Blog

“If A is success in life, then A=X+Y+Z. Work is X; Y is play; and Z is keeping your mouth shut.” – Albert Einstein 

I bought a house on Newton street just a few blocks from my old high school. My anxiety level about moving is off the charts.

Change, is it inevitable?

I did stuff that I don’t ever want my kids to do (or know about), which includes calling my parents from the police station to come pick me up after the infamous egg throwing incident when I was in high school. Let’s just say mistakes were made, my parents weren’t happy, and I played a part in ending the homecoming float competition at the high school. I remember buying up all the eggs at our local Kroger and loading them into my friend’s car and we weren’t going to an egg fry.

Miss Nay, my sixth grade teacher, had a sign on her desk that said, “Make sure your brain is engaged before putting your mouth into gear.” Methinks we could use a little more brains and a few less words these days. We were also taught that if you didn’t have something good to say then it was best left unsaid. You were judged by both words and deeds. Words without deeds were hot air, or as it was often called, bullshit. When your words and deeds came together you could astound many of those around you.

“The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.” – Mark Twain 

“Every book is an adventure of the mind and an invitation to experience the gifts of the imagination.” Hermann Hesse

Is that not true of life, too?

Mom’s ancestry was solidly German. I tell friends she was 1,000% German. Her grandparents all eventually emigrated from Prussian Germany in the late 1800s. I still have the wooden trunk that carried my maternal great-grandmother’s belongings to America. Swearing off their allegiance to Kaiser Wilhelm II, the last King of Prussia, they became American citizens. Then they settled into a life of farming in the southern part of the county in what was then the German community around Waymansville, Indiana. My Grampa grew up speaking German. I still have his confirmation Bible printed in high German from 1909 (I also have my Grandmother’s too).

My Great-Great-Grandmother, Eleanor, gave birth to Darius, my great-grandfather when she was eighteen. He was raised by his grandmother after Eleanor’s soon to be husband, the local schoolmaster, would have nothing to do with an illegitimate child Thus the DeLap name and the claim to a Scottish bloodline. My great grandfather ended up marrying Sarah Nolen from Carmi, Illinois. The Nolen’s were Irish, too. Ancestry and family history often weave a tangled web.

Mom and Dad’s ethnic mix created an interesting dynamic growing up.  Formality met frivolity. You learned how to navigate those two personalities. I’m the offspring of this Germanic-Irish heritage—I can be equal parts anal retentive and a good bar mate. I can be alone or in company. I am perfectly fine being alone but would welcome someone waking up with me in the morning. 

Age mellowed mom a bit, or maybe it was the four rapscallions who constantly tested her ability to hold the line.  Dad was more gregarious.  He was the guy you would sidle up next to at the bar, share a drink, and talk about life.  It was hard for me to believe that he was the grandson of a Southern Baptist preacher—although, every once in a while, the preacher in him came out.

“The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure much.” William Hazlitt 

My Emotional Road Map (or Sympathy for the Devil- Rolling Stones)

My Emotional Roadmap

My brain can be all over the map. It has been that way my entire life, Probably more so now as I weather my second divorce and face my 67th year. I try my damnedist to keep the devil at bay.

So, I’ve been thinking a lot about my emotional health and how much it controls my physical and mental wellbeing. So I decided to write down a list of emotions that are in and out of kilter right now. It was shocking and enlightening at the same time. But I thought of it as an emotional roadmap. A small piece with all the entrances and exits I have passed through on my life’s journey. Who knows where the road will end but I’m still on the freeway?

In some ways I think I have entered another dark period in my life but I’m not ready to quit driving and get off at that final exit. There has always been a road sign to remind me that my exit is 50 miles away and take Exit A or B. So fasten your seatbelt and come with me on my emotional road-trip. Following are things that have bounced around my ever active brain. Welcome to my road…

• Depression and anxiety. Top dead center. My constant companions. They have always been a part of my life.
• Social anxiety disorder. Being in crowds sends me into a panic.  
• I have started going back to church. A small congregation and I now sit in the back row. If I need to bail I can slip out quietly.
• Early mornings are very hard. I often wake up in a panic. What do I need to accomplish today? The bed feels cloying and I often wake up feeling anxious and depressed.
• Loneliness. I have a very strong desire for solitude, but…
• Familial relationships, especially with my children? Am I a good Dad?
• Love? Will I ever find it again? Is there someone who will love me for who I am rather than who they want me to be?
• Changing doctors. I need better care at my age.
• Motivation to do anything. I can easily sit and just stare out the window. 
• I feel trapped in this apartment but I’m afraid of moving.
• I want a place to call my own and now that I have it, I don’t want it.
• Move away from here? Abandon this life? Another state or Country?
• There are moments of the day that I feel optimistic but soon I become depressed. I think how free I feel with life then I become an emotional captive with my existence.
• I sometimes worry about my short-term memory. I often lose track of events that happened yesterday.
• My friends at Upland, Taku, and Zwanzigs. Comfort food and company. I ate sushi tonight.
• I am often misunderstood by my family. They often don’t understand me or is it vice versa? I am a complicated soul.
• Poetry, Poetry, Poetry. I love to read poetry. I get lost in the poet’s words. Seamus Heaney. WB Yeats, Oscar Wilde, William Blake, Samuel Beckett…
• The Dao De Jing and Chuang Zu 
• My musical tastes reveal my age. I love the Pogues and The Dubliners. My Irish roots.
• “Landslide” Fleetwood Mac. “Time makes you bolder, children get older, and I’m getting older too…”
• No one to look over my shoulder and tell me what to do…
• Warren Zevon. “My Shits Fucked Up”.
• There is a devil in all of us. How do we keep it to bay? Open ended question…

“When nobody wakes you up in the morning and you can do whatever you want. Is it freedom or loneliness?” – Charles Bukowski

The East Fork of the White begins at the confluence of the Driftwood (left) and the Flatrock (right) Rivers at Mill Race Park in Columbus, Indiana

“And the evil done in hopes that evil surrenders/ But the deeds of the devil are burned too deep in the embers/ And a world of hunger in vengeance will always remember.” – Phil Ochs

Tabula rasa – The mind in its hypothetical primary blank or empty state before receiving outside impressions; or something existing in its original pristine state. Source: Merriam-Webster.com

In Latin, it means, “scraped tablet”. Humans are born “blank” and our identity is defined entirely by events after our birth. This theory was expounded on in the seventeenth century by the English philosopher John Locke, who posited that, at birth, the (human) mind is a “blank slate” without rules for processing data; over time, data is added and rules for processing such data are formed solely by one’s sensory experiences (Source: Merriam-Webster.com).

“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.” – William Blake

Whose image do you see when you look in the mirror? Is it a stranger or an old friend? Whose reflection? Do you want to pack a leaving trunk? Is it who you are or who you long to be? Or, whom you long to return to? Does it smile back at you when you smile, or sneer at your hypocrisy? Does it frown with you or laugh at you? Does it laugh with you? Does it chide you for your arrogance and serve up a good slice of humble pie? Does it see the lines and blemishes on your face and make you realize you’re not young anymore?

Have you decided to throttle old age and declare war on decline? Will you welcome tomorrow as an old friend rather than a thief stealing away time? We do have the opportunity to choose who we want to be, even in our fading days.

“Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest. – Mark Twain 

“Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand…” Jeremiah 18:6

I have never had much musical talent. I never learned to play an instrument but still love listening to all types of music. When I was in high school, I was in the music appreciation club which involved bringing a favorite album to club meetings. We sure listened to a lot of Rock & Roll those days, and I still do. I have decided that if I had the talent to write songs and play them, one of my first songs would be The Elm Street Blues, Oh, I’ve got those Elm Street Blues again.

The Cape Cod on Elm Street was the first house I lived in. Just across the street lived Miss Hull, a retired school teacher. I would traipse over to her house quite frequently to have her read storybooks to me. Just next door lived the high school basketball player who stood better than six feet and would lift me up to the sky. Sure seemed like a long way down back then. 

Across the alley were our next door neighbors who had a Boston terrier named Speckles. The dog would grab hold of a tennis ball inside a sock and then they would twirl the dog around in circles. It would not let go until it was safely back on the ground.

Our neighbor just to the north raced stock cars at the 25th Street Fairgrounds. He named his racecar the “Purple Bomb”. I would lie awake on a summer evening and listen to the sound of those races and imagine I was in the Purple Bomb.

My brother had been seriously doubting the existence of Santa Claus, until that Christmas Eve on Elm Street in 1964, when things changed a bit. He heard on his radio that NORAD was tracking a UFO entering U.S. airspace from Canada that they believed to be Santa Claus. He ran downstairs into the front yard with his binoculars and gazed intently into the cold night sky to see Santa and his sleigh.  Mom and Dad said they got one more year of belief in Old St. Nick out of him, thanks to the NORAD Santa tracker. Not sure if he saw anything but stars, but the mind can play wonderful tricks on the soul. I have always felt that the feeling that emanates from the soul should trump the brain.

It was a short walk down the alley from Gramp’s house to our neighbor’s just across Elm Street, where I had a lawn mowing job. With the alley now paved, the lawn mower was an easy push. The few dollars I earned sure bought a lot of baseball cards at Northside Drugs. Three dollars a job as I recall. Two dollars if I cleaned the gutters. I always admired the geodes in Mrs. Garlock’s backyard but resisted the temptation to break them open to see what treasure lay inside. That would have resulted in the loss of my first job. But, I needed to keep mowing to keep the baseball cards coming and I still have all those cards.

We moved away from Elm Street in 1965 and I still miss it for what it was and for its bricks and mortar. I often drive by my Gramp’s bungalow on Cherry Street and the old Cape Cod on Elm Street. They still look the same to me, the memories are still fresh through all the intervening years. For me, Elm Street will always be a symbol of those wonderful days of youth when the world was an oyster to a boy full of mischief and hungry for adventure. Elm Street was the jumping off spot on the highway to my future.

We are all sculptors and painters and our material is our own flesh and bones.” – Henry David Thoreau

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.” -Buddha

I’ve taken the following from my previous writing but I believe that they do bear some repeating. 

“Know thyself? If I knew myself, I’d run away.” -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To be a Citizen

I come from a long line of common folk. My family simply lived life: they were good citizens, voted in elections, volunteered in the community, and raised their family—quite admirably, I might add. Mom once served on a jury when we were kids and helped convict a purse snatcher; she did a lot of volunteering at our schools, too. Gramps managed the local Farm Bureau feed store, worked for the County Assessor’s office, and appraised property. Dad owned a civil engineering firm and served on a number of city and state boards and commissions.

Tabula Rasa

Tabula rasa – The mind in its hypothetical primary blank or empty state before receiving outside impressions; or something existing in its original pristine state. Source: Merriam-Webster.com

In Latin, it means, “scraped tablet”. Humans are born “blank” and our identity is defined entirely by events after our birth. This theory was expounded on in the seventeenth century by the English philosopher John Locke, who posited that, at birth, the (human) mind is a “blank slate” without rules for processing data; over time, data is added and rules for processing such data are formed solely by one’s sensory experiences (Source: Merriam-Webster.com).

On Being Born

I don’t remember having any thoughts that day I was born; I certainly do now after 66 years in this mind and body .  I do remember my baby crib when I was around two: I needed to be confined lest I wandered off to do serious damage to the house or myself. Mom once had my crib too close to an end table and I grabbed her favorite lamp, pulled it off, and broke it into pieces. I was reminded about that for years. I remember toddling on the floor in the house on Elm Street and diving headfirst through the glass storm door onto the carport floor (Dad didn’t tell me he had fixed that latch). I once took a knife and cut the twine seat in one of our chairs, believing I was the mouse helping free the lion from his ropes in the famous fable by Aesop. I got a paddling for that one. I climbed on house and garage roofs, went on reckless bike rides into the bushes, climbed onto the school rooftop (they conveniently placed a TV stanchion close to the building), and stabbed myself with my own pocketknife.

—

The following quotes are from the Irish poet, Seamus Heaney (1913-2013) one of many of the Great Irish poets.

“How perilous is it to choose not to love the life we’re shown?”

“Poetry is always slightly mysterious, and you wonder what is your relationship to it.”

“Insist on yourself, never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.” – Muriel Rukeyser

Weltanschauung is a German word that describes one’s particular philosophy or view of life. Literally translated it means worldview. I have always felt that it best encapsulates my own search for meaning in my life within both a spiritual and secular context. This search has taken me down many paths, the occasional dead end, and down more than one rabbit hole. Yet, I am still a seeker and I suppose I always will be. One more page, one more experience, one more fork in the road, one more roll of the dice. Does the answer to the questions of life lie around the next bend? Why am I here? What is the meaning of my existence? What will I leave behind? That is why I seek…

“Writing is the Latin of our times. The modern language of the people is video and sound.” – Lawrence Lessig

“But great grand schemes will get you grief
Take what you need, that’s all.
A light craft takes the wind and skims the water lightly.”
– Yuan Mei from What I have Seen

“Life has no meaning a priori…it’s up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose.” – Jean-Paul Sartre

I have never been too much into idols. I suppose if asked I would say my Parents and Grampa. No sports superstars, movie actors, and certainly no politicians. My idols have always been close to home.

My life is a long running film and there won’t be a sequel. At least not in this body.

               Me with my sons, Charlie and Sam.

Lebe dein Leben so, wie es vorgesehen war. Live your life as it was intended. 

You must concentrate upon and consecrate yourself wholly to each day, as though a fire were raging in your hair.” – Taisen Deshimaru

A talisman is an object believed to hold magical or spiritual powers, intended to bring good luck, protection from evil, or positive influence to its owner, often by being inscribed with symbols, prayers, or astrological signs. While similar to an amulet (which passively protects), a talisman is often considered an active tool designed to attract specific outcomes, like wealth or health, by harnessing natural or divine forces, differing in its specific purpose.

I wear three talismans around my neck every day, bound together by a simple cloth cord. One is a billion year old piece of basalt I found on a kayaking trip in Lake Superior over 20 years ago. The other two are simple copper coins inscribed with the Latin words, “Memento Mori” – remember you must die and amor fati which means to love one’s fate. All remind me of what will be my insignificance in the whole scheme of things while each reminds me that  today could be my last. They prod me to try to make a difference every day. However, sometimes I fall woefully short.

Kindness and love are the protein of the soul, the building blocks of goodness. Random acts of kindness, doing the right thing, smiling at a stranger, or giving a friendly wave to your neighbor are among the foods that nourish the soul. They may at first blush seem simple but they are equally as powerful as if you gave thousands of dollars away. Money burns up but kindness and love live on. So nourish your soul with the good food.

Some look in the mirror and see themselves as a human being with all the warts and blemishes. Others look in the mirror and see a god. One is a mirror that reflects humility and truth while the other reflects vanity and egoism. One day there will be no reflection in the mirror, just a memory of what used to be. The memory you leave behind is yours to make.

What a glorious world we live in! Every day is a gift, an opportunity to discover the undiscovered, to listen to the unheard, to give to the ungiving, to touch the untouched, to share of the fruits we have been given.  What will I do with the fruits of my life…will I share their sweetness or will they spoil in the bowl? 

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” -Seneca

               With my Grandaughter Eloise

Henry David Thoreau – “In wildness is the preservation of the world.”

“Think as I think,” said a man”

or you are abominably wicked,

You are a toad.”

And after I thought of it,

I said: “I will then, be a toad.”

– Stephen Crane

“Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.” – Mark Twain 

“Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson 

The Angry Wren by Me. I  have a wish to open a bar and bookstore called The Angry Wren…

You scold me 

from the branches of my cedar trees

Stranger danger

I’m too close

For your comfort

My trees are your trees

And I become the stranger then

These then I realize

That I am a visitor

In nature

And a brief one at that.

“Better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.” – Mark Twain 

“I have stood on top of a windswept hill, waved my hat at the breeze, shouted to the skies that I was alive.” – Sigurd Olson 

“Conscience is a dog that does not stop us from passing but that we cannot prevent from barking.” – Nicolas de Chamfort

Did the fruit fly that just crashed  in my glass of Chardonnay and drowned know what it was doing? 

Mom kept all of Dad’s cards—birthdays, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s, and, I might add, ’get out of the doghouse” cards—the latter were usually accompanied with flowers. They gushed with his undying love. He kept Mom’s cards as well. They were normally signed, “Love, Phyllis” with a “xo”. A rather ebullient expression from Mom was signed “xoxo”—German and Irish, quite the opposites. One got depressed and the other said: “Buck up!” One toed the emotional line while the other stumbled off the track. One taught me to express myself while the other taught me to be guarded. One drank and the other didn’t. I drink and offer no apologies—Irish blood, thank you. When I’m cremated, the fire will burn for at least three days, minimum. I think Dad’s funeral pyre is still smoldering. Even though their earthly flame has since gone out, their love for each other still smolders in my heart where its warm glow lights the darkest of my nights.

“God intended for you to be happy.” – Mom

For me, poetry is a contemplative endeavor; best read undisturbed in a quiet nook. I know there are poetry readings but I have never been to one. Yet, this is going to sound a little hypocritical but I love hearing Robert Frost’s recital of Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. You can find it on YouTube.

The complaint I hear most often is I don’t get what the poet is writing about. Paul Celan wrote, “Poetry is a sort of homecoming.” When I read poetry, it feels like I am getting a glimpse into the poet’s abode. It is something personal that I have been given permission to see. I am no poet but when I do write, I think it comes from the wellspring of my being. Writing is music and each word is unique. 

I find I am more in tune with the poet on a dark and dreary day. Perhaps the wind is playing a song in the trees and rain has joined in the chorus.

Reading poetry is not like diving into a math problem. There is no final solution, no answer to the equation. I often tell people that you can read a verse and then put it down. Come back later, it will still be there. There is no expectation that you read Whitman’s Leaves of Grass or Ginsberg’s Howl from start to finish in one sitting. Perhaps after reading a few verses you will be compelled into contemplation.

So ease up on the throttle and apply the breaks to the speed of life. There is more to it than careening down the road hell bent on reaching your next destination faster than the next person. Stop your race car, get out, plant your feet firmly on the earth, breathe deep, smell the fresh air, taste the wind, hold a leaf in the palm of your hand, listen to the birds sing, and watch the clouds float by. Let all the others in a rush pass on by. Your destination (and the poem) will still be there tomorrow.

The same verse you read today will likely have a different meaning tomorrow. These words from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus have always resonated with me whether I am reading a poem by Seamus Heaney, WB Yeats, or Shelley“. No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man” 

These words from William Blake are equally as prescient, “If the doors of perception were cleansed then everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern.” 

How you perceive a poem is a personal matter. So pick a poet and read…and don’t be afraid. At first you might not understand but then perhaps your doors of perception might be cleansed.

This by no means an exhaustive list, but I return to these poets quite often:

Mary Oliver

W.B. Yeats

Robert Frost

Seamus Heaney

Walt Whitman

Edgar Allen Poe

Gary Snyder

William Blake

John Keats

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Interpretations of Poets from the Chinese Tang Dynasty by Red Pine

Emily Dickinson

Rumi

And more