You're Never Really Lost...You're Right Here

 

I could offer excuses; reasons even.It's been too long. 

Perhaps not long enough.  I'm reminded of cleaning out my father's study after his passing. In those devastated days no one in the family 'took charge' or 'assigned tasks'. It was more a case of whoever felt up to the task was as close to volunteering as it'd come. There I sat at the desk and emptied each drawer with a mixture of dread and amazement.  He hoarded items that puzzles me to this day.  It just so happens yesterday was the anniversary of the twelfth year of his death.

The point being, I marveled at so much junk.  I'm convinced they were treasured; at some time by him. But as for us, the living, they were glimmerless. At the end of last year I became intimate with the changing around me and conjectured that all my work was floating out on the cloud. I also noticed at the end of December the tech giants were becoming more ambitious tyrants; so much so I sensed sooner than later I would be informed access to my work would come at a cost;  I just read Australia is having this wake-up call as I type.  When calculating my options I realized, I had little to none. The paper copies of my work were decades old.  I had been editing for a long time, so my treasure chest did not reflect what was real.  The documents now were left open for extortion.

I've updated my poetry, and essays, and am now standing at the fork of the road of my blog postings and my short stories along with books in various degrees of progress.  Because time is of the essence, I will attempt to generate a hard copy of them all.  During this process of active conclusion, I returned to this portal and was surprised to see how dormant I left it.  I am both aggrieved and grateful.  I'm glad the blog still exist. As I am also saddened to notice how I, along with my fellow humans, appear to default to ignoring aspects of our lives we cherish. I'll go into more depth on that later, because I choose to return and post.  I don't know who will read this. And frankly, that's besides the point of engaging on your own terms.  Independent of permission or approval. 

Isn't that what they used to call Liberty

 

Your Lucky Turn

Resolved to publish; this year by-gummy.  I revisit my folders consisting of decades of collected writing; they reside in no particular order.   No, that’s not entirely true; there remains evidence of half-hearted efforts to catalogue and categorize being taken up from time to time.  It is closer to a Swiss cheese visage compilation. Many threads defy clarity. 

Get organized, identify what am I going to tackle? Collect some into Chapbooks of poetry? 

Finish an anthology of short stories? 

Perhaps churn that anthology of loosely fitting tales into a Prose Chapbook?

Suddenly I forget what prose means? Are there, in fact, prose chapbooks even?

A moment searching Google dumps multitudinous pages of advice and links to publishers.

I am intimidated.

I am frightened by the demands of catering to the business of publishing.

The options are buzzing about my awareness like angry hornets disturbed from their nest.

Order

The pieces do not have a theme; some barely possess sense.

I’m reminded of an antiquated phrase about herding cats; a kind metaphor, because cats at least pause on occasion to groom; my work mimics closer to hornets; to ignore one is to be stung by shame for neglecting any of one’s other darlings.

Breathe, you’ve been here before.

I have this snippet of recall of Oscar being brought to the doggie day care center; Tail Wagger’s.  A chorus of barking rushes us as the car door opens.  Oscar stirs with impatient frenzy as I work to unstrap him from his doggie carrier.   I hook his leash and place him on the ground.  He pulls with the might of a farm oxen; getting to the counter is a two arm grabbed struggle; this from a ten pound dog.  The papers are signed, the pickup time noted, transferred care for a short trip to the pack; we linger to watch.

The pandemonium is elevated in earnest by the surge of breeds to the door. 

Ricocheting tails; poking snouts, all vying to get familiar.

I think of that moment with comparative dread; I cringe to consider a liken ultimate happy place

With noses up my rear

Butts in my face to kiss

What was it I really wanted after all?

A Santa Moment

I bought my wife the entire series of Downtown Abbey on DVD as a Christmas present not noticing they were Blu-ray. That only matters if your DVD is 20th Century technology. Blu-ray can play DVD's from past vintage years, but like most technology it's downward looking; meaning my technology cannot play Blu-ray because it doesn't recognize its existence;  A speaking Martian to a grape situation.
Once we realized that, I was tasked to return to our local Box store and either exchange them for an older version or get a refund. Unbeknownst to me, the current policy at most stores that carry media, once the product has been opened they cannot refund.  In the spirit of the Original Barbie Doll being worth thousands of dollars but only if she comes with her original box.  I was unprepared for this bit of resistance, but asked to speak with someone who possessed a yes vote.  I  learned over the years almost every 'associate' has a 'no' vote when it comes to questions about returning products. Few possess the elusive 'yes' that customers so urgently seek when returning products that don't meet their needs.
Brandon was gifted at listening and commiserating with me over my situation when realizing I was in the twenty-first century.  It reminded me of my Spanish teacher who painstakingly explained to us students that if we did not turn in homework we would get a zero and when computing scores they would have a negative effect on our grades.  So when students were upset with their grades they were invited to come to her office and see all those zeros and then she'd be willing to sit with them and 'be sad together'.
Recognizing I was not cutting ice with Brandon, and just about filled to the brim with "I understand, and I am sorry" I impulsively let go of my outrage and indignation and asked,
   "So how much are your Blu-ray players?"
Brandon's face lit with joy.
   "Oh they are quite reasonable, cheap actually. You can get one for under fifty bucks."
So as he took me to the Blu-ray display counter he continued to empathize with my plight, saying he really was unable to do anything about corporate policy. Now that we were best friends again (as retail clerks work so hard to convince the customer they are), He responded to some of my protest, such as why didn't they post a caution about Blu-ray DVD's not playing in older players?
   "Frankly we don't do that because its so rare that they get these kinds of problems anymore" What a subtle way of saying I was behind the learning curve. As I was checking out with my brand new Blu-ray player, I mentioned that it felt oddly like finding out there was no Santa.  The clerk at the register and Brandon smiled at me, but I could see they didn't comprehend my meaning.
   "When you were a kid and you found out there was no Santa and you paused, shocked with the news.  But you also knew you had to accept the truth of it in time.  Your world may have gotten bigger, and closer to actual, but it also became a little bit colder."
They nodded their understanding. But I realized, they were young, they haven't had enough experience with disillusion yet to recognize its a familiar part of life.  Not yet anyway.  I suspect they were just happy I didn't get violent and turn over the M&M display like the last old fart who didn't get his way.