to visit the week after. But even though we loved seeing her and did lots of fun stuff, making that dinner wasn’t one of them. So while Carla slept in after an evening of running loose with the dogs late into the night, I cooked. Why not? It’s December 18th, sunny and in the 70’s and I felt thankful. Several hours later, after a very musical kitchen dance, I was done: a stuffed turkey, giblet gravy with what some would say is too much ground pepper, potatoes and butternut squash mashed together, Collard greens picked fresh from the garden, homemade organic applesauce cooked with blueberries, and a hot Pecan pie spiked with melted semi-sweet chocolate morsels that could seriously burn your tongue if you weren’t careful to eat each bite with a cold spoonful of vanilla ice cream.
I knew that Hannah was celebrating her life in South Africa as was Ruth in Venice Beach. They both understand, they get it. Every new day is cause for celebration and gratitude if you choose to look at life that way. Mother Maybelle and her girls used to sing: “Keep on the Sunny Side”, and I do. Every day is Thanksgiving day, even an uneventful Tuesday.
Thirteen years before the amazing David Lindley was hitting my sweet spot with his vocals on the Jackson Brown rendition of “Stay”. (Little did 15 year old Maurice Williams know what a monster he was creating in 1953) Frankie Valli was getting high with The Four Seasons. I wasn’t much of a fan but they were certainly as big a part of my life as…well, the family dog. Now I love dogs but that nasty Dashound was a bitch of a bitch. Anyway, I had little regard for Frankie and his peeps, or for the blue collar greasers in stovepipe pants in general. You know, Jersey boys. But, of course, I was a Jersey boy too. But I was from a white collar suburb not…Newark or something. We all have our prejudices. Trovolta’s “Danny” was foreign to me. I wanted to go sit in Washington Square and listen for whispers of Dylan or Sebastian sightings. You’ll find no Four Seasons vinyl or CDs in my collection, some 1,000 strong. But after watching a PBS fundraiser that featured the “Jersey Boys” material and realizing how well I knew the music, every word, every note... I caved. Amazon was nice enough to sell me a greatest hits collection. For over a week now, I’ve been listening to nothing else in my truck. These guys were huge, one monster hit after another, and this time I don’t have to listen to Cousin Brucie yelling at me in-between cuts. Every single song takes me back. I was so programmed by this stuff. Some things don't change, but how we feel about them may. Now it’s as if the family dog came back after all these years to ride shotgun with me. I didn't realize how much I loved that little bitch, and yes, this music too. I do keep my windows rolled up though, I don’t want anyone to hear us howl.
