Movie-Telling: A Review of Salvatore Pane’s short story collection, The Neorealist in Winter

The short story form serves us well when we sense that we are beside each character, witnessing their lives as they stumble or soar. In its best context, a narrative will surprise us toward cultivating our own imaginations. Yet, one or two gifted writers welcome us into their world as if we are read-watching their favorite movie with them.

        Enter Salvatore Pane.

Pane’s collection of short stories, The Neorealist in Winter (Available through Autumn House Press and winner of the Autumn House Fiction Prize), swings through time the way a good flashback might enhance the current moment of a screenplay, and his characters behave so enduringly cinematic that a director could bring them to life. Pane has shared 11 stories that move in a quirky pace while introducing his characters’ thoughts and values beyond mere familiarity. Instead, we are rewarded with intimate inclusion among his people.

Perhaps the beauty of both fiction and film is an author’s ability to choose just the right line at the right time. Queue the accolades for Salvatore Pane!

When Christopher gets shunned by a barroom beauty in New Jersey (“Zeitgeist Comics, 1946”) he (the character) cleverly pauses to consider his retort - a moment which Pane navigates masterfully through direct and witty dialogue. But Christopher won’t be stumped as he tries to save the comic book publication he loves so dearly. The tragic-comedy surrealism of this tale alone reminds us that, like life, good storytelling often does not end as we might imagine.

Pane’s nods to Italian culture do not weigh the book down while the struggle of failing-city / emerging-suburb life of a post-World War 2 America inform several narratives, and an end-of-the-tunnel, post-millennial reflection / nostalgia / optimism bookends the influences that seem to have developed Pane as a writer while inspiring his stories.

Most powerfully, the escapism is not romantic and forgiving in the way that a two-hour stay at the cinema house sometimes forces us to accept a story’s buy-in. Rather, Pane’s sentences remove you from the context of your moment and place you under the same tension as his characters, but do so as if your own zeitgeist could affect the outcome. Aside from one misplaced intrusion of a broken fourth wall that seems to be arbitrary, the stories of The Neorealist in Winter deftly echo with the struggles of finding happiness in career or vocations, and within family both borne or chosen, or perhaps somewhere out there among an America where loneliness feels like consequences more than happenstance.

Overall, our Winter Neorealist handles humor and life as literature and film shall - sometimes hilariously and sometimes heartbreakingly. From one of many great similes (“produced a cigar and puffed it like a plantation owner”) to countless examples of the profound (“staring into the heart of the city that had raised them”), this collection pays homage to film and tells damn good stories without clobbering the reader like a Goodfellas mobster. (wink, wink)

If a story can begin anywhere, then we have to trust a narrator to take us everywhere. Pane crafts his fiction like a poised film director but does not lean into melodrama, and we will all be a bit better from his efforts.

Roll credits: Salvatore Pane is a writer on the rise whose stories need to be shared.

When Even Rice is Done Well

 A review of  Lori Jakiela’s They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice / by Dan J. Kirk

Every once in a while, we come across a writer who has said something in a way that no one has ever said it before, the way we wish we could write it ourselves. Lori Jakiela is one of those writers.

Page 53: “He didn’t want the hospital bed she’d ordered and all the ghosts that came with it.”

Page 98: "When faced with mortality, the questions are always why and how and when, as if figuring out the answers makes any difference."

Page 147: “ ‘Help me,’ the little girl says, and her voice pops like bubble wrap.”

These are just a few treasures, small grains of rice in the larger literary world, to be found in Jakiela’s new book, They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice, to be released on Halloween by Atticus Books. But like the many allusions to our greatest writers that Lori shares (think Fitzgerald and Dickinson and Vonnegut), her ability to say just the right thing at just the right moment is as good as anyone writing creative nonfiction today.

The book is a sporadic walk through thought process in the manner of living a busy, cluttered life but being able to notice both the simple and the profound while taking notes along the way. Short passages soften the blow of harsh moments while longer sections set up great jokes with punchlines that might offend but probably shouldn't. It is, after all, an observation of “Life” while life itself is being threatened and fought for.

The format is not new to Jakiela, who perfected a precisely planned pattern of non-patterns in her 2015 ode to being adopted, Belief is its Own Kind of Truth, Maybe, and that she dances through in her new 2023 reflection / observation / biography. If observational remembrance were a genre, Lori Jakiela would be its godmother. It’s a damn fine piece of writing.

 

Whether a genius organizer or a stalwart notetaker who converts outlines into prose, she tells a tale bravely - as if each thought has its own space. It’s like a large notebook filled with surprises to be revealed or setbacks that life forces upon us all too often.

A poignant commentary of community support for cancer victims on page 154.

A powerful admission of father-daughter legacy on page 127.

And then there is timing - just wait until you hit page 75…

All those notes that seem like post-its from a career and a life spent paying attention, are charted into a warm, truthful confession that rests between a heartbreaking memoir and a “What-the-F-does life even mean?” contemplation. 

Spoiler alerts being the current rage of avoidance, it cannot be shared exactly what all comes together in one taut moment on page 123, but it highlights the raveling genius of Lori Jakiela's storytelling - when several pieces intertwine to make sense, the way you pick up toys while tidying up a child's playroom only to reflect on the precious collection and simultaneously await similar chaos the next day. 

Is there perhaps a flaw in this book? Sure, but like each private life, a reader will have to decide for themselves whether those are just mishaps or life lessons.

In the final summation, there is honesty in the writing of Lori Jakiela - brutal, live-affirming honesty. She writes honestly about her husband and their love; about her parents and their tough love; about her birth mother who abandoned her because she could not love; and about her children whom she adores beyond love into the realm of worship-love that every parent ought to recognize.

At its core, upon the very simple strand of each germ of rice, is the realization that They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice is a book about confronting cancer, about thinking about life, and about accepting what comes next. And it is also a book that reminds us why existing through hardships is worth the joy found in living.

But don’t forget that Miss Jakiela can be damn funny, too. Just wait for page 167!

An Homage to Neil Peart

It Built Our Lives Because
The Music Matters

In Memoriam, Neil Peart

(of Rush, 1974-2015;
of our time, 1952-2020)

“If we burn our wings,
flying too close to the sun;

If the moment of glory is
over before it’s begun;

If the dream is won,
though everything is lost;

We will pay the price,
but we will not count the cost.

When the dust has cleared
and victory denied;

A summit too lofty,
a river a little too wide;

If we keep our pride,
though paradise is lost;

We will pay the price,
but we will not count the cost.

And if the music stops,
there’s only the sound of the rain;

All the hope and glory,
all the sacrifice in vain;

And if love remains,
though everything is lost;

We will pay the price,
but we will not count the cost.” (“Bravado”)

One day, you’re seventeen years old and waiting...really, really waiting for WDVE in Pittsburgh to play the newest song by a band you really dig. Two decades later, you are teaching college theatre and telling a crew of your students to shut the hell up because you’ve been waiting… really, really waiting for WDVE in Pittsburgh to play the latest song by what has become your favorite band of all time. So, 1987 has become 2007. Then, suddenly, you’re approaching 50, busy raising kids and you’re not waiting, really not waiting, because you don’t want to believe the messages on Facebook. You cannot hear the words on WDVE in Pittsburgh that will verify the news. The most influential rock-lyric writer of your life may have passed away. And 2007 has become 2020, and...Neil...Peart...is...dead.

During the years in between you memorized each verse, discovered depth in countless metaphors, and posted just about anything you could in order to influence friends, students, family members, and fellow fans -- to just listen! Even if half the people humored you when they “liked” what you had typed, you often shared lyrics anyway.

One such post decried, “If you don’t get Rush by now, maybe you never will” when you shared “The Camera Eye.” That subtle social commentary nicely ties off a phase of Rush’s mini-saga period, the beginning of which was “By-Tor and the Snow Dog” and which ran through “2112,” both “Cygnus” variations, and a spate of others. You honestly believed that your lense into the music could transport others through a powerful and perfect portal to understand the band’s greatest aptitude. You knew very few would get it, that they’d just never take the time to comprehend the sheer brilliance that is Neil Peart, Geddy Lee, and Alex Lifeson. You developed a mantra, somewhat serious / somewhat flippant, to recruit fans: “When you recognize the truth, we will welcome you to the light.” Laughter has yet to convert. But onward you rocked.

For over 40 years, heavy-drum rhythms filled the rock-n-roll airwaves to define the Rush sound, and certain songs (“Tom Sawyer,” “Freewill,” “Spirit of Radio”) became radio favorites while arguably not even being among the band’s best work. All along, Rush relied time and perfectly-syncopated-time again on the mastery of Neil Peart’s lyrics to build upon every style from art-rock to anthem, from eulogy to elegy, from morals to morasses and yes, even a ballad and a rap! The trio are masterful musicians with Neil Peart the maestro behind the words.

~ ~ ~

The passing of Neil Peart signifies a moment in my life as others might think of the death of a civic leader or a profound actor. His work has inspired me as an artist and a thinker in ways that are difficult to explain. One might scoff at the very notion -- as if pausing to pay tribute to a rock-and-roll celebrity is the work a sophomore. But one would then dismiss the wave of change that rock-and-roll has brought to our society between 1950 and 2020. Influenced by 60s fusion, no-doubt pushed internally by 70s rock gods, motivated to surpass the experimental 80s, and recharged by a 90s guitar-rock resurgence, Peart sculpted an understanding for generations, and has left a lasting profundity yet to be fully realized. In the new millennium, he gifted us perhaps his greatest lyrical accomplishments in the band’s lesser-known final three albums. (Listen first, and if you agree, send thanks later.)

Peart was a musician whose talents I will never reach. I possess absolutely no musical skill, and would be called tone-deaf by many, but his lyrics reached me through a communal need for words. Vocabulary expresses the best and the beautiful, the weakest and the worst, the heroic and the hopeful, and the rough-hewn Canadian measured his choices with precision matched only (somehow) by the finesse of his own percussion.

One day, someone will write a book that explores the wordsmith’s many layers and secrets, but a few tracks demand attention upon his passing. Within his meaning lies the power of interpretation -- one thing I can do. Some fans in 1987 heard “I know you’re different, you know I’m the same; we’re both too busy to be taking the blame” as an ominous environmental concern from “Second Nature,” yet something suggested to me a commentary on kinship.

On some level there is a drug-addiction recovery theme to be found under “The Enemy Within”: “I’m not giving in to security under pressure, I’m not missing out on the promise of adventure. I’m not giving up on implausible dreams - experience to extremes.” Yet my take heralded a refusal to surrender to society, as if every obstacle was placed before us to build character and to discover our truest selves.

Buried within so many songs, the tiny nuggets are vast:

“They seem oblivious to this quality, equality.”

“It’s a far cry from the world we thought we’d inherit.”

“Can any part of life be larger than life?”

“Some half-forgotten stranger doesn’t mean that much to me.”

“I’m so full of what is right, I can’t see what is good.”

And the utterly effusive, “Why are we here? Because we’re here.”

Still, my personal motto hollers, “Don’t ask me, I’m just improvising my illusion of careless flight,” during the esoteric and layered “Presto.” It might be read as a musical romp through improvisation, yet I sensed a visionary reality to which I applied my art as a stage director. It inspired me to trust style over the limitations of structure. And it goes a step further: “If I could wave my magic wand...I’d make everything all right” considers the best of being better people together.

Throughout Peart’s exploration of the world’s words, we have learned wisdom, patience, insight, introspection, and a deeper connection to our humanity. But we also find a devotion to integrity and to science, and to the mystery and wonder of both. “Science like nature must also be tamed...Art as expression, not as market campaign, will still capture our imagination.” (“Natural Science”) “But I still cling to hope, and I believe in love; and that’s faith enough for me.” (Faithless”) I can’t discuss them all -- do your homework!

Rock and roll has been the throbbing beat of my artistic heart. It has allowed me to balance Literature with my own minimal contribution to the Arts as they represent us and will come to define our own time on this earth. While we are saddened to place 2020 on a man’s tombstone who only became alive in 1952, we cherish the grace by which he penned complex lyrics that challenge us as much as they must have confounded his musician-best-friends Geddy and Alex when they wrote accompanying music to construct and perfect their songs.

And now we reach the very moment of legacy. When a life ends and memory begins; where we hold true to the reality that every song, every fill, every word, every thought, every counter-rhythm, and every pun, reinvented cliche, and clever phrase now stand as a testament to a life well-played. Most sadly, The Professor wrote words he possibly did not realize would come to be so profound when he chronicled Rush’s entire career in “Headlong Flight”: “I’d never trade tomorrow for today...Some days were dark...some nights were bright...I wish that I could live it all again.”

As long as there is electricity to harness and speakers to connect, the music of Rush, driven by the impulse and wisdom of Neil Peart, will forever rock our souls and roll our emotions down a tireless road, much like the one Mr. Peart himself wrote of in “Ghost Rider” as a method for his own mourning and coping: “Show me beauty, but there is no peace for the ghost rider.” Please, somewhere, may Neil Peart truly rest in peace now.

“Suddenly, you were gone, from all the lives you left your mark
upon...I hear the voices...I remember.
I tried to believe, but you
know it’s no good. This is something that just can’t
be understood.” (“Afterimage”)

(All lyrics are property of Rush, Neil Peart, and their musical catalog.)

New Orleans - Modern Atlantis

(This is a piece I wrote many years ago during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I have never been to New Orleans, but still the images affected me.)

I am reminded of visions from childhood – of a mythical place, of a lost city, a mysterious adventure. I was not old enough to separate myth from reality, and could not comprehend that I would never actually take a deep-sea voyage to swim amongst submerged buildings and encounter freakish citizens who had adapted to their aquatic environs. Nor did I speculate that at one point in time such a city must have first been inundated to become the underwater playground it was in my juvenile mind. No, I would never see Atlantis. Now that I have seen New Orleans under perilous deluge, I am not sure that I would have wanted to.

     Those are not freakish people with gill-like breathing systems struggling to get along in a strange world. (Hell, not even the flimsy film Waterworld could have prepared us for this.) They are human beings suffering insurmountable terror and dehydrating fear. If the words by Coleridge -- “Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink” -- ever precluded humankind’s mercy at the hand of nature, a flood is perhaps more poignant than a poet stranded at sea.

     Real people cling to rooftops. Real people lie dead in the rivers of streets. Real people have lost everything. And for what? For nothing explainable or stoppable, and perhaps never before truly imaginable.

     If this were a Disney picture, some hero would rise from the waves, roll back the waters with his mighty trident, and levy the destruction backwards against the sea.

     But there is no Triton to damn the ocean. There is no lover to soothe Katrina’s angry passion. And as sure as she has blown away her steam into memory and mist, she will remain a part of our shared cultural history, just as New Orleans now awkwardly shares itself with Atlantis.

     Who knows what the future holds for the Big Easy? Maybe the really big and difficult task of recovery. Maybe the enormous price of rebuilding city and society while burying family and dignity. Perhaps the realization and acceptance that there will not be a city there any longer. Or, do we hope for the humble resolve to move forward and somehow, after some time – months, years, decades – survive? As Hiroshima did, as Nagasaki did. But let us be slow to compare those tragedies. One the hand of nature, two at the hand of ignorance. Still the devastation must be similar.

     Somewhere off in the distant corners of our minds there is the site of magical Atlantis, gleaming at the bottom of the sea as if preserved for archeology and for poets. But here on earth, in the awesome reality of our weakness against a fickle mother, drowns New Orleans – a submerged and battered remnant of its former self. Intent to withstand, its people push forward as a nation mourns and asks why and pauses long enough to roll back our weathered sleeves and help in anyway we can.

     There are survivors to be found, supplies to be delivered, monies to be raised. There is the future to consider, but moments that must be confronted which are the literal divide between life and death, glory and tragedy.

     We watch television accounts and go to sleep more grateful than we were after September 11, 2001, for what we have, for what we have not lost, and for what we suddenly realize is more fragile than the last bottle of fresh water in storage. We recount what is more precious than convenient food. We contemplate that our lives, our homes, our loved ones can be taken from us at any time and from any wrath. And as we lay down to sleep we dream torrid visions of other’s suffering, of other’s loss, and we wonder how they will go on. And the whys remain. 

     For the remainder of my life when I think of the fabled Atlantis, I will not be enchanted as I was during my youth. I will be haunted.

Retirement: A Short-short Tragicomedy

The stage is split between two homes; Dan's on stage right, Ryan's on stage left.

They both enter and speak to their wives at a shared table that covers both stage areas.


RYAN: Good morning, wife! This is a great day - last day ever at work.

     (He exits)

DAN: Good morning, wife. Well, I'm off to work. About time to...

     (He dies.)

End scene

Letters to Tony: A Eulogy for Anthonly Sylvester Lupori (10/5/1990 - 2/19/2014)

     Letters. Letters arranged to make words. Words designed to make sense of things. We try to find the right words to make sense of the things that we can understand and even the things that are unthinkable; the things we might never understand. I wish I had the words to make sense of...this. But I don’t. None of us do. There is simply no sense to why people are attending the funeral of a twenty-three year old man.
      But that’s where we are, that’s what life has done to us, to Tony. There is nothing more ironic than a man who loved science dying young because science still isn’t good enough. And that makes me mad. We are not alone in this grief, this anger. Many people have died from cancer – young, old and in between. I often say that in 300 years they will laugh at how we fight cancer today. I wish I could invent a time machine, move into 2314 and return with whatever secrets mankind dreams up between now and then. I can’t. None of us can. As much as Tony studied and understood science and loved its base principles, he could not have done it either. And that is the senselessness that has many of us so bitter and so angry.
     Tony deserved better because he embodied hope. I don’t know if many people realized that about him. While he called himself a Darwinist, he knew that people could make the world better.
     Look at all these people here today. It shouldn’t surprise us. Maybe the sadness of someone dying young isn’t really all that sad. Maybe they are young enough to still have important people around them and in their lives. We hold a grandparent’s funeral, and family attend  but most of their friends have passed on or are too weak to travel, or have just faded away over the years. The memory of this moment might just be that Tony touched so many lives – and in such a short amount of time. You aren’t here because Tony died young; you’re here because Tony meant something to you, and you meant something to him. While that does not numb the heartache, it makes something seem to be meaningful.
     There are some good memories I will choose to keep and some bad ones I will make myself forget.
     I will remember the night a few weeks before the surgery when he simply asked to go a movie. I said, “What’s up?” He said he didn’t feel like being alone. It was his way of saying please.
     I will not remember the pain of seeing someone we love die so young, because he lived a lot in his two decades. He was a part of our lives, and that fact made all of our lives a little bit better.
     I will remember going to the auto show in February of 2013. He was like a kid at Christmas inside a candy store and at Disneyworld all at once. It was his groove. He bounced from car to car, telling me about specs I didn’t understand, appreciating the fine engineering of other people’s work, pointing out what features were “boss” and which were “lame.” I learned a little,  but more I will remember watching Tony revel in his element. He was having fun and smiling and dreaming of driving those cars – before he even knew he’d have cancer. I will remember him smiling.
     I won’t remember the vitriol he expressed for what he lost. But who could blame him? There is so much we take for granted – what we eat, how we kiss, when we talk, why we breathe, and all of it was taken from him in the prime of his life.
     I will remember that Tony was a child of his generation. He loved skateboards and bikes as a kid, grew to dig computers and apps and his cell phone as a teen, and absolutely became passionate about tools and engineering as a young man. They made sense to him.
     I choose to forget all of the things he vented about during a ride back and forth to Deep Creek. He needed a sounding board for his pain, frustration, anger and confusion. He said some pretty nasty things. It does no good to recount those things, and I will not remember them.
     I hope I can always remember his laughter. His laugh was like a quick-strike rifle. He would burst out, laugh hard and then stop. He would just stop because the funny part was over. He appreciated humor but he balanced it with such a seriousness. He was a fan of satire but there were so many other things that made him laugh: silly internet memes, people falling, girls doing things in an illogical way, and how we Pittsburgh sports fans take our teams too seriously. Tony even managed to laugh at his own misfortunes.
     When he had the PET scan on December 12^th, it happened to be the night the newest Hobbit movie was to be released. He asked if I would go with him to the midnight showing no matter the results of his PET scan. If it was good news, he wanted to celebrate; if it is was bad, he wanted to commiserate. I said I don’t know,  I had six hours of class to teach the next day. That might be tough. His response? “Come on! I just got the shit kicked out of me by cancer for six months. You can handle being tired at school for a few hours.” I will remember that bravery. And I will remember going to that movie, to celebrate just for that one day.
     I will not remember the cancer. What good does that do? If we remember it, it wins. Cancer can’t win. The memory of Tony must be better and bigger and braver than the disease that ended his life. We must continue to fight cancer and fight with those who suffer.
     I will remember his words. The funny things he said, the many things he taught me (some about cars that I never really understood); the way he loved to talk about ideas both profound and silly. I will remember how he went out in public and lived after the surgery that removed his tongue. He never asked that I speak to store employees for him at a movie theatre or at Best Buy or at Lowe’s. He did his best to communicate. And he was patient with people even when he knew they had trouble understanding him.
     And his generosity. I will remember the times when he let me off the hook. He would say something I just could not figure out as his speech became worse, and I would give an “Uh-huh,” as if to let him finish. He would say, “You really didn’t understand what I said, did you?” I had to admit I hadn’t. He would simply repeat it because that was his way.
     I will remember how he accepted his fate. I will remember he had plans. I will remember how we came to be friends before it was too late.
     Tony and I became very close in the last 5 years. And I can tell you that he was outspoken because he cared. He was assertive not because he was arrogant or conceited, but because he had ambition. He had hopes of doing something important. He may have come off as being a bit abrasive, but it wasn’t because he was rude or self-centered. He was insecure. We all were at 21, at 22, at 23, at... And that is the tragedy, isn’t it? He’ll never get to grow into his developing twenties, his calming thirties, his patient forties, his focused fifties, his graceful sixties, his grateful seventies, his reflective eighties. Please, if anything, enjoy your twenties because you can. Live your thirties for all their joy because you can. Embrace your forties because you can! Reinvent yourself in your fifties, celebrate your sixties, accept the struggles of your seventies, and hold onto life during your eighties...only because you can.
     I will not remember cancer. I will remember that he had cancer. But I will not, cannot remember what it did to him. I will remember him young and sharp and handsome and full of life.
     I will always remember that I could not comprehend the last thing he tried to say to me – but I will enjoy a life spent imagining all the great things it might have been that he was trying to teach me.
     I will remember that he gave me the chance to be a decent uncle. I’ll remember how he stuck to his point of view and was always willing to argue a point because he believed in the power of his intelligent dialogue; in a way, he believed in words. I will remember his words. The ones he wrote, the ones he said, even the ones he had to repeat after he lost the ease of speaking.
     I will remember his dignity.
     I will remember his words.
     Words made of letters designed to make sense of the unthinkable...

Thoughts on Father's Day, 2013

When does a pond become a lake? A big pond...a small lake...a short river...a long life – this is how we classify things. There is probably a geological definition that defines when a certain acreage or a certain gallon capacity is surpassed to change a body of water from a pond (or a really big pond) to a lake, at least by definition. Does that one gallon extra or that hectare (whatever the hell that means) really create a delineation for which we should be concerned?

It is said that water makes up most of the human body and most of the Earth upon which we stand. It has also been said that the world is 85% hydrogen and 16% stupidity. At what point is a human being smart enough to notice that their own personal problems are becoming unmanageable, in that they are, per se, drowning? If that one drop of water converges upon the pond and it suddenly becomes a lake, then surely one mistake might pull a person under.

But is a pond proud? Does it stand on the farm and boast across the landscape, “Hey, I’m a Lake now!” – to which a grizzled old body of water that has always been massive and has always been a Lake, retorts: “Relax, kid – by the end of summer you’ll dry up and be a pond again.” It must be a humbling experience.

More importantly, when does a parent realize that the responsibility of building a strong peer and steering a steady ship far outweigh the risk/reward equation of a life filled with awesome cruises or thrilling adventures on water skis?

The society we have developed into allows for a myriad of problems to inundate us, but what are we to do? We have rivers of stress, lakes of addiction, seas of denial and an ocean’s worth of excuses. Somewhere along the line of human progress we added too much water and someone forgot that we need to release the valves once in a while. A drop of divorce, a hint of homelessness, a touch of tragedy, the requisite dash of drugs and alcohol, a sprinkle of selfishness, and a full measure of misguided thinking, bottom-line hoping, happiness-in-objects wishing, and driven-for-success-living has lead us to a flood of problems both physical and emotional. Might good, sensible parenting take the helm generation after generation and correct our course? The ancients navigated by the stars. All we need now is common sense responsibility. But we get distracted by modern trappings, and bad parents rear lost children.

These problems (“issues” as they are called by the We Can Accomplish Anything by Positive Thinking Campers) have inundated us to the point of saturation. We find it difficult to breathe under all the pressure, and our lakes overspill their borders and wipe out all that we have built of good cities, abundant crops, strong roadways, excellent communication channels and once-proud schools.

We stand back and survey the damage. “Tsk, tsk, this is sad. Nothing could have prevented this from happening!” The wreckage is abysmal, the destitution profound and the healing is only beginning. Had we just opened the tap a little to let the water drain enough to release some pressure, maybe we wouldn’t be counting damage but rather moving forward. Work less, go to the lake more. Fight less, gaze at the river more. Hold less grudges and stroll hand-in-hand along the shore, and marriage ain’t all that hard. You might cuss (and say ain’t) like a sailor, but working together as Captain and First Mate is easier than...Not so easy, is it? It takes work. The Titanic may have gone down in a day, but it wasn’t built in a day either. Do you want your marriage to be the Titanic? Then plan a wedding. If you want your life to resemble the U.S.S. Arizona, then work together to a plan a strategy for a marriage. If you don’t want kids, be honest with each other and prevent that. If you aren’t sure – please take precaution so you don’t become parents unwillingly! If you do want kids, accept the responsibilities that come with the job, and it is a job! The responsibilities are too numerous to list here, but observe a good local mom or dad and you’ll catch on quickly.

The dangers of a bad marriage are rather obvious, but do we ever consider what might occur in the wake as we glide back into our own lives? We get so distracted by cleaning up the bad marriage wreckage that we lose sight of the goals: true happiness, fulfillment, family pride, a mother and father working together to teach their kids to swim.

A good swimmer, after all, has the skills to navigate the challenges of choppy waters and can pace himself for the long haul. A weak swimmer, a child raised between fighting parents, a selfish (or worse, non-existent/weekend) father and a self-absorbed (or worse, distracted and obsessive) mother, panics in the waters of stress, loses oxygen and is either damaged or goes down with the sharks. There are no sharks in the pool, unless you count those other teenagers who find solution in tinctured spoons or hopps-infested waters as being sharks or piranhas or just plain punks. Not to mention all the other sea life bent on destruction – criminals, creeps and crappy future spouses. There are good swimmers in the pools, too, kids who would be smart enough to realize that this metaphor of swimmers is getting...tired.

In the short end of the pool, there is a day we all must come to realize that we need to either sink or swim. This is our life, and we only get one chance to live it well. Society allows for multiple chances to correct the course, but sometimes you get too lost and other times you right the ship. It is laughable that the phrase “YOLO” has consumed the minds of a young generation. You Only Live Once has become a rally cry for anything from good times to extreme partying to outright debauchery. Let’s not forget that we only die once too. Are we willing to have that conversation with our kids while still teaching them to enjoy life? It’s sort of like walking a plank – there is danger but not all fun is deadly. Smart parents...better kids...just a thought.

As we pool (get it?) our resources together to make society a place worth living, one has to hope that oceans of doubt and streams of confusion can flow in the confluence of good judgment, smart planning and teamwork to pacify the rocky waters of our times. Whether you can afford a built-in heated, indoor super pool or a plastic kiddy pool that will be cracked and curbed for a September pick-up-garbage day, or any variation in between from local pool passes to yearly trips to the beach, just be a good parent. Please, someone is drowning out there. It might be your kid, it might be your neighbor’s kid, it might be you. Life preservers are all around you in the form of friends and family. It doesn’t matter if it is a pond or a lake, but it is our jobs as parents to teach our kids to swim well. Don’t let that kid down, and don’t let that kid drown.

Chatham Nature Writing: Final Place Journal Post

Farewell, Back Yard! I shall see you again in July, when the scalding sun sends me toward cover of the only shade this property owns. The ragged and weathered yet sturdy awning of aluminum will cover me from direct sun and occasional summer storm, but you deserve a break from my peering, watchful eyes.

I have observed this yard from cold to mold and through two seasons have seen it rotate like a carousel. One day it was wet and bogged down with the melt-away snow; on another it was arid in a sneak attack March heatwave. It has been barbed with ice and softened under a downy breeze, and all throughout these four months it has withstood the throes of passion that weather commands.

Perhaps I will return for July and just sit. The cold winter months forced me to stand, mobility my roving eye as I canvassed like a detective week after week. I traipsed the perimeter certain that a clue was left uncovered to reveal the mystery of nature. How did so much change so rapidly? A wind, a sunburst, a rainy night, all mutable. The evidence was abundant – a rusted spring of ivy laced through an aged fence; a clump of mud, smile-tossed by children during October’s fancy days of splendor; a slab of ice picked from a sled in February, reminiscent of snow so fast and sudden as to freeze slush into miniature ice rinks; the first green blade of spring returning. I witnessed the scene yet found no solution. I had no lab other than my mind and my words within which to process data, and really no crime had been committed. Proof pointed toward creeping motion, a prowler at large. While I slept or worked or watched the football play-offs, subtlety slid across this yard from day to day and altered from dawn to dusk and week to week the meaning of surroundings. I wonder if anyone else even noticed.

This yard is not much different than either of my neighbors’ to the east or to the west, and to these backyard sanctuaries we often retreat in singular pods of separate families. One has a statue fountain that no longer flows, the other a bare and thwarted hillside of dry dirt ready to flow for the next downpour. Both yards run flat in quarter-acre plots; without two fences and openly connected to my own yard, they would make a grand play area for kids of all ages. Yet we hardly know them, the neighbors. It is as if backyard has come to mean recluse.

It is possible to imagine that the backyard was the impetus for the denigration of community. Before housing developments and pre-dating the suburbs, families sat “out front” on long summer evenings. Whether to cool off, shoot the shit or watch passersby do their thing, people congregated on the stoops and steps of American homes. Now we isolate ourselves, as if reaching out were inconvenient, as if making friends were a chore. It’s funny that I invite friends from two boroughs over to have a cook-out in the yard behind my house, yet do not really know the people who live right next door to my home.

This yard that I have watched and studied will be a gathering place for dinners and card games and the occasional whiskey and cola, as well as swimming in a few months (it’s a cheap pool that won’t last ten years – don’t be impressed), but the safety of my neighborhood could be undermined as I avoid meeting new friends, getting to know old neighbors and keeping a watchful eye on all who come and go along my street.

You know what, Back Yard, I think I’ll need to take a rain check on that July visit. I’ll return for October instead, when all my neighbors begin to hibernate. Meanwhile, I’ll be in the front yard if you need me.

Chatham Nature Writing: Final Prompt Journal Post

To Blog, or Not to Blog?

No, really, that is the question.

There is an old saying that suggests that if something is worth doing, it is worth doing well. If an endeavor, be it building a house, starting a business or loving someone, has any intrinsic value, then it seems obvious that it is worth the time and effort and focus and concentration to complete the initiative effectively; in other words, to do it well.

Writing is no different, but the blog presents some interesting challenges. In the current reality of internet ramblings and social networking, the keeping of a blog doesn’t necessarily mean that something is written well. Anyone with a computer and internet access can put words together to formulate ideas that resemble a blog. The trick is in the credibility. Of course there are writers who possess amazing credibility. Likewise, there are unknown literary hacks who have quite a unique view to share and a lot of good verbal ideas to offer.

So, wherein lies the rub? It’s hidden in the content.

I was hesitant to “blog” at first, not wanting to add my name to a potential list of writers mistaken for social updaters. These are the people who feel it is necessary to tell us what they are doing with their lives as if a blog post is intended to replace a book status that resembles someone else’s face. These include people who spout their political views or religious ideals or music rants or sports opinions, whatever the subject might be, without having any real merit behind their point of view. They share little, express less and offer no insight for a reader to consider. These “writers” scared me away from the blogosphere for a number of years.

Then a trusted friend suggested I might revitalize a column I had written in college under the guise of a blog. The format took some getting used to but now, after a few years into the experiment, I am starting to get it. I understand the blog to be a forum for social commentary or humor, even the occasional rant when necessary. This has brought me no “outrageous fortune,” but it has yielded a few followers who generally like what I have to write.

When I returned to school to study creative writing and enrolled in a Nature Writing class, this blog served as a weekly journal to develop and express issues that are specific to the genre. The experience has been humbling, though hardly baring the whips and scorn of publishing. Nature is all around us, so finding inspiration was not difficult. Gaining a fresh perspective concerning the environment, however, was challenging. And then something happened. As weekly observation and contemplation continued at a concentrated level, perspective slid into focus; aligned with priority, the ability to reflect upon nature and respond accordingly became intensified.

What happened to me can be explained well by a song. I often quote from the rock band Rush because their philosophy has influenced me as an artist. Their lead singer, Geddy Lee, released a solo album with a song that echoes the experience I have had while expanding this blog into a temporary nature journal. The song goes like this:

“Something you said, it made me step outside the moment;
Eyes pan right and left around my world.
Open yourself up to the possibility,
Aware of some reality outside your world.”
(Geddy Lee, 2000)

I don’t think Geddy was talking about nature, yet his perspective expands into an understanding of how I now perceive the natural world. It has always been my world, as much as it is yours, hers, his or that other guy’s, but I now relate to it on a different plain. It is isn’t spiritual or tree-loving; it’s more of a rhythm with the spinning of the so-called third rock from the sun.

Somewhere in the writing prompts, I was able to step outside of myself and receive ideas and meaning from nature herself; as well, I recognized the possibilities that were presented to me. This is not to say that I was against writing within nature before. I had just never taken the time to really absorb the natural world so that it might inform my writing. I have often written poetry while being outside, which made sense on its own. This journal, however, has been more about finding new things to write about, as well as new ways to concentrate on the observational experience.

To comment further about these ideas might give credence to the genre of the blog, or it might just provide a reason to continue writing about nature. There are many columnists who now write blogs – very good writers writing very good material. The question, then, becomes, are readers reading the good stuff or are they trapped in a world of poor writing that is better left for social chatrooms?

Whether I continue to reflect on nature or add my own humorous rant (which I have been known to attempt), the writing of this blog will reflect heightened patience. When I am in nature I have no concept of time other than our Dear Old Sun. When time is all but removed from experience, one tends to see things with greater clarity. From that clarity I have learned to watch, to listen, to experience nature, and not just the places where I live but rather the entire context of our surroundings.

With a portion of integrity, a good self-editing eye, a reason to write and willingness to try new avenues (or in this case, dirt paths), the writing of any genre – whether it is stage plays or nature blogs – is worth doing well.

Chatham Nature Writing Blog: Prompt Entry #6

Time is a bridge between memories. One day you are walking to a store angry that your mother wanted Diet Pepsi and sent you on the errand. The next – though hardly the next because some 10,950 days have elapsed – you are a dad walking to the same store with your son to buy yet another Diet Pepsi so you can play with the silly stocking stuffer he gave you at Christmas. And in a single moment you realize that the passage of time is about letting go and a little bit of healing.

There is a slight track of land in our neighborhood that reminds me of everything I despised and worried about as a child. The street I walked then and now is called Prospect, a road that fronts the parking lot to a 7-11 convenience store. The lot and the road merge at a sloping angle through a tiny yard. For years it had been common for kids to cut the corner and make our own footpath along a beaten trail up the slope and into the parking lot. We didn't have the patience (or respect) to walk to the concrete and take a right angle as drivers do. The path urged into existence by short-cut teens was no more than fifty feet long and all of three feet wide, but it was trampled down to a dirt path like you might see on a hiking trail. It was a well-trodden path. It is now only a trace of its former self. The ridge is there but grass has grown in; it looks like a scar healed over.

The gift my son gave me is a tube designed to make a geyser from Mentos candy when dropped in diet soda. You attach the tube to a full bottle of pop laced with phenylalanine, drop the chewy treats down the tube, release the safety string so the candies plummet into the soda, and then watch a geyser of foam explode through the opening. It actually works! After a few seconds, the brown froth rises and erupts through the tube to shoot a sprout into the air almost two feet high. It is a complete waste of terrible soda and good candy, but the smile on Brian’s face is worth the three dollars we spent. Cost is nothing compared to a Christmas promise fulfilled. I had told him we would test the toy come spring time.

Years ago, I felt pressure boiling under my tension as I walked to the store, angry and still very confused about why my parents had divorced. I hadn't learned yet how to place blame or come to terms with problems of the adult world. When my mom asked me to walk to 7-11 to buy her a two-liter bottle of Diet Pepsi, I went but I was furious. I huffed and steamed the whole way there, grunting underbreath for the equivalent of four city blocks. The errand, it seemed to me, was no different than fetching my father's beer, the same cans of alcohol I was told had ruined my family.

I eventually moved away and then a decade later returned to that same neighborhood as an adult – long story short, that sort of thing – in order to raise my own family. I live two streets from where I spent my formative years and the 7-11 is still there. It has changed as has the neighborhood, but only in terms of who works there and who lives where, and the absence of busses that used to slide through the streets all day and all night.

I had first moved into the neighborhood as a ten-year-old boy; a striking irony now that Brian is also ten. As Brian and I walked to the store on a recent spring evening warm enough to make me wish I had worn shorts, I remembered that log-ago Diet Pepsi and realized how easy my life has been. I never witnessed a drive-by shooting, nor the atrocities that people from other countries have suffered. The scars of social and political injustice mark my neighbors as much as my emotional wounds have healed. After all, it was just a soft drink my mom wanted. But people have fled Burma and Serbia and Yugoslavia and Bosnia to find a better life, here, in a place I have long called home. The houses remain, though the addresses receive mail of different last names, some I cannot pronounce.

Where my friends and I used to traipse toward the store and stomp the land into a finely packed trail there now grows rejuvenated grass. It is as if scars from our minor disrespect have grown over with the fresh seeds of better-mannered kids. Or, do kids even walk to the store anymore? We ran up that slope in races! We shot our bikes toward the hill with no effort – we were ten, fifteen, and soon we drove there anyway. Maybe today's kids get dropped off to get their moms' Diet Pepsi. "Be back in an hour," a parent waves as they retreat in the family SUV or minivan. This generation is being raised by new absenteeism. Not my kids.

Our walk that evening was simple, the time-honored truth of quality over quantity. Brian asked about pirates of the high seas and whether a stick he had found could defend him against a swashbuckler with a sword. He wondered whether The Hulk could lift that car, that car, that one? “What about that truck?” he asked as we avoided the trail to enter the store. He proposed that maybe I was stronger than Hulk. It depends, but it’s doubtful, I thought. Can the Hulk heal scars as they grow invisible year after year?

Chatham Nature Writing Blog: Place Entry #6

In like a Lion, out like a Lamb. Equinox. April Fool’s Day. Easter. March. April. May. The words remind me of proper nouns, as if Spring holds a clarity unlike any other season. It is a time of Cliché, of Rebirth, of New Beginnings, even of Baseball. The Earth, I have long argued, is the ultimate proper noun. Perhaps in our language we should label it EARTH. Without Earth, where would we be? That type of rhetoric might lead to absurdist humor. We’d be nowhere, out in space, among the abyss. We wouldn’t be of course, but that is a topic for existentialists to consider on other platforms. I can only be in my own existence, and I have a messy yard to drain, grass to cut (if it dries), and the ever-pleasant task of cleaning up after the dogs.

My yard upon this Earth curls under an overcast day as if the clouds were at play with a saucy mixture from a cake recipe. The surface water swill from last night’s storm has flooded the yard again; flood being a relative term. Steps are sloshed and shoes muddied. There will be no playing for children here today. Somewhere, terror floods fields and farms, but that is in another nation whose capitalization I am not concerned with. Today, I only worry about a plot of land on Beryl Drive owned by the Kirks. A slight breeze slings the fresh-top grass blades in pulsating dance steps that swing against the wishes of the sunblock-generation-kids in my yard.

They want so badly to play. My youngest tries cartwheel kicks over by one dry patch as she continues to learn gymnastics. The older two chase and dart after each other in a game of tag, the rules not clear to me. I survey the yard not as an observer today, but rather as a dad who longs for these longer moments. A seasonal dip in the temperature has returned things to normal. The air hovers around forty and light jackets make our play cumbersome, yet we invent a game of almost-tennis over the failed ice rink. At least those borders were good for something! I win the first two matches and then lose three straight. Might that forecast another losing season for my beloved baseball Pirates? I hope not, hope to the point that Hope itself should also be a proper noun. Hope may be a thing, but it is a thing of beauty. So many other things of beauty get the shift key treatment when one is typing: Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, why not Hope?

My yard is not as wide as Arizona’s hole nor as damp as our natural border with Canada, yet it falls on this dad’s shoulders to maintain a certain suburban image and borough ordinance concerning yardwork. I hate yardwork, Hate it with a capital H. And what about Dad? What work and trouble with the yard will I encounter? The kids don’t seem to care that the grass is too high. It is common for people to refer to their own father as Dad, but to the general principle of parenting as the guy known as dad. It is a fair comparison. But what if Dad came to represent a status in our society? What if deadbeat dad deserves lower case and an honorable dude earned his Dad spelling? What if Father meant that this Dad is further removed from the dad who lives farther away and only calls on Father’s Day? Perhaps we could rid the world of fatherless homes if we gave merit to a Dad and a Father whose rank was worthy of such address.

But the yard will soon needed tended to, and I also happen to be lousy at yardwork. In that realm I would earn a D-minus if grades were being handed out; or worse, an F. My landscaping skills look as if a third grader had drawn them up in art class and magically transplanted the slanted and mismatched picture onto my property. I am no Dad of Grass-cutting either. Then again, I prefer less curb appeal and more memories. Yes, I declare that a good back yard ought to be one smudged with dandelions and divots where wrestled-down knees meet their match, spots where Tide earns its keep. I decree a rally cry for Better Dads and Who Cares Yards!

Oh well, tis time to play. My kids want to get out on the yard and really Play. There is so much for them to experience – Mud, Laughter, Dirt, Breath, Smiles – all as they traipse upon this Earth.

Chatham Nature Writing Blog: Prompt Entry #5

Open space and shade are what soothe my soul. Under the open sun of Pennsylvania summer a blistering blaze bothers me the way I used to pester my brother. It is nagging and relentless. One day, my brother grew up and socked me a good punch of retribution; sometimes it still hurts where his first punch landed on my arm. He is older by eleven-and-a-half months but was a small kid. The years he developed passed like a track star lapping me on the one-mile sprint. If he is heat, perhaps I am shade. We lead very different lives but have relied on one another just the same.

The star that bakes the front of my house must consider itself the foreman of a job unfinished. The bricks were fused six decades ago, yet the sun still dumps its warmth as if they needed to be fired today. The sand-water-gravel mixture blocks absorb and hold heat in a most impressive way. They remain warm to the touch hours past dark on a summer night and even during the coldest and clearest of January days.

I have read that in Ireland the temperature rarely goes above seventy or below forty on the Fahrenheit scale. I must be more Irish (and even less German) than American, despite being among the third Kirk generation to hold an American birth certificate. At that very moment when pleasant spring turns to annoying summer I feel my Germanic half disappear and my Irish-kin blood step forward. I long for shade, a massive shield above my house to filter sunlight is all I wish. I think if it could just cool down by six or eight degrees I would feel less sluggish, have longer energy and get more yard work accomplished. All of these might please my wife in various ways.

Shade. Oh for a bit of its gray, translucent gift. Envy creases my thoughts when I visit other homes. They sit down in a valley or just over a small glade. They rest in sliding degrees of shade from one hour to another and offer respite in cool, calm moments. Someone else’s yard holds an oak tree; along the driveway stands a lumbering maple or a proud, hefty pine. Each tree blocks the sun during the most intense hours of afternoon. It is not as if I desire to be an underground dweller. I only want shade. Cool. Comfortable. Direct. Dispersed. Soft. Serene. Shade.

I move about the exterior world grateful for open air. Winter walks are as fine as a summer stroll, and rain ranks high upon the things I adore. I don’t want to be inside. I want only to be out in open space and under shade. There is a pressure of tight spaces, not claustrophobia nor agoraphobia either. The tightness doesn’t originate from halls or classrooms or malls, but rather from the cramped neighborhoods, narrow city streets, bumper-to-bumper highways, and the confined spaces that impede nature. For as much as shade is desired, it is as if a house or store built in the way doesn’t offer real comfort. They are artificial shields.

That bit o’ me that feels Irish is at a crossroads. To one direction sits the blazing sun from which I turn my morning-blue eyes and squint under brow-salted sweat. The other casts the disappearing gray of day. I check both directions...