Good Morning Jessicca

Letter to my Daughter
Sunday, 11 January

Good Morning Jessicca…

New Year’s resolution – believe no more than ten percent of what I say.  That’s my advice to myself.  It’s a good resolution. 

This is a big year for you – turning 21.  That makes you old enough to be legally insane.  Now you join the rest of us and find out what all the talk has been about.  And here you thought fairytales ended with Santa Claus. 

There are at least a couple of different parts to us.  Freud talked of conscious and subconscious.  The ego fits in there somewhere.  Then there’s the idea that everything is about sex, except sex itself.  It’s about power.  When I was 21 I had to refer to a book to find out how I felt about things personal.  I didn’t trust my own opinion.  Because I thought I didn’t know enough.  Because I was angry and I had many bad thoughts.  I knew it, too.  I kept my mouth shut or I lied.  I would wait it out. 

It’s many years later.  I’m glad to be here.  I’m glad to be who I am.  Life baffles me.  That keeps me busy.  The most impressive things happen just a few feet from the end of my nose.  Too often I can’t bear to look.  We’re all real.  People are easier to take when they are characters in a story of a book or movie.  Fictional people are far less complicated and we don’t become entangled with all the human comings and goings of their lives.  Fall in love and you double the number of people you need to care about. 

People are strictly about people.  Even the most emotionally detached hermit must deal with who he is – just another human being.  Everything we do outside personal survival is undoubtedly done with the thought of another on our mind.  Of course, it is not always positive.  We can be murderous when thinking of others.  It’s shocking.  Break open the veneer of civilization and a calculating animal emerges.  We are naturally ruthless.  It’s when we turn our predatory talents on ourselves that brings a chilling fear to the heart.

These horrors are the exception.  Look at all the rewards resulting from civilized behavior.  This was accomplished by people no different than those we have around us.  There is so much that is good within us.  It’s positive to focus on mostly these human characteristics.  I think, though, people such as Pope Francis and Mother Teresa are who they are because they also appreciate that which is dark within them.  Their uplifting message is all the more compelling because they hold few delusions regarding the nature of the human heart.

What is most likely to bring disaster to a relationship?  Insecurity – there’s a usual suspect.  Look in a mirror and see a frog.  I don’t want anyone to know I eat bugs.  The whole thing makes for difficult relations.  I’m horrified to find the one I love has an equally hideous character quirk.  I should be relieved.  We make a normal couple.  If the romantic potion is strong enough we come to love each other’s warts.  It can make journeys in bed all the more fascinating.

Love,

          Dad

October Odds and Ends

Donna

Good Morning Christa…

How can this be?  Donna has lived happily forever in her small, eccentric address near the shores of the Pacific.  I can’t imagine there is anything comparable available for her, anywhere.  How does she feel about grits, white lightening moonshine and the passionate rants of southern secessionists?  No, I don’t see a walk among Spanish moss and beneath magnolia a likely option for her, either.  She needs an attic room sturdy enough to hold her boxes of rocks, clocks and assorted bargain store treasures.

I want to soon see 12 Years a Slave.  I suspect my reaction to it will be much like how I felt about Schindler’s List – it’s the most wonderful movie I hope to never see again.  I rarely go to the theater, though.  Like Blue is the Warmest Color, this will probably be a movie I can wait to purchase when it is released on DVD.

You are, indeed, your neighbor’s keeper.  You take your Christianity seriously while I simply buy the book.  It gives me a good feeling while I read Christ’s teachings.  Too bad I can’t seem to schedule the time to turn his words into actions.  Is it possible I can find my way into Heaven with a grade of Satisfactory Intent?

I hear you.  You have the same reservations I have about political writing.  I want to approach issues with a broad brush and resist falling into the trap of dogmatism or of nitpicking to death the workings of government minutia.  I don’t want this to be about personalities but I certainly appreciate the bigger than life characters that are attracted to the bright beacon of power.  They are an absolute feast, and as a group they are generously seasoned with every possibility of human strength and foible.  They are all emperors without clothes, preening and pontificating, espousing sometimes equal parts wisdom and nonsense, and everyone, all the while, naked as jaybirds before the microphones and cameras.

Of course, I don’t expect to always meet my goals.  Goals are like the bull’s eye on a target.  Any number of reasons can have me land wide of the mark.  It can be as simple as drinking over-cooked coffee or not feeling loved by my dog.  Even words intended as a measure of reasoned thought are tirelessly inflected with the soft tramp of yearning for something more.

Winter cold has arrived.  Yesterday was the first morning with ice on the windshield.  If you’re an insect that has somehow survived this night you are certain to be finally serious about writing your last will and testament.  The curtain has dropped with a sudden, sharp thud on one more season of sunshine and frolic.  Most of us here have by now unpacked our heavy coats, gloves and thick stocking caps.  A few of the wealthier neighbors among us have undoubtedly booked passage destined for a lovely new spring south of the equator.  I’m thinking two weeks in Fiji will make for a splendid port of call.  Bon voyage, everyone.  Bon voyage!

Tom

Good Morning Jack...

Letter to my Son
Sunday, 22 September

Good Morning Jack…

Leaves fall.  Caterpillars eat.  Moon rises.  People deliberate. 

I’d like to stand on some high desert where the air grows cold and the wind picks up just as the sun is setting.  I would hear the whole world rotate.  It would sound like faces growing old.

Love,

           Dad