My Hands On The Rope

When I was young, I played football, but I loved strength sports.  I loved them for their simplicity.  With the possible exception of running, strength sports are the simplest of all.  You move a piece of metal from here to there, and that's it.  Whoever moves the heaviest piece of metal wins.  Sometimes there's no competitor.  It's just you and the metal.  Can I move four hundred pounds from here to there, or no?  There is no other person.  If I do it, I win.  If I don't, I curse and try another day.  The possibility of failure makes it a sport and not an exercise.  Exercise is doing things you know you can do.  Sport is doing things you may never be able to do if you don't commit yourself.  

Nearly all strength sports are solitary affairs, which suited the younger version of me because socialization was often difficult and usually only possible with those I trusted the most.  There was a communal or team strength sport, though: tug-of-war.  Tug-of-war is deliciously simple.  Two teams grab hold of a rope, and whoever pulls the most rope to their side of the field wins.  That's that.

Nearly everyone grips the rope with their hands in tug-of-war, and if things go badly, everyone can just let go except one.  The anchor had the rope tied around his waist.  If his team lost, he would be dragged bodily through the mud pit or pool or whatever lay between the two teams.  He would be singled out as the loser.  That job, more often than not, was mine.

Tug-of-war works because, while I may be the only one tied to the rope, my friends have their hands on it too, and they pull as hard as they can and commit as much as they can to try and prevent the team from losing and me from going into the mud.  While there were a few times when I went into the pit, more often than not, we won.  We won because my friends wouldn't give up and kept their hands on the rope despite the challenge.

I like applying metaphors from strength sports to life's challenges because life is complex, but strength sports are simple, and simple metaphors can make the most difficult challenge less threatening and more surmountable.  Right now, many of the things I care about the most are struggling.  My country, my state, my city, my school.  In some ways, they struggle more now than ever before.

Long ago now, I was hurt, and tired, and frustrated, and felt very alone, so I untied myself from the tug-of-war rope and hid in a place of solitude and stillness for a very long time.  "My friends can win without me," I thought.  Whatever strength I had was spent long ago, I thought.  If they don't win, I don't want to be dragged through the mud, I knew.  I feared.

One day a voice said to me, "you can no longer stay in the in-between place.  You must choose.  If you die, you will be quiet and still forever, or you can return to the world that's been calling for you since you left, but you must fight."  I opened my eyes and saw that the tug-of-war continued.  New men were in the anchor loop, but the war continued, and it wasn't looking good for my team.  

I'm old now...and broken.  I'm no good for the anchor loop anymore, but I have hands.  I've been in this war before.  I can pull.  I can pull harder than you would ever imagine.  I can commit, and I don't care if I go into the mud, and the strength I lost is coming back more every day.  I'm back on the team.  Now, all I need to know is where to put my hands on the rope.

Writing At Waffle House

This morning, my body is over-trained.  I can feel it.  It's not bad, but I can feel it.  The problem is, I just don't have time for it.  The world is calling for me.  I can hear it, but my body is on a clock.  At fifty-nine years old, I know the usable life of my body is not infinite, so I have to push, but I also have to be careful.

When I was twenty and felt like this, I'd work harder, then get drunk at Scrooges so I would sleep well and forget about whatever was making me work so hard. My relationship with my body is and always was, I would say, strained.  In truth, it's an unhappy but long-lived marriage.  

There is infinitely more written about the relationship between women and their bodies than there is about men and theirs.  Part of that might be that we've hung this millstone around their neck called "physical beauty," a burden rarely shared by men.  If you look at what's going on in Persia today, the idea of feminine beauty is probably the creation of men wanting to contain and limit women.  I'm probably as guilty as any of them, but I do try to at least admit it.

Physical beauty is not something I ever really considered myself a part of.  Overweight with thinning hair and a smile that looked like I was going to kill someone or just had, I always figured the best I could do was to make a useful body, so I learned to move heavy things and climb things I shouldn't.

Lucy Millsaps once assigned us to draw four self-portraits.  Which I did.  In private.  Always in private.  I turned them in, and Lucy said, "the drawings are very good, but you don't look like that.  The likeness is very good, but you've emphasized all the wrong features.  You're better looking than that.  Is there something wrong?"  I love Lucy.  I miss her.  For someone so small, she could see very far.

The over-training isn't bad.  It's just there.  I think if I get proper sleep and get good nutrients, I should be fine.  While I have to train, and I enjoy it, all I really want to do is write.  Just typing it makes the water come to my truth eye.

I think I'm going to treat myself and get a nice leather bag for my laptop.  I think I'm going to be the kind of asshole who writes in cafes.  For forty-five years, I wrote in secret, both the process and the result.   Lately, I've been letting people see what I write, which has gone surprisingly well.  Maybe letting them see the process won't be so bad.  Hearing the sounds and voices of people going about their business helps me concentrate.  I know that sounds crazy, but it works.  Maybe I go into some sort of sensory overload, and my body shuts down that input channel and lets me focus, where less input would otherwise interfere with my thinking.  

When I was married, I would wait till my wife went to sleep, then take a laptop to Waffle House to write.  I told my wife I was going to smoke, which she hated, so she never questioned it.  You could smoke in Wafflehouse then, and nearly everyone did, including the guy on the griddle.  The people at Wafflehouse are usually too busy to notice if you're writing, or sleeping, or overdosing, or stabbing your neighbor, so my activities could be completely anonymous there.  

I loved my wife more than anything, but she had no interest in my writing, or my painting, or my sculpting, drawing, or theater.  I'm pretty sure she thought she was getting my dad.  It's not her fault; I do a pretty good impression of him and almost always do.  Because I would have done anything for her, then or now, when she said she wanted to marry, I did, and that was that.  Knowing that she couldn't really see me wasn't an issue because I never let anyone see me.  My wife is still one of my favorite people in the world.  What happened between us was entirely my fault.  I should have been more honest and open. 

Her dad, that was a different story.  Besides Brent Lefavor, nobody who didn't share genetic material with me ever taught me as much as Cecil Jenkins or see me as clearly.  We continued to talk after the divorce.  I'm sure he never really separated from anyone.  I miss him.  I wish I could talk to him now.

I don't know where this writing thing is going.  I'd love to publish, but if it never happens, I'm satisfied just knowing that even one person read my stuff.  For many years, I didn't allow that many.  Actually working while other people go about their lives around me has a really satisfying ring about it.  If you see me typing in a coffee shop or a pizza joint, check on Facebook in a couple of days, and you'll most likely see whatever I was working on.  My body will heal itself, and the over-training will go away.  I just have to stop being such an asshole to my limbs, and it'll work out.  

Not Winning

Sometimes my sister worries that I'm too bold in my efforts to become part of the world again.  Somehow she's noticed that I've been stepping in front of cannonballs since the day she was born.

"It's like raising children."  She said.  "You'll try.  You'll push.  You'll put everything you've got into making things turn out well, but you're not gonna win every battle."

Sometimes, she's too clever for me.  Not delivering the goods for the people and things I care about is why I removed myself from society in the first place.  In truth, no matter how much effort and love, and time I put into something, its success or failure isn't dependent on me, even though it sure feels like that.  Knowing that, and feeling it, are two different things.

My theory was that removing myself from the world would remove this feeling of responsibility, and even if someone or something did fail, at least I wouldn't know about it.  Loving people and things that turned out to be, basically, mortal was killing me, and I lacked the perspective to accept the wounds without fear and self-loathing.  I was too close.

My plan wasn't working.  In my cave, I would still hear that so-and-so died, or such-and-this was closing.  The wounds came fresh, and the blood flowed freely, so I dug into the granite more.  Going deeper didn't silence the sounds of the world; it only muffled them.  Muffled cries of pain are still cries of pain.  When the cries come from someone you love, it's brutal.

Coming back out into the world means I have to accept that, no matter how hard I try, not winning is always an option, and no amount of caring or loving can change that.  Baby sister is wise beyond her means.  This will not be easy.  Failing for me, I don't care about.  Failing for the people I love flays the skin from my bones.  To live though, to LIVE, I have to accept this possibility.  There will be times when I do not win, no matter how important it is.

I'm ready to accept that possibility.  Not winning will hurt, probably a lot, but what choice do I have? I will fight.  I may lose, but I will fight.  Living in a cave wasn't protecting me like I thought it might.  If I do not win, I will simply try again.

Because She's A Woman

 There are very few people on earth  I can talk freely at a truth to the gut level with.  My sister is my most valuable and oldest association that way.  Tonight we were both trying to pour whatever energy we could into a Millsaps event, and we started talking about a position that was opening up at a company we've both been associated with for a long, long time.  

"I guess they're gonna move Mary into that position,"  I said.  Naming the most logical, most competent person I could think of, who just happens to already be working at that company.  I really didn't put much thought into it and considered that part of the conversation pretty much done.

"They'll never give Mary that position."  My sister said.  "Because She's a Woman."

I made a face and let my brain process what she had just said.  The weight of it and the truth of it hit me pretty hard.  This woman, who we both knew, who we both had done business with, would be denied an opportunity she earned in life--because she's a woman.

Once upon a time, I took an oath to defend womanhood, but I've always interpreted that differently from how the oath writers intended.  I tend to do things my own way.

I'm old.  Despite my expectations, I've survived until the third age of men.  In those many days, I've romantically loved maybe fifteen women and non-romantically loved maybe five hundred more.  I have two stepdaughters who carry a silent piece of me wherever they go.  I have a niece, who, quite frankly, I would cut you for.  And many millions more who I am honor-bound to care for.  Because she's a woman, is the world I've left for them.  I'm not satisfied.

Before Daddy died, I was having a drink with a lawmaker at Scrooges.  The old Scrooges, when they were still in the same building as the Rogue.  Even though he was on an education committee, this was purely a social call.  I liked the guy genuinely and enjoyed talking to him.  He told me how much he liked my sister.  She had just gotten out of college and just started associating with the fella she would eventually cleave to.  A thousand times, people have said how much they admired my sister, and they meant it.

"It's a shame she'll never get to do the things your daddy did."

Driving home, I regretted not punching him and getting thrown out of Scrooges for the first time ever.  The weight of what he said stunned me, though, and it took a while for the wheels in my head to put that information where it needed to go.  I'm old now.  My beard is mostly white, and that sentence still doesn't have the proper home in my brain.  Maybe it's for the best.  Because she's a woman was putting an unfair cap on my beloved baby sister and closest friend.

My sister could have and, by rights, should have done everything my father did and more.  She's smarter.  She's kinder.  She works harder.  She's a better athlete.  She's better looking.  (My dad had a tragically large nose.)  By rights, her fame should have dwarfed his.  Because she's a woman, got in the way.  I hate it.  

Before I cross over to the new lands, I'd like to do something about Because she's a woman.  I think it's time.  Technically I've already taken an oath to do so.  Maybe it's not what the oath writers intended, but it's what I intended.  I am stubborn, and I am honor-bound.