When the rain is blowing in your face
And the whole world is on your case
I would offer you a warm embrace
To make you feel my love.

-To make you feel my love
-Garth Brooks

For so long I’ve been wanting to be someone else…hating the thing that looks back at me in the mirror each day.  Hating the hair or the skin or the teeth or the weight.  And today I realized that it’s not really an option….this is me. This is who I am.

This is my thinning hair and my fucked-up smile.  It’s my big belly and freckles.  And from some recent feedback, I’m starting to learn that all of those things may very well actually be okay.  Because they all combine and add up to something.  They are the tiny little pieces of me that lend themselves to something larger.

This realization all came from a most-unlikely source.  A wrong number.  I picked up the phone tonight, and there was a voice I didn’t recognize, and she was looking for Jason.  I’m not Jason - I’ve never been Jason.  I said “It’s not Jason - but anyone watching “Hope Floats” is a friend of mine.”  She freaked out - but it was the Garth Brooks in the background that gave it all away.

Her name is Ellen. She lives in Baton Rouge.  She was looking for Jason.  She got me.  We talked for 2 hours.  Her name is Ellen and she is a 41 year-old artist. She sent me pictures of her paintings and her vessels that she made from clay that she bought in an artist’s market that’s within walking distance from her house.  I read her my fiction and used the parts of my voice that win people over.  I and told her what to add to her eggs to make them perfect.  Her name is Ellen and she asked for my picture.  I said, “I don’t look like Jason, so I’d rather not send it to you.”  She said, “I’m not on the phone with Jason, I’m on with you.  And anyone who watches Hope Floats has to know it’s ok to send a stranger a photo…even if they will never meet.”

Soon after getting off the phone - I  got this email from her….

Hi! Thank you. You’re so funny and generous. I love that you knew how to spell Guernica. More than that - my eggs were fucking perfect. And you, sir, are perfect, too. The beautiful parts of the pictures you sent me are the parts you’ll never see. So there’s no use in me stroking your ego until you’re ready to accept it. You’re not broken or lost. Perhaps you’re just waiting for all things to flow into one. Next time you’re in Baton Rouge, the eggs are on me.  And when you meet someone who deserves to land you - she’ll wonder how she lived this long without you in her life.  I’m starting to already. Much Love - Ellen.

Her name is Ellen - and I will never forget this email.

There she goes
There she goes again
Pulsing through my veins
And I just can’t contain
This feeling that remains

- There She Goes
- The La’s

It was late August, and the last time the carnies would be in my town until next March.  I was still on this side of the glass - though they felt within arm’s reach. But two busy streets, a forest of trees,  heavy metal gates, and over-protective family members proved to block me from being a part of their world.

And then SHE passed into view.  She had brown shoulder-length hair and huge brown eyes.  She crossed the street, and moved towards the metal gates of the carnival.  She was one of them…she could stay, way out there, where the world forgot time, frowned on misery, and favored happiness.   She was nothing more than a dancing flash of yellow cotton, so appropriate in this summers heat.  I wanted to be out there so badly - I needed to be with real people, and escape the sound of people sobbing just inches from my door. 

I was just fourteen, and looking back now, I realize I was certainly not old enough to know what I was feeling, if I, indeed, felt anything at all.  My leaving no longer mattered.  One constant had been killed by a heart attack, so it was time to make sure that the other constant stayed exactly that.  I went out into the hallway and into the living room.  Most everyone had gone home, and the table was piled high with half-eaten plates of food and mostly-drained plastic cups, featuring nothing but sips of what they once contained. 

No one one was there.  I knocked on my Mom’s door.  Through sniffles, all I heard was, “Not now, Ben, i’ll be out in a bit.” My Mom and my Aunt, could not, so didn not, see me leave my windowed room behind me as i walked towards the tents, smells, and the dancing..  I remmber thinking how they’d be sure to look for me in the morning. 
continue reading "Hurry Hurry! Step Right Up! (Part 2)"

“Get in line
With the things you know
Feel the Pain
Feel the sorrow
Touch the hurt
and don’t let go
Get in line
with the things you know.”

-Tears For Fears

Ok kiddies.  We hold these truths to be self evident.  I’ve had four knee operations - to the same knee.
It’s the right knee.  And for those of you that can’t tell your left from your right, MY right, is the one
THAT PHUCKING HURTS!  So get in line with the things I know?  I know pain!

Hrm - I suppose the picture isn’t really accurate….for at this point - I don’t even have my ACL.  Actually, I have someone elses ACL and some wire, and two screws, and a small plate.  But you get the idea, I hope

Now, the ACL, for those of you that don’t know, is the Anterior Cruciate Ligament.  It’s called “the football ligament,” or, the one THAT PHUCKING HURTS! I was told that the fake piece thingie that I mentioned in the paragraph above, (oh - i remember - they didn’t like calling it fake…they like to call it “a cadaver ligament.” Um, what if the dead guy, who gave me his ligament, had bad knees? PHUCK!!!) is good for 8-10 years before the graft blows out. Well…i’m 14 years in on this one….seems like the METAL they used should last forever…and i’d feel terrible blaming a dead guy for my problems…well…I suppose Ronald Regan is a bit to blame (if not my problems, then for someone else’s.)

I’m used to pain…I can deal with pain.  But what’s with the burning sensation?  I mean - fire? Fire in the knee?  What the hell is that about.  I simply cannot go through this again, if the news is bad.  I can not do surgery and 8 months of rehab.  During that time when I was particularly adept at having operations…In spent only 5 months of a 24-month period, OFF crutches - and I really don’t want that life back.

So - everyone think good, supportive, nuturing, knee healing, thoughts…And maybe i’ll crack a couple of anti-inflamatories.  Yeah - I know - they’ll shut down my liver and kidneys - - but at least i’ll be able to walk pain-free until i’m paralyzed from renal failure.  So I’ve got that going for me.

Have an awesome Saturday - despite my thoroughly negative rant - I plan to as well
And it’s 4:14 in the A.M - i’m NOT doing spellcheck.  Deal with it.

Gimme head with hair
Long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming,
Streaming, flaxen, waxen

Give me down to there hair
Shoulder length or longer
Here baby, there mama
Everywhere daddy daddy

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair

Let it fly in the breeze
And get caught in the trees
Give a home to the fleas in my hair
A home for fleas
A hive for bees
A nest for birds
There ain’t no words
For the beauty, the splendor, the wonder
Of my…

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair

Hair - The Cowsills

I love this photo.  While it had more to do with the color of the sky and the blurry background…and the porcelain skin of an unsuspecting and potentially unwilling model than it did the photographer and the glass and the f-stops and the iso’s and how much light I let in on the wide end…it’s still the exact reason I love photography.

For a split second - I was able to capture and immortalize something that might be, for the most part, unexplainable.

Somehow…

I was in a car with my friend, and the top was down, and it was a beautiful day, and it was the first good day I had had in a long time, and i didn’t mind being out in the sun, and it wasn’t too hot, and the breeze was perfect, and the music was playing, and i looked over, and her hair was just exploding - bright red against the crystal blue background of an absolutely perfect summer sky, so I took the picture, and she didn’t care, flinch, object, or complain, and finding this picture…capturing this moment, for me, is the same as living…

…just doesn’t seem to cut it….OR maybe…just maybe it explains it perfectly…