Maine 2022: Hope is the thing with feathers

Starting yesterday, and continuing through the end of next week, it's officially vacation time.  As in a real, multi-day, have to travel somewhere and interact with other humans vacation.  The specifics of this particular vacation center around my in-law's 61st wedding anniversary, and involve Ms. Rivers's family gathering in Maine, as that is where the senior Mr. & Mrs. Rivers had their honeymoon, many moons ago.  This was a trip that was postponed from a prior year (a 60th wedding anniversary trip seems to make a bit more sense, don't you think?), mostly on account of the 'rona*, which was a reasonable thing to do, all things considered.

This is, by the way, my third trip to Maine over the years.  One of the wonderful things about being married to Ms. Rivers is that, sans her involvement, I am reasonably sure I would never have gone to Maine in my lifetime,   That prior statement only makes sense if, for example, you've actually been to  Maine.

As I've written here before, I consider Maine to be a different kind of place.  The coastline is nothing short of awe-inspiringly beautiful, but over and above that, there's just something uniquely Maine-ly about Maine.  It's as if there's a different set of mental rules here...a different reality of sorts...that you can only understand if you've actually spent time in Maine.  It's a feeling that is pretty hard to put into words, and pictures only do it a kind of somewhat justice.  Speaking of pictures, there will be many over the next few days.  I may even plug some into a posting or three.

I know that's standard fare to say things like "I really need this vacation" when you are writing about vacation, and while I like to pride myself on the fact that I am reasonably good at writing things down, the reality is that I  really do think I need this time off.  There has been just so very, very much that has been fundamentally changing.  By that, I mean changes in the world, so many career changes for me over the past two years, changes in health, et al.  Through it all I have been doing what I think I do best:  Plowing through.  Yet, I suspect that even the best actual farm plow gets dull after too much usage and needs some kind of sharpening.  For me?  See Maine, above.

I'm not hoping for any miracles, by the way.  My hobbled right big toe will, for example, be as painful the week after next as it is now.  In fact, I'm not hoping for anything.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

(Emily Dickinson)

I've learned that hope is pretty much a useless kind of thing when viewed just by itself.  Where it has any real value in our lives is when it's coupled with some action.  See Maine, above.

So, what does all of this really, truly mean?  Well, seeing as though I started writing this at 6:02am in Portsmouth, New Hampshire (and it's now 6:33am), I'm not sure I can say.  As much as I haven't been writing much lately, sometimes the words just come out on their own without any real effort from me.  That's the case now.  This post is basically just writing itself; I'm just here to edit.

On that note, it's time to move on to other things.  There will be more to come.

(*) COVID-19 for the more sophisticated types out there.

Valentine's Day 2018 - I have no life but this

I have no life but this,
To lead it here;
Nor any death, but lest
Dispelled from there;

Nor tie to earths to come,
Nor action new,
Except through this extent, 
The realm of you.
                            - Emily Dickinson

My Brother Chris

My brother passed away some time early to mid-last week.  Sadly, we don't know the exact date of his passing.  I am thankful that I was the one to find him, as that spared others, including his wife or my brother Rich, from that terrible visual.

Christopher Paul Albert lived a full life, and was many things, including a very proud father, husband, son, friend, veteran of the United States Navy (Naval Med Corpsman, stationed with the Marines at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina), altar server, former postal carrier in Lodi (New Jersey), amateur boxer, a graduate of Montclair State University, fan of the manual transmission, cook, Republican, lover of cats, talk radio consumer, music aficionado (especially the Rolling Stones and the Doors), runner, voracious reader of biographies, a genuinely funny person, federal government IT guy, gifted with gab, and tireless rebel without a cause.  He also knew precisely how to infuriate his older brothers (especially me) with a level of efficiency that would make a Japanese automobile manufacturer nod in approval.

One of my oldest memories of Chris was, as at a very young age, his repeated habit of running arms first into glass storm doors, cutting himself up like someone working at an OSHA-fined meat-packing plant.  I kid you not.  This was then...

In his early teens he was, as noted above, an amateur boxer, having had several bouts under his belt at the Scranton Catholic Youth Center.

It was a perfect way for a teenager with pent-up feelings to deal with the world.  Back then Rich and I would taunt him by saying things like "Sure Chris, you'll be a boxer...you'll be boxing apples, pears, and pineapples at the local Acme supermarket".  Brothers can be such jerks.

Recently, he held the world's record for most number of overnight calls to Steve Albert, set at 13, between 8 pm and the following 10 am.  It's a record that's not likely to be broken, if ever.

As he grew older, he was someone who increasingly struggled to make it in a world that seemed to offer fewer and fewer easy choices as time quickly past him by.  I repeatedly told him that he held on to amounts of unexpressed emotion that were, at best, unhealthy.  So much anger and pain boiling so deep under the surface, which some may view as odd, given his easy smile and ability to tell you what he thought about anything and everything...except of course for, I suspect, the very things that troubled him the most.  But I knew things that most other's didn't; we were, after all, two part of a band of (real) brothers, with a shared set of experiences.  I don't claim to know his pain, but I know where part of it came from.

Now if there's to be a moral to his passing, it would be something like this:  In life and in the end, we can't ever really deny how we feel, our inner demons if you want to call them that; we either choose to face the demons honestly, or we allow those same demons to destroy us from the inside out through passive, or even active, neglect.  For the record, we all have our own inner demons and we all have to make this choice, whether we want to or not.  Life has a way of always settling accounts.

So now what's left are a lifetime of memories to be held close by all who knew Chris.

(About 1970 - Band of Brothers, Dressed in Easter Best:  Chris, Rich, Steve &Joe)

(April, 2010 - Chris, wearing a shirt I bought him that perfectly matched his sense of humor)

(July 3, 2015 - My Wedding:  Chris, Joe, Steve & Rich)

(Meeting of the Round Glasses Club, Somewhere in the 90's - Mom, Steve & Chris)

Finally, I'd like to believe that Chris is now in another place, a better place, with our Mom, once and for all reconciled in a way that escaped both of them in this life.  No more anger.  No more rebellion against things he probably never fully understood.  No more denial and the demons have been vanquished forever.  Chris and Mom are both now fully absolved and cleansed, resting in peace together.  Then again, they could also be arguing about the last presidential election.

* * * * * *

In the clearing stands a boxer

And a fighter by his trade

And he carries the reminders

Of every glove that laid him down

And cut him till he cried out

In his anger and his shame

"I am leaving, I am leaving"

But the fighter still remains
(Paul Simon, The Boxer)

Famous Person Dinner

It's something of a standard question asked, occasionally, of common folks during interviews:  If you could have a dinner party with a group of famous (and not so famous) folks, who would you invite?

Well for starters, while I'd like to invite my entire family, the reality is that I have to keep this to a reasonably sized list.  So no offense intended for anyone left off the list.

Here are my guests:

My wife.  I know, she's only famous in my book, but how could I have a famous person dinner without her?  Besides, someone needs to keep me on my toes.  And answer my questions about what fork to use at any given time.

Emily Dickinson.  She probably wouldn't be much of a conversationalist, but then again neither am I.  Maybe she could read one of my favorite poems.  Just not one of them that mentions "bees".  I'd also love to know how she came up with much of her work.  Did the poems just flow out of her?  How much did she edit her work prior to calling it a completed work?

Hunter S. Thompson.  I'm probably the least gonzo human being on the planet, yet I can think of few authors who have influenced how I think about things in general more than HST.  As I've noted here many times before, The Great Shark Hunt was the first time I ever read something that basically told me it was okay to be smart and a bit weird at the same time.

David Gates (the musician).  I've been a fame of David Gates' work for about as long as I've been really listening to music.  I actually got to see him perform years ago, and it was a memorable experience.  He also has a great story: Musically inclined from birth, moves from Tulsa OK to Los Angeles to make it big in the music business.

Berkeley Breathed.  In some ways, Mr Breathed is like an anti-Hunter S. Thompson, but yet they both have (or in HST's case, had) a wickedly funny sense for the ironic.  Bill the Cat is simply genius.

(from THIS website)

Bloom County more or less helped me get through the first year of my first job out of college.  I would buy the morning York, PA newspaper in route to work just to read Bloom County.

Howard Stern.  It's not often that we get to experience a true genius in our own lifetimes, yet that's what it's been like for me, over the decades, listening to Howard Stern's radio shows.  Be it cringe-worthy (and there are many times when I turn him off) or knee-slapping hilarious, Howard basically created a form of radio that didn't really exist prior to his gaining prominence.  Note that if he wasn't available, the substitutes from his show would be, in order:  Fred Norris, Baba Booey or Jackie Martling.  Sorry Robin.

Cokie Roberts.  Man, how cool would it be to talk politics over dinner with Cokie Roberts?  Like many on this list, Ms Roberts is someone I've been listening to for years.  She's a trusted voice in a sea of voices that are mostly not trustworthy.

My Introduction to Emily Dickinson

True story:  I was in high school and I had just finished reading the Woody Allen book Without Feathers, so I decided to read the poem that inspired the title.  That was my introduction to Emily Dickinson, and here is that first poem.

"Hope" is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetness - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird 

That keeps so many warm -

I've heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity, 

It asked a crumb - of me.

Dylan Thomas

One of my favorite poems that I recently re-discovered.




DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT
by Dylan Thomas


Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

Blogging, Emily Dickinson & the meaning of life

I don't look at this whole blogging thing as a kind of production shop.  I write when I want, as much as I want and for whomever I want (which really means just me).  That noted, I confess to something of a decline in blogging units of late.  That's probably going to be the case for a while to come.  

Slump?  No

Lack of topics?  No.  Hell, I could write a ream over a certain Senate candidate and her fascination with humanoid-brained mice. 

No, the answer is a tad bit more complex:  I have a lot on my mind now that I simply can't really share in this kind of forum for a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons are almost de-facto policy for NCFE, such as the fact that I generally will not talk about my employer, regardless of what happens at the office.  That's partly a function of economic self-interest and partly out of loyalty.  Others, well let's just say that I don't always understand what's in my head, let alone understand it enough to be able to write about it.

Funny though that when it comes to times like this, I'm often drawn to my favorite poet, Emily Dickinson. Now in fairness, I want to note that a dear friend pointed this poem out to me the other day as being symbolic of some of the "stuff" I'm dealing with at the present time.  Anyway, Emily (I'm going to be familiar for a moment) had this knack for describing sometimes incredibly complex feelings, thoughts and emotions using some of the simplest language around.  That's part of the genius of poetry I suppose...it's a form of expression where the meaning is always far greater than the sum of the letters & words.

The poem referenced was #419 (you Emily fans out there know that her poems don't have titles), which you can read HERE. I'm going to cull the most important verse from my perspective:

The Bravest—grope a little—
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead—
But as they learn to see—

That's a pretty telling description for me at this stage of my life.  I'm hoping to be brave enough to grope, and maybe eventually even learn to see.

Too nebulous?  Not clear?  Oh well.