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Lately, I’ve been rereading “Still Life With Woodpecker.” 
A long time ago, I read it, before I knew I’d make a career out of writing (and editing). Ah, words, and the sometimes maddening practice of putting one in front of another, and then another, and the elusiveness they have just when you think you’ve got them all, and in the right order. Sitting at a keyboard, typing, or backspacing, possibly sitting on the delete key, and starting from scratch. (Sometimes you have to destroy the story to save it.)
I remember reading the beginning of Tom Robbins’ third novel, published in 1980, and having my eyes opened. Wow, you can write any way you want to. It doesn’t have to be the way they taught you in grade school.
From time to time I’ll post something for you to listen to, and this is where you’ll be able to find it. Until next time, please enjoy this Pacific Northwest drizzle as it falls onto the trees and spills onto my deck. You might even hear the faint sound of planes arriving or departing from PDX a few miles away.
Today is Mother’s Day, the ninth since my mom died. She’s in my thoughts often, but especially in May. Her birthday is eight days away as I write this, and as the weather gets warmer every year around this time, I’m reminded of 2006, when she left home for the hospital in April and never went back home. She died that July.
It’s easy on sad days to get drawn into remembering the end, but it’s heartwarming and a comfort when I remember funny stories (she had a sneaky kind of humor, and sarcasm), or I recall the details of moments perhaps a bit out of character (or so it seemed at the time).
One night when I was young, as she was preparing to cook dinner, she dropped a pot or pan on the floor, and — unaware that I had come into the room, behind her — she blurted out a single word in frustration. Then, realizing I was there, she said more softly, “I mean ‘shoot.’ ”
After my father died, my mom didn’t date, and as far as I know, she never seriously considered it. If she ever commented on a man’s attractiveness, I don’t remember it. “Handsome” would have been the extent of it, I suppose. So I was tickled when, about a decade after my dad’s death, I visited my mom as she was watching “Pretty Woman” on television, and there was a mention of sharp-dressed Richard Gere. “He looks very mature,” my mom said, perhaps comparing his appearance to how he looked earlier in his career, such as in “An Officer and a Gentleman.” (Sidebar: My mother said “mature” with a hard “t” rather than pronouncing it “machure.” She also liked to say “sharp” in reference to a man’s attire, especially if she had bought me an item of clothing and thought it looked nice on me.)
I’m not sure how long it took me to realize it, but it dawned on me that “he looks very mature” was the closest my mom could come to saying, “Oh, he’s hot.”
Published May 8, 2015
Note: I wrote this more than two years before coming out as trans. Still inside my egg, I couldn’t say everything I wanted or needed to say, but this was as real as I’d allow myself to be publicly in those days. Looking back, I more easily see that I viewed him as a safe person and place for me to sometimes hide inside.
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“Enough Said” has been making the rounds on cable, and seeing it again reminded me of thoughts I scribbled down after watching it in the cinema in fall 2013. I recall wondering whether the movie would be a boost to the dating chances of big guys like Albert, played by the late James Gandolfini.
In fairness to writer/director Nicole Holofcener and everyone else who created “Enough Said,” let me assure you it is indeed a film and not a dating app. I don’t mean to relegate its art to something that might help someone find a dinner companion. The film has wit, and a soul, and it charms, to use a word I saw in more than one headline — including this one in reference to the male lead. For those who knew Gandolfini only as Tony Soprano on “The Sopranos,” the movie shows other aspects of his acting range. It does the same for those who know Julia Louis-Dreyfus only as Elaine from “Seinfeld.”
In an Associated Press story widely distributed around the time of the film’s release, Louis-Dreyfus was quoted about that side of Gandolfini.
The release of the film has been bittersweet for all of those involved, coming just three months after the death of Gandolfini. Louis-Dreyfus was a big admirer of the actor before working with him: “I thought he was sort of dreamy,” she says.
“James was very much like the character, Albert, that he plays in this movie: very dear, thoughtful, self-effacing kind of guy,” she says, choking up. “It’s lovely for his legacy and even for his family to have this performance documented because it shows him as this loving, dear man, which he was.”
Being roughly the same size and shape (and age) as Gandolfini when he made the movie, I was again reminded that I’ve found myself identifying with him in some ways since rediscovering him more than a decade ago (I’d seen him and liked him in other films, but his Tony Soprano is what hooked me). In the winter months, wearing a jacket not unlike one he would wear on “The Sopranos,” I sometimes recognized I also put on his lumbering walk, and when I noticed my shadow I couldn’t help imagining at times I was adopting his posture, maybe wearing the strong, assertive side of him as a shield. (Who would have thought that years earlier when I bought that jacket I was inadvertently paying, in the parlance of the mob world, protection money?)
Photo by kavram
It’s funny what a little introspection and journal-keeping will do to awaken memories and echoes of insights and breakthroughs from the past. Not long ago, I found myself digging out a song that spoke to me the last time I spent this much time looking inward.
It’s from the band Orleans, and it’s titled “The Path.” The song comes from the band’s 1976 album “Waking and Dreaming,” the LP that gave the world the song “Still the One.” You can sample a short section of “The Path” by clicking on the link above.
(I’ve caught a lot of grief over the years for liking Orleans. For one thing, some have designated the album cover of “Waking and Dreaming” to be one of the worst ever, something you can easily read and see in detail with a quick Google search. Also, they’re from the ’70s, which is routinely regarded as a lost decade musically. But, every now and then, their songs contained wonderful nuggets of wisdom, or at least something thought-provoking. A World Literature class I had in high school was a de facto philosophy class at times, and much more than that, and our teacher encouraged us to bring in music with lyrics that spoke to themes we discussed in class. “Waking and Dreaming” was one of my take-to-class LPs. But enough of the disclaimer: I do get teased for enjoying Orleans, and I’m OK with that. If it’s a guilty pleasure, I don’t feel all that guilty about it.)
Photo by Sergieiev
There are several formidable challenges in my writing and editing life right now. One that’s surely on display here, despite my best efforts, is the difficulty I am having editing my thoughts as I work to put them into words.
When I decided to start blogging again, which led to the creation of this site (which will eventually feature much more than a blog), I promised myself the blog would not be a place where I felt the need to make sure the writing was always “tight.” But even given the relaxed editing standards I’ve allowed myself here in the early stages, I see how bloated my first drafts have been. That’s one of the dangers of not having written regularly in a few years, and of not having an editor. My writing has lost muscle tone, and I always had the tendency to be a bit wordy anyway. It’s clear to me this will be one of the biggest challenges as I continue writing different types of pieces.
But one aspect of it I’m starting to love is what I realized not long ago: It’s a byproduct of the way my mind is exploding lately, how by questioning much of what I’ve taken for granted, I’ve started seeing the world in many different ways. If the worst thing that happens because of that is my writing loses some of its sinew for now, I can live with the trade-off. The upside is too encouraging for me to worry about that too much at this part of the process.
It’s a work in progress, as is this website. As am I.
Published May 16, 2015
With customizing this website, I’m learning as I’m going. This book has some great suggestions, but I admit I got started before finishing the book. That means I’m tweaking and reading, reading and tweaking, and doing a lot of thinking.
It takes a lot of thought to follow the advice of “Don’t Make Me Think.”
Photo by Piotr Marcinski
Scrolling through old notes from a newspaper where I worked years ago, I came across an explanation given by a high school football coach to a reporter about why his team would be short-handed for a game that night:
“We had one player just go stupid on us. Injuries are one thing … you can put ice on an injury. You can’t put ice on stupid.”