Category Archives: Uncategorized

Roadside | Flash Fiction

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The only thing left is a photograph. Lilian holds it carefully, taking pains not to wrinkle or smudge. She studies the image, trying to imagine what the girl pictured of 28 years ago might possibly be thinking. Ten years old, she stands, smiling into the camera where her mother and father are watching her and she is still believing that life is fair and orderly and kind. That good things happen to good people. That there is meaning and purpose to everything. She is standing roadside in the desert. The front end of the family station wagon peaking to the left. This is quick stop lunch break on a family vacation. The sun is bright and happy. The family is happy and smiling. They are going somewhere. Together. They are laughing. Life is still good.

The girl is ten and Lilian desperately wants to tell the girl to be careful, not to let herself feel too happy. That feeling of easy contentment, of thoughtless confidence and ease. That feeling soon leaves and there is a crushing pain in the vacuum it has left behind.

This picture from that afternoon 28 years ago. She threw all the other photographs away. Let them go to rot. This was the only picture that mattered. This one was the only truth. Ten year old smiling into the unseen future self, that unseen future self staring back. And the emptiness that 38 year old Lillian feels, the gulf that separates them. One is a child who still has parents. The other is 28 years orphaned, which is a way of saying 28 years lost, 28 years bewildered.

The picture girl stands beside the car like she has all the time in the world. She doesn’t realize that all of the time has run out. That life is about to skid and careen, brakeless, into a deep ravine. The body of the car split by guardrail. The bodies of her parents pushed to paste. That girl doesn’t realize how fleeting these moments really are, even the good one, especially the good ones fixed on paper for the future self to see, to remember. She doesn’t yet realize how fearfully long, how interminable the days that pass from them to now. Life is short. Life is long.

And yet, as Lilian studies the photograph taken on the last day of her parents’ lives, she realizes that the girl has something to tell her. Something urgent. What is it? Lilian leans in, watching and listening. As if the girl can speak. As if the scene itself can escape the neat, well-ordered frame.

The girl is holding a half-eaten sandwich. A thing made for her no doubt by her mother. Some quick-made tasteless potted meat on white. What she wouldn’t do to enjoy that sandwich right now. A sandwich made by a mother for long summer car ride between somewhere and somewhere. Enjoy. Chew slowly.

I love you, too.

Crafting Community: Impressions of Campbell Folk School

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We come to Campbell Folk School to craft some thing – a bowl, a scarf, a decorative rod of forged steel, a poem. We come to study and practice our crafts and, in the learning, we create for ourselves an entire community.

Find your community, the instructor tells us. This is imperative. Make a commitment and build your audience. And we set to work.

The writing is easier and better here, more forceful and clear, in the company of others. You meet gifted artists who don’t recognize their own gifts, people, who, like you, are plagued by self-doubt. You begin to notice that the joys and challenges and struggles are universal. You aren’t doing this thing alone. People notice your work. Your specific work. A specific line. A specific tone or phrase. And when they praise, you trust them because of the specificity of their praise. And you take second and third hard looks at your own work to help it be ready to share.

And the generosity of the instructor, laying down sheaf after sheaf of poems, a riot of prompts and exercises. You meet the older fellow, a librarian like you, but struggling today with his nerves, not sure he has found the right words to say what needs saying. You work it through together. Celebrate discovery of the right words. You laugh. You share. You allow yourself to be ridiculous, to say possibly stupid things. You are excited by everyone else’s success. Their success is your success.

The meals are a community of first name neighbors. You eat with black smiths, weavers, musicians, wood turners. In their other lives they are engineers, teachers, research economists. They gather here from Tennessee, Ohio, Florida, Russia, Bulgaria. You pass the bread. You offer each other second and third helpings. You clear the table together. You bring each other coffee. The meal is locally sourced and unbelievably fresh. Michelle jokes that the salad is so fresh someone found a snail in theirs.

And you befriend the elm outside your workshop door. It stands majestically tall, like a magical giant from another age. And only as you are driving home do you realize that the archaic majesty of this mighty tree is a true thing. This tree is thing you have never seen. There are no more elms where you live. They all died of Dutch Elm disease before you were born.

We offer our poetry aloud at 7:30 morning song. People listen. They comment. They applaud.

And in this spirit of wide generosity, poetry is moving. You are writing more today than you wrote the entire month of May. And it is good, strong writing. It is connected, specific. It has something to say.

This place draws art out of you. It helps you believe you are capable of creating beauty. It helps you remember that the effort of art is worthwhile.

And the sunlight is a smiling force. And there is harmony and all is well and all is right and you are finally ready to claim the gifts you have picked up so many times before only to set them right back down again. This time, you know, you can hold on to them. You can shape those gifts into a craft and let those gifts shape you.

This is why you are here. It is why any of us are here.

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Easy Outrage

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Let’s stop moralizing with each other. There are no rules anymore. Kathy Griffin did an outrageous thing. I don’t care. Every day since November has been full of outrageous things. Just this week I have woken up to news reports about a Congressman elected to office the day after publicly assaulting a news reporter and a Texas state legislator who threatened to shoot his colleague in the head as his solution to a peaceful but inconvenient demonstration in the state chamber.

Meanwhile, our country is preparing to abdicate responsibility to my daughter’s generation by stepping out of the Paris Climate treaty. New health care laws are coming that no one actually wants or understands. We are staring down a budget that systemically underfunds education, science, and welfare assistance. Nine years after the Great Recession, we are already deregulating the very industries that recently crippled our economy with unbridled greed and excess. Across the country, state legislators pontificate about limiting the role of government in our personal lives while blithely extending the reach of government into the vagina of every woman of childbearing age. Shameful.

Kathy Griffin doesn’t matter. She can disappear. Like all celebrities, she only gets to have the power we lend her with our attention. Our tweeting, celebrity president understands this very well. His rise as candidate was fueled by mendacious assertions that the sitting president was not a United States citizen. Our civic discourse has been downhill ever since.

This isn’t democracy. This is celebrity culture run amok. These people aren’t serious people. They don’t even pretend to address the needs of our time. They hook our attention with sensational acts, inflammatory tweets. We feed them in turn with our easy outrage.

Don’t be fooled. Easy outrage is a trap to keep us constantly dispirited and deeply distracted. Easy outrage keeps us fighting against each other rather than making common cause to fix our dangerously broken system.

Today it was Kathy Griffin. Tomorrow it will be someone else. It doesn’t matter. Keep your seat. Try to stay focused. Save your powder. You are going to need it.

Talent Show

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Tonight we enjoyed the elementary school talent show. My daughter chose not to perform but we went to support her friends. There was singing and dancing. A few guitar and piano solos. A violin duo. Two magic acts. Martial arts. A break dancer on a pogo stick. An Elvis and Michael Jackson tribute. Ukulele punk rock. A girl who solved two Rubic’s Cubes with ACDC’s Thunderstruck playing as background music.

I was struck by the bravery of these kids standing on stage and showing themselves — their interests, their passions. Some of these kids were already well-trained in their talents. Otherwise were just finding them for the first time. These kids were audacious and wonderfully weird.

I began wondering how many of these same kids would make it through middle school still as eager to stand in presentation before all their peers and be so bravely, unapologetically themselves, so wonderfully weird. I hope all will, but I fear too many will not. Something tragic happens to us sometime between elementary school and adulthood. Just as we begin to explore and understand our passions, our curiosities, our interests, something tells us to stop being silly, to set those things aside. We begin to question our innate riches. We stop ourselves from exploring. We surrender our talents.

We make too much of talent, I think. We praise it too highly in others and too often fail to credit very much of it in ourselves. The elementary school talent show is a reminder that we are all innately talented. We can’t all sing beautifully but we can all sing with exuberance. Discovering and developing a talent is a wonderful thing. Better than talent is the courage to stand in front of your peers and be known as you truly are – audacious and wonderfully weird.

Books are Dangerous

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Books can be dangerous. They can infiltrate your mind with some else’s ideas. Books can disrupt your sense of certainty, warp your sense of the universe as a well-ordered place. Books can upend your previously held convictions. Books can instigate a full or partial code switch on your moral code. It happened to me.

I read two books recently that are having a profound effect on the way I think about myself and my relationship with the world: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Harari and A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn. I think about them both through out my day. This post is not reviews of those two books. I’ll write that soon. This is just quick capture of a few things I’ve been working through since reading these two books.

From Sapiens: an understanding of storytelling and narrative as mankind’s most powerful technology. Narrative shapes our perceptions and beliefs. Narrative helps define us for each other what is possible. Narrative is the operating system. Religious belief, national identity, racial identity is the software running on the system. The software adapts and changes to suit the needs of the time. We think humans are the fixed apex of the evolutionary chain but everything that lives evolves. Our species continues to evolve. We aren’t fixed. There’s likely to be species after us. After reading Sapiens, I am captured in wonder at how much different our world might be if, as individuals, we could learn to see ourselves as part of  a larger species that comes before us and continues after us rather than isolated individuals crowding together in communities. And that species-conscious individuals might be driven to consider more carefully the true consequences of our actions and behaviors, how everything we do either helps or hinders the continuation of the species.

And from A People’s History of the United States, the understanding that — even more than liberty, more than equality, more than justice — the American system prefers stability and status quo to keep business operations moving smoothly. Elections and wars are used to channel unrest and dissent away from vulnerable politicians and institutions. Voting is great but only goes so far. In general, we tend to elect the same kinds of people to office and, once voted in, the office holder and voters work together to protect and celebrate the status quo. Direct action is the real work of democracy.

Make the Neighborhood Great Again

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After living in my neighborhood for almost three years, I discovered  tonight that I know people down the street. My dentist lives just down the road a short piece. Parents of a high school friend live next door to him. I found this out in idle chat with Mr. Robert — retired Navy, robust frog pond, puts out salt for the deer. Our backyards share a fence. I went over to ask if he minded my wife planting morning glories along our shared fence. Some people don’t like morning glories because they spread quickly and take over. He was delighted.

He was more delighted at the opportunity to stand in his driveway and chat for a few minutes. “Nobody ever comes to talk. There’s good people here, but you never see anybody outside.”

That’s true. I had noticed the same. My family spends a lot of time outside. Gardening, playing ball, moving stuff around. We don’t see people often. We wave at our neighbors when we see them. Occasionally, we spend a few minutes chatting about something growing in an unexpected place or the heavy rain that swelled the creek last week. Less frequent, the conversation about what makes truly great bourbon and an enthusiastic preview of upcoming BaconFest (this is a real thing).

We have made our homes into self-contained, air-conditioned, entertainment palaces and rarely leave them. When we must leave it is only through the air lock of the garage through which we pass ourselves into the private confines of our vehicles. We live most of our lives encapsulated.

After the election, I have been thinking a lot about what’s actually broken in our country. I don’t think it is lost military dominance or a lack of ambition to do big things. It isn’t the Affordable Care Act or a rising influx of non-Western immigrants. The thing that is broken is our neighborhoods. The fact that we don’t know each other and what each of us is about.

After the election, we all collectively freaked out to find ourselves trapped inside media bubbles that distorted our views of each other and our shared reality. I tried to fix the situation by tweaking my news feed, following a few more conservative blogs and news outlets. It didn’t help.

Realizing that my dentist lives nearby and parents of a good high school friend live even closer, I wonder how much I am missing inside my own neighborhood. Perhaps exploring the neighborhood is the right next step. Taking walks. Stopping to say hello. Talking about bourbon and BaconFest and whatever other random things come up. We can start knowing each other as full people with interesting, difficult, wonderful lives. We can call each other my name and know the hobbies and curiosities that go along with us.

This may be more than just being neighborly. This may become a radical political action. This may just make our neighborhoods great again.

Evolution of a curious mind

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I’ve been thinking a lot about this blog space. Thinking but not actually posting. When I started posting here in 2010, I thought I would reflect mostly on technology and the ways in which technologies, especially information technologies, shape my daily life. That was the idea behind the title. Ubiquitous because the technologies go everywhere with us. Quotidian because the most interesting effects are seen in the smallest corners of daily life.

I’ve written a bit on that theme, but I’ve also reached out into parenting, librarianship, leadership and higher education. Looking back over my most recent posts, it is a bevy of flash fiction punctuated by hot, bright flashes of political angst.

The point is that the blog has changed as I have changed. I’ve been frustrated and angry and depressed. I’ve been inspired and challenged and motivated. I’m not the same person who started this blog. I’m different. Not necessarily better, but maybe deeper. I know my interests are deeper. My anger is deeper. My joy is deeper.

The blog needs a new look and a new direction. So, I’m going to figure that out. You’ll bear with me, I hope. I’m one of those people who has to figure things out aloud in public.

The blog is still Ubiquitous. Quotidian. That is my motto. Reminding myself to pay closer attention to the everywhere and the everyday.

The byline has changed: “The evolution of a curious mind.” I’ll try to make a place where I can come to grips with the things that most interest me. This will be the place where I work out ideas and learn about my own learning.

It has always been good to have you reading along with me, making from these pages a weird, brave space.

I got lost for a little while. Like everybody else, I’m still trying to find my way.

Early Bloomer | Flash Fiction

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After the screams fade and the blood has cooled, there is a uncomfortable moment of moral uncertainty. He is wiping off the knives, trying not to let himself fascinate too long with the rigid stares on their stiffening faces. Doubts crowd. And then the flies. He is always surprised by how quickly the flies are drawn. They live inside, he once read, burgeoning, always just ready to burst out.

That is what he does. The media calls him the Butcher but he is nothing so mean or savage. His study is the careful art of release. First the pleadings. Then the sobs. Then whatever secrets need to be shared. And only finally, the blood.

The news people get it wrong. He is not depraved. He doesn’t act only for the blood and terror. People carry secrets, things they need to confess but don’t know how to begin. He shows them the way. The inspiration of steel and a cruelly sharp blade.

Once they start, they often do not know how to stop. Unburdening themselves of every petty crime, every mean thought, every venal act. Some of these are saints, compulsively lamenting ridiculously small sins. Unbecoming thoughts, moments of uncharitable, unsavory decisions. But more than a few are genuine monsters — molesters, abusers, thieves, perverters of truth. These kinds of people beg the loudest and hardest for mercy. These he opens deeper and wider, letting the blood spill faster.

He works quickly, cleaning up the mess with bottles of bleach bought by the case. He has three wholesale club memberships and twelve deep freezers. He does not eat the bodies. That would be monstrous but one does not always have the time to clean up and bury the bodies. Freezers are a necessity. They are a public health amenity. He is always thinking of the safety of others. How the neighbors would want to know he had taken great precautions to avoid a public health emergency.

The news people were the worst. Always sensationalizing. Always conjecturing on identity and motive. The FBI had the wrong profile and the news people couldn’t keep themselves from sharing it out. A middle aged white man with long white hair and narrow set eyes. Hilarious, really. He was in his late twenties. An early bloomer.

The motives they ascribed. A profound psychological disfunction. A obsessive tendency toward neatness and order. An intolerance for disorder. Wrong, wrong and wrong.

It made him want to laugh except he wanted to cry. And he would scream at the TV when they showed his computer generated face which looked nothing like him. He had written two dozen letters to the local papers explaining how far off they had been and why they so desperately needed him to be a middle-age white man. But he did not mail the letters. That would have been folly. That’s how men like Gaussier and Grundy messed up. They told somebody. They wanted to be caught. Not him. He was doing a great service but he did not seek the credit. The world was improved by the working of his art, which was the careful application of selective release. The world could not understand, indeed, would not need to understand his work to benefit from it.

That is the true nature of real art. It changes the world even when the world does not see it. It changes the artist. It changes the canvas.

And the secrets that are confessed in those hurried, anguished minutes of exsanguation are carried with him as a special burden. A tax he carries for his work. He will carry those last whispers with him to his grave, knowing the world is better for having each part of the story revealed.

Inauguration Day 2017

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In a few short hours, Donald Trump will become my president. I have tried to be quiet during the transition, watching, listening and reading. I have been trying to understand what slightly less than half the American electorate saw in Candidate Donald Trump way back in November.

So far, President-elect Trump still seems to be the antithesis of values I was raised to believe were most important.

I was taught to be careful and respectful, to listen and seek understanding before criticizing or making judgment of others.

I was taught to never mock, that name calling and intimidation were signs of a lazy, weak mind.

I was taught self-moderation, to never assume that I was ever completely right or that I could ever completely know what was best in the lives of others.

I was taught to be honest. I was taught that truth and facts exist, and that they matter a lot.

I was taught to value learning, skepticism and honest inquiry. I was taught to value reading, critical thinking and the scientific method — the understanding of the world through careful, objective observation.

I was taught to understand that character matters more than celebrity and that being popular for the mere sake of being popular was a clear sign of a damaged character.

I am worried. History teaches that countries following leaders who say “I alone can save you” are heading for hard times.

I continue to respect the office of President though the person about to assume the presidency gained prominence through proud exercises of disrespect for that office.

Some of my family and friends will be celebrating the fact of Donald Trump’s presidency. That’s fine. I won’t be celebrating.

I will focus instead on being grateful that I live in a democratic republic that, however flawed, practices the peaceful transfer of power. I will focus on what I can do to protect and strengthen the values which make that transfer possible so that in four years we can peacefully transfer that power again.

I am still trying to give not-quite-yet-President Trump some benefit of my doubt. His will be a huge job. We all need him to be successful. But success is not only about growing the economy, defeating ISIS and creating jobs. That’s part of it. Success will also be about unifying our country and helping all of us remember and practice our shared values and goals.

And so, on January 20, I continue to watch, to listen and to read. I continue trying to understand.

The Secret Meaning of Halloween

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Last night my daughter asked why Halloween is a thing. I made up some ridiculous explanation about the very human need to celebrate the darkness inside each of us, religious traditions of honoring the dead,  a social custom that reinforces our appreciation for our neighborhoods and then threw in something about psychological relief from pent-up stress.

This morning I realized its really just a way to gather together enough sugar to power through the first few days of NaNoWriMo.