A Morning in the Middle of Lent

“As I enter prayer now,”
the pastor on the app says,
“I pause to be still.”
And I am still—aside from me depositing
dime-sized dollops of almond butter across bites of
the half-banana I’ve cut for myself
in the kitchen.

I listen with my airpods
as the pastor talks about breathing slowly
and re-centering scattered senses.
In the meantime, I finish my snack
while also making coffee
while also putting away dishes
that dried overnight in the rack
next to the sink.

*

When I sit at the dining room table
and open my laptop that morning,
an email from a writer
whose Substack posts make up a not un-sizeable portion
of my three-hundred-and-ninety-three unread emails
(my fault, not hers)
reminds me it’s day nineteen of Lent.

I’ve given up sweets and snacking after 730PM
in the hope that the physical hunger
reveals a deeper spiritual hunger,
or put another way, hoping that
Jesus meets me where
chocolate or ice cream or figs or almonds or dates
normally do.

On this particular morning,
I’m working on an essay
I’ve been working on for too long.
The first three-quarters are pretty solid
IMO,
but then the ending gets soft
or flabby or saggy,
and as I try to interrogate
what I don’t like about the ending,
I hear myself using words that describe the essay
as something out-of-shape,
and I’m reminded of how yummy chocolate
would be right now—
yes, at 5:24 in the morning—
and I’m also reminded of how I’m not eating sweets
and how I used to throw away pieces of my lunch
in seventh grade
so I could see my ribs
when I took my shirt off
and looked in the mirror before I went to bed.

Is this the part, I wonder, where Jesus meets me?

*

As I start getting ready to leave the house
to meet a friend for an early cup of coffee,
I press play on Sandra McCracken’s cover of
“The Times They Are A-Changin.’”
Her version is so gorgeous and so warm and achy-breaky,
and I think about how, when I worked at the Apple Store
in the Glendale Mall
the year after I graduated college,
a co-worker on the closing shift
introduced me to “Boots of Spanish Leather,”
which became my favorite Dylan song.

I try to picture me in 2008,
making sure every iPhone case was properly arranged on the wall
all while dreaming about making it big in Hollywood
as a writer-director,
and then I think about my wife and daughter,
asleep upstairs while I’m downstairs trying to finish
an essay by candlelight.

Sandra’s singing makes me think about
all the things in the world that make me sad—
how people claim God’s plan
yet plunder and pillage and parade around
in shoes too big for their feet
while saying words too small and too cruel
in describing the people they are, for whatever reason, so desperate to malign.
I think about how much effort it takes for
my wife and I
to get our seventeen-month-old daughter
to eat mac-n-cheese without her fast-balling half of it
from high atop her chair—
or rather, how much effort it takes me
not to lash out and throw the food back at her
and instead lean closer,
and instead show grace for someone
who doesn’t know how to live in this world,
and instead teach her,
and instead encourage her,
and instead love her.

Meanwhile, murder plays out in cheap, disgusting memes and GIF’s
that still somehow garner the unblinking adoration of millions.

(Are there expensive memes? Are there pristine, high-quality GIF’s?)

I’m trying to say I love this world
and everything in it
because that’s what the Rabbi bid me do,
and I’m trying to pay attention
to the small, glorious and mundane details of my breath-song of a life,
because isn’t that what Mary said was the beginning of devotion?
But I’m afraid none of it will make any difference
because these clown-shoed cowards,
these image-bearers who don’t seem to love your image, Lord,
these image-bearers who don’t seem to love anything but
their own reflections and names shouted back at them
want to remake the world in their image
and they don’t seem to care about
anyone else,
meanwhile I’m on my hands and knees
lamenting bee die-off and increasing electrical bills
and dead children taken out by an errant missile strike—
or what I sincerely sincerely sincerely hope is errant—
while cleaning up unwanted mac-n-cheese
as I hear echoes of my wife and daughter laughing high above me
as Mom chases baby around the nursing chair
in the center of the upstairs bedroom.

Maybe that’s the end of the essay.

*

I’m listening to “The Times, They Are A-Changin’” on repeat
when I open the door of my house to head to the car.
I notice it’s raining,
and I say a small prayer of gratitude,
in part because it was too dry in February for my liking,
and in part because not only is it raining,
but it’s also cold,
and that means there’s a good chance it’s snowing
in the mountains,
which makes me think of another friend of mine,
a friend of mine who loves to ski,
who loves to take his young son
up to the slopes
and whose old dog recently died.
He’s had a lot of things happen to him, Lord,
and I want to come up with some eloquent pugilist of a prayer
that expresses my indignation and lament
at the events of his life,
that makes clear my fed-up-ness with all
the sickness and grief he’s experienced
and how much I think it’s high time
you blessed his faithful and loving heart,
but the only words that come to mind
as I’m listening to Sandra
while driving over the Fremont Bridge is,
“I hope something good happens to him.”

And all of the sudden I’m wiping tears
as I near the Burnside and Cooch Exit.
The words feel so silly and flimsy and maudlin and two-left-feet-y.
They feel like a young child
excitedly and expectantly raising up a drawing to their parent
in the hopes they will take it in their hands.
In the hopes they will say, “Thank you,”
In the hopes they will say, “Did you make this? I love it.”
In the hopes they will put in on the fridge and tell everyone
who sets foot in the kitchen
that you drew that drawing.
In the hopes the drawing will make a difference.

That’s all I want, Lord.
I just want something good to happen to my friend.
To us.

*

I enter the coffee shop
and order my drink,
but the friend I’m meeting is a few minutes late,
so I start scribbling down ideas for this poem
in my notes app.
After a minute of laying down breadcrumbs
to revisit at a later date,
I look up and see my friend ordering at the register.
As he approaches, I notice he’s shaved.
“You look nice,” I say.
He says, “thank you,” then tells me he feels a little insecure about it,
since he shaved off more than what he intended.
When he tells me this, I’m so joyful
I could burst into tears—
not because he feels insecure,
but that he told me.

We talk about Heaven and renewal
and children and wavy hair (his, not mine).
We leave together,
and as I sit in my car
and turn the ignition,
I realize I forget to tell him about Sandra McCracken,
but maybe he’ll read this poem and get the hint.
Maybe I should tell him anyway,
if only to aim to show the kind of kindness he’s so often shown me—
that of personally sharing something he loves with someone he loves.

*

When I return home from coffee
and open the door,
I hear my daughter say, “Dada!”
I look down the hall and see her in her highchair.
She leans forward as she smiles,
pushing her entire body as much as she can
in my direction.
Her mouth is coated in a splattered halo
of yogurt and blackberries.
My wife and I kiss in the kitchen.
She asks me how I slept.
I tell her well, aside from an odd dream
about college.
I ask her how she slept, and she says not bad.
She felt warm, however,
and got up to pee in the middle of the night.
I make some oatmeal
while our daughter clamors for a piece of a date
I chopped for my breakfast.
She manages to say, “More, please,”
which, at this point, sounds like, “Moh, pees.”
I walk over to her highchair
and notice her nose is runny.
“Might be a cold,” my wife says.
My daughter consumes the piece of the date
I chopped for her.
I lean close and say, “Ta-dah,”
which was one of the first things I taught her to say.
“Ta-dah,” she says, her smile as bright as a Hollywood spotlight.

After breakfast, I hold my daughter as she reaches out
to put her hands
under the running water in the sink—
which is how I once heard forgiveness described,
as putting your hands under a faucet
whose water is already running.
I wipe her face of snot and yogurt and blackberries,
then I splash water on my face as well,
making a lapping, slurping sound as I do,
like a thirsty puppy.
She tilts her head back and giggles.
I do it again, bigger this time.
She giggles again, bigger this time.
I do it again.
She does it again.
“Ta-dah,” I say.
“Ta-dah,” she says.

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When I was six years old, my brother and I shared a Nintendo video game system. Aside from the stone-cold classics like Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt (which may or may not count as my first time using a firearm), my favorite video game was Wheel of Fortune. I loved big puzzles and big money, and I would do whatever was in my power to ensure I got both.

If the opening round revealed a small puzzle, I hit the “reset” button on the game console and restarted the whole thing because I wanted an opportunity for more money. If, during the round, I spun the wheel and it landed on a small amount of money—the dreaded $150 wedge, for example—either I intentionally guessed a letter I knew wasn’t in the puzzle, or a letter that’d already been guessed so as not to waste a big-money letter on a small-money spin (I always played in single-player mode, so I was never in any threat of losing my turn or the round).

Last, if I was working my way through a puzzle and had amassed a large sum of money only to land on “BANKRUPT” during a spin, I reflexively hit my trusty reset button, even if I was multiple rounds into the game.

From the outset, I had a very specific plan—a story, in other words—for what I wanted to happen when I played Wheel of Fortune: I wanted to win and win big. In my mind, such an outcome was not just a possible future, it was the best possible future, and because it was the best possible future I believed it was meant to happen—it was destiny. It was Good with a capital G, and as such, I had to do whatever I could do to make that best possible future a reality.

If I didn’t like the story being presented to me—if I didn’t think the story being told was the one that was supposed to happen—I hit the “reset” button until I got the story I wanted. I never viewed my behavior as cowardly. Rather, I saw it as perseverant—brave even. I believed it was my moral responsibility to reset and tell myself story after story until I achieved that best possible—that Good—future.

But all the inflated talk about best possible futures was a mask for the fact that I couldn’t bear the discomfort of a story I didn’t want to be true.

A story of small puzzles. Of small prizes. Of bankruptcy.

*

Memento is a film about Leonard Shelby, a man with anterograde amnesia (he can’t make any new memories) who’s trying to track down his wife’s killer. Directed by Christopher Nolan and released in 2000 to critical and audience acclaim, Memento is told in a non-chronological split narrative, where the film simultaneously works backwards and forwards in time, with the dual timelines ultimately merging at the climax.

* * * MINOR SPOILERS TO FOLLOW * * *

Toward the end of the movie, Teddy, an undercover cop who’s been assisting Leonard with his investigation, confronts Leonard with potentially shocking truths. Leonard’s immediate reaction is outright denial, to which Teddy shrugs.

“So, you lie to yourself to be happy,” Teddy says. “There’s nothing wrong that. We all do it. Who cares if there’s a few details you’d rather not remember?”

Teddy steps back to give Leonard a moment to collect himself. Leonard, reeling in shock, consumed by vengeance and literally lost in thought, refuses to admit even the most remote possibility Teddy’s telling the truth. Instead, he wonders if it’s possible to live in a world of his own making, even if he knows it’s built on false pretenses—after all, in a few moments, he’ll entirely forget it’s built on false pretenses, and the world he’s constructed through his own misremembering and redaction of “facts” will seem just as real as anything else.

“Can I just let myself forget what you’ve told me?” Leonard asks himself in a moment of internal thought. “Do I lie to myself to be happy?”

*

A few nights back, I attended my church’s Ash Wednesday service, which marks the beginning of the season of Lent, a time in which followers of Jesus remember their mortality as they fast and pray and make their way to a basketful of chocolate bunnies and Cadbury Eggs—I mean, Easter Sunday.

When I was young, I didn’t attend a church that practiced Lent. In high school, I and most of the boys joked about giving up masturbation, but that was the extent of the talk. At the Ash Wednesday service, one of the pastors spoke to the idea that fasting or renouncing from something during Lent isn’t to punish yourself or prove something to God—instead it’s to notice.

In letting go, she continued, the invitation is to notice who holds me.

What habit or coping behavior do I believe sustains me? What neutral desire that isn’t God do I believe to be an essential element of my day and my story? What part of my life is an echo chamber of my own design? What habit or practice or coping behavior am I holding onto because it allows me to feel like I have control?

In thinking about Lent this year, I think about all the stories I’m telling myself, about all the things I want to be true or not true: I want to be a published writer. I want to be a good gardener. I don’t want AI to be a greasy, gobbling Pac-Man of modern existence. I don’t want Christian Nationalism to be such a polluting and pervasive force. I want to be more patient and supportive to my wife. I want to be a better friend. I don’t want to be as grumpy as I am when my plan doesn’t come true. I want to humanity to take care of the environment. I don’t want to acknowledge my aching back or receding gums or dry mouth or any other part of my body that’s showing decay and breakdown.

Yet despite however noble I contend my reasons are for wanting any one of the above things to be true, they all have some element of desired control or self-soothing coursing through them. If one or more or all of these came true, I could justifiably swaddle myself in my hand-stitched narrative blanket and never have to face disappointment, discontentment, discomfort, ache, fear, sorrow, grief or loss.

Do I lie to myself to be happy?

Yeah, quite a bit.

But wanting things to be true doesn’t make them true.

In Lent this year, I’m doing my best to be present and sit with the frail and dazzling qualities of my own life. Everything that’s done and undone. All the things I want to claim and all the things I’m afraid to name. All the times I serve the hungry and needy and all the times I choose Instagram over my sixteen-month-old daughter.

I do not have a “reset” button on my life, nor have I ever. Contemporary media in all its forms has made it easier than ever for me to lie to myself about the state of the world and what I want to believe to be true about it, but such a choice is to once more choose a false god of my own making and control.

I don’t have control over the wheel or the puzzles placed before me. I don’t have control over the guest list of the table at which I find myself. My architecture-ing of the details of existence doesn’t make the world any more or less true than it already was or wasn’t.

I am dust, and to dust I shall return.

Lord, help me surrender the story of my own making.

Help me not forget what you’ve told me.

Help me to welcome the table and the puzzle placed before me.

Help me to let go and help me to notice.

Thanks. Amen.

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Photo by Leandro Callegari on Unsplash

Just before service starts,
someone who knows someone
appears
and places his hand on your shoulder.

You slowly look up to greet his smooth, porcelain face,
and he smiles at your aged, weathered and delighted expression.
He slips you an extra cushion
to make your seat more comfortable—
or at the very least, less painful.

When the music starts,
you stay seated while most everyone around you—
including me, in the seat behind you—stands.

On this particular morning,
my eyes are on neither the sparrow
nor the screen at the front of the church that displays the lyrics.
Instead, I read the story of your hands—
your left hand raised skyward in praise,
and your right hand resting on your wife’s back,
settled in the valley between her shoulder blades.

In both I witness a profession of faith:
in the right hand, a steadying of your body,
clinging to your wife
as if she was a buoy.
In the left, a steadying of your soul,
yearning to once more know
the voice and light and presence and love of God.

Or perhaps that’s just me.
Perhaps you’re just raising your hands to say,
“Thank you,”
and I’m the one in need.
I’m the one with his hands at his side,
yearning to hear and see and feel God.

You are weak and you are frail
and you are a burning bush,
resplendent with a light that is not your own,
but one you joyfully consent
to let shine through you.

After the music finishes, there is a time of greeting.
During this time,
the young man who delivered a cushion
finds a seat next to you.
After the greeting time, there are announcements.
After the announcements, someone shares a testimony.
After the testimony,
the person onstage turns to address the congregation.

“As you are willing and able,” she says,
“would you please stand for the reading of God’s word?”

I stand without much thought,
more out of duty than devotion.
You, however, work to orchestrate
your grace-ridden body to rise from your seat,
so that you might give honor and glory to the story
that has and is and will be
your story,
that has and is and will be my story,
that has and is and will be our story
from now until forevermore.

This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

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“Hello There” (Cheap Trick, Track 1 from In Color, 1977)

When I was nine years old in the late summer of 1995, one of the janitors from church started taking myself and my older brother to Oakland Athletics baseball games. One of my parents would drop us off in the church parking lot, where Kyle would meet us, herd us into his red Honda Civic, and after a quick stop at 7-Eleven, we’d be off to the races, making the one-hour drive from San Jose to the Coliseum in time for batting practice.

Kyle, who was a far-seeming twenty-seven years old at the time, introduced us to many a music groups on the way up to Oakland. We began each drive by listening to Ozzy Ozbourne’s “Crazy Train,” and occasionally listening to the rest of Blizzard of Ozz. We dove deep—very deep—into Van Halen (the Roth era was of particular focus). We also listened to more niche acts like Stray Cats (Brian Setzer pre- “Jump, Jive and Wail”) and The Paladins.

He also introduced us to Cheap Trick.

“Hello There” is the first track of Cheap Trick’s second album, In Color. The band has more well-known songs—“Surrender,” “Dream Police,” “I Want You to Want Me,” among them—but something about how imagination is sparked whenever I hear this song makes it one of my favorites.

“Hello There” is a lightning bolt of a song. It’s a tight 100 seconds that calls to mind punk and crunch and humor and fun. I’ve long-thought the song itself would make for an excellent opening to a movie—like something Emerald Fennel or early-90’s Scorcese would incorporate at the top of their film, the main credits filling the screen in blocky, ostentatious lettering, as brash and as brazen as possible.

When “Hello There’s” opening guitar riff shreds through the speakers, I imagine the sultry pair of lips from the VHS cover of The Rocky Horror Picture Show zooming to the front of the screen, scaling up in some sort of lovingly old-fashioned way, and then singing out this song as if it was the beginning of a rock opera, a la The Who’s Tommy or Rush’s 2112.

I was going to say “Hello There” is a “take-no-prisoners” tune, but somehow, I feel like Cheap Trick would take all prisoners. They would take all the orphans and widows, all the tired, poor, and huddled masses yearning to breathe free. After all, the lyrics of the song itself are composed of nothing but polite greetings and earnest solicitations:

Hello there, ladies and gentlemen
Hello there, ladies and gents, are you ready to rock?
Are you ready or not?

Hello there, ladies and gentlemen
Hello there, ladies and gents, are you ready to rock?
Are you ready to rock?

Would you like to do a number with me?
Would you like to do a number with me?
Would you like to?
Would you like to?
Would you like to do a number with me?

Cheap Trick’s drummer, who went by the name Bun E. Carlos, looks a bit like the lead actor from Breaking Bad, which is to say he actually looks like the guy who created Breaking Bad, a guy who, on a good day, would apologize for turning in a library book two days past its due date, and who, on a bad day, would steal all the office equipment supplies and sell them out of the trunk of his car while also making some noxious kind of moonshine whose secret ingredient is the ink from the industrial-sized tri-color printing cartridge.

All of that ramble is preamble, however, for my ode to Carlos’ snare drum.

The snare drum’s not here to mess around: bright and sharp not a whole lot of reverb. It’s got a sort of a treble ‘clap’ nature to it, but it also retains enough of a foundational ‘thwack’ to it to still have an impact. While the opening guitar riff “Hello There” grabs your ear, it’s Carlos’ snare, coming in fast on the heels of the riff, that calls your body and mind to attention.

On a personal note, what I as a drummer also love about the song are how the hi-hat is wide open, its slobbering mouth careening and teetering as Carlos bashes the snot out of it. I also adore how the flams are clearly audible and discernible. During the quarter-note tom flams that lead into the bridge, I can clearly see Carlos going left to right across the toms, “2-3-4,” painting his drums like a banner of love.

“Hello There” simultaneously possesses a sonic sneer and smile. It’s a confrontation and welcome, all at once. And maybe that’s what makes it deeply punk (Coming from a guy who doesn’t have a stereotypically punk bone in his body). What I mean to say is, the song seems sincere in its declaration as well as its invitation, and in our current age of all-consuming algorithms and rapidly shrinking musical palettes, the loving both-ness of “Hello There” seems to be in short supply.

I wanted to write about “Hello There” because music captivated me at a young age, and thirty-odd years later, it still does. I wanted to write about something I love in order to put love into the world, and I wanted to explore why music does what it does to me:

Why does my interiority grow larger when I listen to music? Why do drums seem to fill the caverns of my soul? Why does my soul suddenly seem to have caverns and cathedrals in the first place? How did they get there? Did someone build them on purpose? And why and how are they so lovingly satiated by the percussive affections of drums?

Certain theological ideas have baked into them the idea that a moment in time is a portal to something outside of time itself—is that accurate? What kind of phenomenon is that? Is that a nameable thing? If it is, I don’t want to find out the name for it. I’d rather spend my life stumbling and reconnoitering around the outskirts of the term itself, happening upon a different region each time and describing it as I encounter it, each engagement different than the last.

All that to say, “Hello There” is a kind of portal for me—it is liminal space, 100 everlasting seconds, a gateway to a placeless place and timeless time, always starting and never-ending. The story has always just begun. The show has always just started.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock, asking, “Would you like to do a number with me?”

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When I was twenty-two, I lived in Los Angeles—Glendale, technically—and my dream was to write and direct feature films. I was enamored with filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorcese and Paul Thomas Anderson. I wrote out ideas for scripts longhand on yellow legal pads. I was in love with the power of story, and at work I daydreamed about golden globes and red carpets, “Lights, camera, action!” oh my. I believed God wanted me to work in the movies, and in those days, I rehearsed my Oscar speech for Best Original Screenplay more than I ever read my Bible.

Those dreams were wishes my heart made over and over. Over and over.

I’m thirty-nine now. I’ve gone back in-person to Southern California a few times since I left for good, and I’ve drifted back hundreds of times more in my mind. But whenever I’ve attempted to focus on or write about this period of my life, everything goes blank. Any time I seem to get too close to that L.A. State of Mind (fine—Glendale State of Mind, technically), some unknown force overrides my system. My head feels like it fills with concrete and my thoughts stop mid-sentence, as if they’ve just run into a wall.

Twenty-two was when I first grew out my hair and when I first learned how to make omelets—poorly—on my own. It was when I had a brief but intense flirtation with Ed Hardy clothing, and when I got really, really really good...at hating myself.

Twenty-two was me at my most imaginative and my most insecure. I was convinced my Hollywood dreams would come true because I believed God gave them to me, but I needed them to come true because I also believed I was fundamentally and irrevocably unlovable. Like I said, I thrived on story—including and especially the one that said I was a useless, sin-soaked trash heap unless I proved otherwise. Making it big in the movies and having my name in lights, I thought—I hoped—would give God a reason to love me.

Or put another way, it would give me a reason to love me.

The more time that passed, the more distance I sought to create between me and this wide-eyed dreamer—a hopeless romantic who, to me, was just hopeless. I disavowed all knowledge of him and unfairly blamed him for all the heart-sick wishing that never came true.

Now, teetering on the edge of my forties, I’m trying to close the gap. I’m trying to make peace between the “me”-then, who saw his dreams as the cure for his self-hatred, and the “me”-now, who, for too long, hated that young man on account of his dreams. But despite my best intentions, we are like magnets with the same charge. Whenever I attempt to link us, someone swerves.

If that young man and I went for a walk in the park near my house, or if we sat across from each other at my favorite coffee shop—or if he was here tonight—I would say, “Hello, beautiful.” And if he swerved, or if I swerved, I would say it again.

“Hello, beautiful.”

I would look at the stars in his eyes, the brightness of his belief, and I would tell him I’m sorry for making him feel ashamed about his dreams.

I would look at his heart, full of affection for everything and everyone except himself, and I would tell him I don’t see him as useless or hopeless.

I would look at his hands, and I’d tell him he doesn’t need to fabricate a reason for God or me or anyone else to love him.

I would look at all of him, and I would ask his forgiveness...and then I’d ask for his help—to teach me how to dream again. To teach my daughter—our daughter—who is about to turn one, how to dream for the first time.

“Teach me,” I’d say, “once more, what it means to believe.”

There’s so much about you, I’d tell him, worth loving. There’s so much about you worth loving. There’s so much about you worth loving.

If you enjoyed this piece, and you happen to live in Portland, I’ll be reading a slightly compressed version of this in-person as part of an artist showcase tomorrow night, Friday September 26th. The event is free and takes place at Oregon Contemporary Art Center in North Portland (8371 N. Interstate Ave Portland, OR 97217). The gallery opens at 6pm, and the performances, which include music, dance and creative writing, start around 7pm.

Mmmmmmwah.

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(Note: It’s been way too long since I shared anything here, and I apologize for that. I still don’t know what I want Substack to be, but I do know I need to be more consistent if I want to discover that through the writing. So, here’s posting in the hopes I’m more regular with the writing and sharing.

Thank you for reading.)

I tried this year, Lord—I really did—but the grapes didn’t make it. Who knew powdery mildew could be such a pestering, festering thing? I pruned as best I knew how, and I watered as best I knew how, but the mildew withered the grapes all the same.

I’m sad about the grapes because two years ago, I made raisins with them and so help me they were the best raisins I’d ever had. I offered them to anyone who came over the house, whether they were hungry or not.

“How was traffic? What was work like? Would you like some raisins? I made them myself.”

I’m sad about the grapes because I wanted to mash ‘em up and slide ‘em over to my ten-month-old daughter as if I was passing her an ace-king combo for blackjack.

I’m sad about the grapes because I loved watering them and I’ve enjoyed learning what it means to garden, and I like what gardening has done to me as a person, but I’m still so new to the whole thing and I’m struggling to accept that not everything goes as planned or hoped.

I’m tempted, Lamb, to turn this story into a simile or a metaphor for something else in order to spiritually bypass some of my deeper, more knotted feelings.

“Oh, the withered grapes are like the parable of the sower,” or maybe, “These grapes are the idols in my life that I pursue and how God does such and such and blah blah blah...”

If I took enough time, maybe one of those metaphors I’d come up with would be true. But at this moment, neither element of speech is helpful, because I’m not looking for similes or metaphors.

I’m looking for you.

I grew up in your house, O God, and that house was stuffed to the gills with metaphor. We used grape juice as a substitute for wine whenever we took communion, which my church viewed as a metaphor (no transubstantiation here, thank you very much) for your body and blood.

As a child, I was told I was “a soldier in the Lord’s army,” and that the big, bright invisible Jesus “lived in my heart,” and that the whole church was referred to as, “The bride of Christ,” or simply, “The Body,” as if all two-thousand-plus people could Voltron ourselves into one veiled mass for our tall, dark and handsome savior.

I’m not saying metaphor can’t ever be helpful, because sometimes it’s the only thing that helps me process tragedy or describe wonder. I’m not against metaphor—just here. Just now.

I don’t want you to be the vine, and I don’t want to be the branches. I want you to be Jesus, and I want me to be Dom.

What I’m trying to say is I don’t know what to do with a diseased harvest. I don’t know what to do with the feeling of having loved something, having devoted time and attention to it over and over, having believed in it and hoped for it and dreamt for it…and to have that thing die anyway.

Put another way, my affections didn’t guarantee its thriving—in fact, it’s possible said affection might have contributed (even unknowingly) to the fruit’s condition.

I don’t know, and I don’t know what to do with the not-knowing.

Today, God, I don’t want you to be like an egg or like the wind. I want you to be sad with me—on your knees, your hands holding mildewed and brittle clusters, matching my breath as I take in life amidst my dying.

I want you next to me as I take in the harvest of withered grapes, of friendships and estrangements and brilliant cosmos, of sore backs and heat waves and teething, of gray hair and waffles and stuffed animals and soil beneath my fingernails, amen and amen and amen.

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When finding oneself in the shadow of an administration that seeks to demonize and mislead and sever and scatter, one must not forget to dance.

Or, in my case, I must not put off the inclination to shuffle my feet on the tile floor of my kitchen while I make two breakfast sandwiches for lunch—one for me, and one for Jenae, my wife, who’s currently upstairs breastfeeding our daughter, Sonora.

The invitation to dance hits me right in the mailbox during “Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard,” the live version sung by Simon and Garfunkel from their concert in Central Park. The original recording featured a flute—I think—but the version I heard this Sunday afternoon while it rained and rained had a saxophone on it, which delighted me greatly because as of late, I’ve been thinking a lot about saxophones—from Saturday Night Live to Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” from a video a friend posted of her son’s high school concert performance to, now that I think about it...America’s Funniest Videos?

Did that have a saxophone on it?

(I check. It has a horn section...so, yes!)

When “Me and Julio...” starts playing, I sing along with Paul and Art while gluten-free bread from New Cascadia Bakery crisps up in our toaster (Long May You Live, New Cascadia). As I sing, I wonder if Jenae and Sonora can hear me. We live in an old house with thin walls, which means you can hear phone calls, YouTube Videos, Zoom Meetings, farts, sneezes, coffee grinders, printers, farts during Zoom Meetings, and maybe, in today’s case, a man feebly but joyfully attempting to sing along to “Me and Julio Down by The Schoolyard.”

Somewhere close to the lyric about being on the cover of Newsweek, I hear the “tungggg” of the recliner upstairs, which signals that Jenae’s done nursing.

We bought the recliner off Facebook Marketplace. It’s comfy and cozy and “tunggggs” whenever one opens or closes the footrest. I hadn’t paid attention to it until now, and for whatever reason, today of all days, on a day and in a moment where I’m tempted to doom-scroll and get angry and then scared and then do nothing, today is the day the “tungggg” of the recliner cuts through the sounds of the over-easy egg sizzle and the pineapple-bacon sausage snapping, and in the midst of what I’m generously calling “dancing,” I am reminded that the thin walls of this old house are a blessing, because one day my daughter will outgrow the need for nursing, and that “tungggg” will never again sing through the lath and plaster of our home.

“Tungggg” is the church bell that calls me to prayer. It is the sound that nearly brings me to the ground and sends me soaring all at once.

Today, then, is the day I sing loud and dance with abandon. Today is the day I rejoice at the sound of recliners and of sizzling, delicious, expensive eggs. Today is the day I enter into Central Park with thanksgiving in my heart.

When the food is ready, I turn off the burners and plate the two Mona Lisa breakfast sandwiches. They sparkle and steam and as I hear the creak and bend of my two loves descending the staircase, I remind myself—or am myself reminded—that joy is a hard and worthy fruit.

I am reminded that as I pay attention and make space in my garden, Joy will grow and keep me in concert with others.

My loves land at the bottom of the staircase. They turn to face the kitchen, and though Julio has, by this point, long left the schoolyard, I feel like dancing all over again.

I feel, all over again, like dancing.

*Also, I listened again to the original recording, not the live version, and turns out it’s not a flute as I thought, but someone whistling, which reminds me of when Paul Simon performed the song on Stephen Colbert’s late night show, and Stephen gleefully performed the whistling part. See? More joy.

The Athletics played their final game in Oakland on September 26^th, 2024. They beat the Texas Rangers 3-2. I wasn’t paying much attention—my grandmother had passed six days prior, and my daughter was due nine days on from the A’s final game.

My brother and I grew up attending A’s games. Kyle Heath, affectionately known as “Heater,” was one of the janitors at the church my family attended, and he loved the A’s. Kyle was in his mid-twenties and started taking us to games when my brother was eleven and I was nine. One Friday afternoon late in the season, we left from the church parking lot and, after a quick stop at 7-Eleven, made our way to see the Athletics take on the Chicago White Sox.

One of my first memories of the Oakland Coliseum is standing in the bleachers and watching a Frank Thomas batting practice ball sail over my head and one-hop into the ice plant above the outfield concourse. Somewhere in the glorious web of space and time, that ball is still blazing across the sky.  

The Coliseum didn’t have bleachers for much longer. The Raiders moved back to Oakland, and Al Davis wanted more seats in the stadium, so they built higher and uglier. The new design blotted out the view of the mountains. The outfield seats came to be known, not at all affectionately, as “Mount Davis.”

Still, we kept going. There weren’t too many fans too often (except when the Red Sox or Yankees came to town), but we were there before, during and after Moneyball. I stopped regularly attending in 2004, but my brother kept going with Kyle. I moved to Southern California for school, then Philadelphia, then Portland, Oregon, where I currently live. Regardless of where I lived, though, I rooted for the A’s.

When Moneyball, starring Jonah Hill and Brad Pitt, was released, I threw a fit after I left the theater movie, my body and mind transported back in time, my nervous system flushed once more with the embarrassment and sorrow I felt when I walked out of the stadium after Game 5 of the 2001 AL Divisional Series, where we lost to the New York Yankees. Two games earlier, we would’ve won had it not been for Derek Jeter and “The Flip.”

I remember looking up and seeing Joe, a guy in his early 40’s we all knew from church, shouting at the top of his lungs, “Let’s Go Yankees!! Let’s Go Yankees!”

And at fifteen years of age, that was the first time I wished someone to be struck dead.  

I didn’t read up on any details of the A’s final game, and I didn’t search out any videos. I knew about the protests, and I knew about the T-shirts, and I knew John Fisher was stuffing his ears with cash and making asinine comments about Sacramento and Las Vegas and, for some God-forsaken reason, Aaron Judge. In the midst of feeling emotions I didn’t know how to process, I reacted to the sadness in a very common, very non-extraordinary way—I ignored it.

Yes, I had other things I could’ve easily claimed to have been paying attention to (death in the family, baby on the way) but it wasn’t that I was so distracted I forgot about the last game. I deliberately buried my grief and anger about the Athletics no longer playing in Oakland.

But try as I might, I couldn’t escape it. People texted me clips and pictures. I watched and listened to the bits of pieces of Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration” pump through the speakers one more time.

Several times that day and the days that followed, I cried. I stood in the kitchen and cried. I sat in the living room and cried. I walked through the park and I cried.

Sometimes, I cried because I missed the drives Kyle, Will and I shared. Kyle introduced me to bands like Van Halen and Led Zeppelin, bands that formed the bedrock of my music education as a teenager. Sometimes, I cried because I missed the laughter and conversations between people I met at the ballpark. I was so proud of how deeply we few, faithful fans loved a team that, at several points throughout my affection, gave no outward manifestation that society would deem worthy of love. The Athletics didn’t win championships. They didn’t pay their players long enough to keep them for the duration of their careers.

But we loved them still.

Sometimes, I cried because I and so many other fans were furious at current ownership but couldn’t do anything to stop him. I wanted to scream and wail and I wanted the walls to crumble on top of John Fisher like the walls of Jericho.

That powerless feeling was the one that stuck longest and most sour in me. Now six weeks after the Athletics played their final game in Oakland, the sour sting and indignation resurfaces without much thought or effort.

Did my inability—and the inability of thousands of others—to stop him from moving the team invalidate whatever grief we all felt? Was my sadness pointless? How do I process the anger I feel? Why did any of it happen? What was the point of loving something that, in the end, didn’t last? What’s the purpose of affection? Does it need to have a purpose? What is it about grief that still has my mind and body in knots? Where do I go with those feelings? What am I supposed to do with all the love I showed a team that no longer exists?

Who knows what the future holds for the team—maybe they stay in Sacramento, maybe they move to Vegas as planned, maybe something else. Most of me doesn’t want to watch. I don’t want to keep track of them. But there’s part of me that, whenever and wherever the A’s take the field, will be with them also.

I don’t know how to tell my daughter about the thing I loved and lost. I don’t know how to describe the affection I had and have for those moments in time.

But I’ll try.

“Once upon a time,” I’ll tell my daughter, “There was a baseball team that played in Oakland. When they were good, they were mostly good, and when they were bad, they were horrible. But I loved them, and learning to love—that was worth it.”

Then, I’ll take her little hands. “Say it with me,” I’ll whisper.

“Let’s Go, Oakland.”
Clap-clap, clap-clap-clap.

 “Let’s Go, Oakland.”
Clap-clap, clap-clap-clap.

“Let’s Go, Oakland.”
Clap-clap, clap-clap-clap.

Photo by Matt Dodd on Unsplash

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Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

Hard are the days when everything and everyone seems silent.

These are the days when I email agencies to update them about my schedule, when I text someone to say, “I was thinking of you,” (but in reality I want to say, “Do you have any work for me?”), when I invest two hours into a ‘contact us’ email I know is headed for some digital abyss, when I DM someone on Instagram about the edit they just posted, when I ‘thumbs up’ someone’s work anniversary in the hope they’ll know how much I want to hear from them, when I do any and all those things…and no one responds.

It’s not that those things never result in a response—it’s just that sometimes, they don’t.

And those days are hard.

Also hard are the days—and there is at least one day like this on every project—where I feel like a failure or impostor. On those days, I struggle to string together any two or three clips that remotely resemble a coherent and compelling sequence. I neglect to shower. On occasion, I even forget to brush my teeth. I browse social media instead of emailing people or calling friends or taking that walk I told myself I needed to take.

If there was a heat map of my house on those days, all there’d be is a crimson moat dug between my office and the snack cabinet in our kitchen.

Last, hard are the days when I lose faith.

Sometimes, I work on something where I struggle to keep belief—be it in the message of the video, or the client, or the process, or something else. When that happens, I tell myself, “That’s okay. This one’s for the meals, and then when it’s done, I’ll do one for the reels.”

Then another voice in me pipes up and says, “Yeah, but if you’re honest, your ratio on meals-to-reels is less one-to-one, and more like eight-to-one—and that’s being generous.”

On those days, I don’t see a path to the fabled promised land of the reels, to projects rife with collaboration and imagination and regular work hours and pay commensurate to both my skill and experience.

On those days, it’s also hard for me to see how I could change my current methods without throwing my life into chaos.

On those days when I lose faith and am prone to despair, all I want is, to quote the glam-metal band Poison, “something to believe in.” But I don’t see anything in front of me.

And those days are hard.

So then, a prayer/blessing/mantra for hard days.

I am a video editor, and bring beauty into the world—irrespective of what I edit.
I’m someone with a bright imagination
who, on occasion, doesn’t know the way.
I am allowed to have hard days. I am allowed to struggle.

I am allowed to not know the way.

I’m someone who helps others to see,
but help me today
to pay attention as to how others
help me to see as well.

As I work today, may all my renders be speedy,
and may none of my links break, nor any of my files become corrupted.
May I find emotionally compelling (as well as affordable and licensable) music
that elevates the video to a new level of excellence.

May I make something other than a draft today—
like a sandwich. Or groceries. A cocktail, plans with a friend,
a joke.
Help me to remember my hands and my heart.

May I celebrate someone else today, and mean it.

Help me to go for a walk,
and help me to call someone, and help me
to believe in people—even when they don’t believe in themselves—
even when they actively disbelieve in others.

Their lack of belief—or for that matter,
my struggle to believe—
does not invalidate or disprove
my affection.

May I create out of my identity,
but not feel a need to create or get approval in order to justify my identity.
My belovedness and worth are not in question.
I am a video editor, and I am loved. I am loved. I am loved.

Three things I love:

John Lucas: Oh Child of Wonder and Delight - One of my favorite singer/songwriters just released a new album. It’s a beautiful, heartfelt offering, recorded in his living room. ‘June’ is a particular favorite of mine. John Lucas is a gorgeous soul, and I’m so grateful for his music and storytelling.

The Bear - Hi, my name is Dom and I’m late to the party. I just started watching this show. The intensity of the show has me thankful the episodes are only half-an-hour. The show is so immersive, my laptop smells like a deli after an episode.

The Iron Claw - I came to professional wrestling in the late-80’s/early 90’s, right around the time WWE (then WWF) was scooping up the smaller wrestling territories. This story is set about ten years prior. Kerry Von Erich, also known as The Texas Tornado, was one of the wrestlers I watched as a kid. The Von Erich family is one of the most famous (and infamous) families of wrestling. This looks like an amazing film.

Photo by Bas Peperzak on Unsplash

I’ve been a video editor for the last ten years. It’s something I enjoy, something I find frustrating, something that keeps the lights on, something that makes me see the world differently. I don’t talk about it much, but something has been knocking at my heart lately about that choice—after all, it’s taken up ten years of my life, so why not write about it?

Part of that answer is that it’s hard to know where to start. I don’t consider myself a technical expert, so I wouldn’t ever want to write an “advice blog” about editors or editing. Another part of my answer is that I’m not, by some classifications, successful. To be clear, I’ve managed to make a living out of it. People have shown me grace and offered work when I didn’t expect it. Manna has been outside the tent. But I don’t have a lot of accolades to my name.

Which is fine. I wouldn’t have always said this, but nowadays I’m at peace not being known for those things.

Where I’m landing today, is that I’m writing about editing because I don’t know why I’m writing about editing, and the not-knowing has me wondering. There’s something tugging at my heart, something saying, “Will you look over here for a minute? Will you sit with me while I ask these questions?” So, I’m trying to practice obedience to that knocking.

I’m a video editor, in part, because I’m good with rhythm. More than that, however, it’s because I love storytelling. I’m a card-carrying member of the Kuleshov Effect. Where two or more images are assembled in sequence, there I am also, my eyes and my heart and my soul bent toward meaning.

Sometimes, however, someone simply wants cool shit, dope vibes, hype and sizzle everlasting. Which is their right. It’s their money, and their name going forward at the end of the day.

Maybe that doesn’t excite me personally. But in those moments, I try to listen beneath their words. I try to get low and get curious about their situation. I try to see them as human. Are they doing this to keep their job? To make sure their kids get into a particular school? Do they need this project to succeed—that is, make money—to justify the time and effort they’ve put into this project?

Sometimes, cool shit pays more and more consistently.

Sometimes, I meet someone on a project and we connect over an obscure movie, or an emotion we want to see in the edit.

Sometimes, the empathy I attempt to practice isn’t reciprocated, and I question whether empathy has a place or purpose in this profession.

Sometimes, it feels like I’m trying to shove my camel-sized-heart through the eye of the Adobe-Creative-Cloud sized-needle.

Sometimes, my hands are not in alignment with my heart.

Sometimes, I buzz with excitement over a match cut or a music cue or a sound bite and I can’t wait to show someone the latest and greatest draft.

Sometimes, I wonder if I’m trying to redeem an irredeemable system.

I don’t know. I know I still believe my heart’s bent for story, and I believe that story is the way down, the way out, the way in, the way up, the way through.

So, I’ll start there.

Three things I love right now:

”Body” by Noah Gunderson — An absolutely glorious, slow-build of a song.

Drumeo on YouTube — They’ve been coming out with some amazing content recently, and as a drummer, it’s great to watch. The video that’s linked, about the genius that is Keith Moon, was a wonderful watch.

Toni Morrison: Pieces That I Am — Great documentary about the writer Toni Morrison. Her boldness and skill of the craft shines bright throughout the movie. Available on Netflix.

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Nowadays, I don’t believe in Hulk Hogan anymore. I know wrestling hurts, but I also know its theatricality and stagecraft. I still read about Jesus, but I spend as much time immersed in clouds of doubt and uncertainty as I do any spaces of joy and wonder faith evokes—and I am grateful for that wonder.

As for the Oakland Athletics...well, that’s where the urinal trough comes in.

Rooting for the Oakland Athletics taught me a lot about heartbreak. It taught me a lot about perseverance. But most of all, it taught me how to love.

I didn’t learn how to love how because my affections were reciprocated via World Series trophies. I learned how to love because everything about the A’s was so fragile and fleeting. I learned that loving something does nothing to safeguard or guarantee its permanence. If anything, the more I loved, the more I was ever reminded of life’s impermanence.

Yes, we might hold a lead entering the ninth inning, but that could change. Yes, maybe we might be three games ahead in the wild-card standings, but that could change. Yes, Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi, Barry Zito, Mark Mulder, Tim Hudson, Eric Chavez and Miguel Tejada looked good in green and gold.

But that could (and did) change.

As of this writing, the Oakland Athletics are set to move to Las Vegas; not sure if it’s this year or two years (or more?) from now, but it seems, like Thanos, inevitable. Fans have protested current ownership—Dave Kaval and John Fisher, specifically—and have accused them not only of going behind the city of Oakland’s back to broker a deal with Las Vegas land developers, but also sabotaging the team and its product to drive people away from the dilapidated Oakland Coliseum, tank revenue and force relocation.

(Also, I know it’s not ‘The Oakland Coliseum’ anymore. I just refuse to call it whatever sponsored name it goes by now. I stopped keeping track after O.co)

The outpouring of love, anger and grief by the A’s fan base has been something to behold. But if the quality of affection is contingent on a result—i.e., the love is only love if the A’s remain in Oakland—then I would be tempted to call that love a failure. Or at least, failing.

Yet I don’t believe the love expressed is a failed one.

So then, what do I believe?

The idiom “wearing one’s heart on their sleeve” apparently stems from the Middle Ages, where a knight would wear a token of affection from their loved one, be it a bright ribbon or some such thing, wrapped around their sleeve. It made their affections—that which they loved and that which they feared most to lose—known to the world.

It made them strong. It made them vulnerable.

It made them vulnerable. It made them strong.

In the spring, I took to wearing a sweatshirt with a porcelain urinal trough on it—far less romantic than the image of a knight with a ribbon, but just as affectionate.

The sweatshirt was produced by The Last Dive Bar, a fan group that lovingly satirizes the less-than-ideal conditions of the Coliseum. The urinal troughs, part of the Coliseum’s original architecture, are outlawed in modern construction, but they still exist in the men’s restrooms. They measured about eight feet in length and looked like an elongated kitchen sink with a missing front. At its busiest, four or five men saddled up and let fly into each trough, their eyes (okay, my eyes) burrowing a hole into the wall onto which the urinal was mounted.

At one point, ads were posted in the bathroom at eye level. One ad, in what simultaneously produced inflated egos or crippling shame (depending on the eye of the pee-holder) read, “The Future is in Your Hands.”

God knows what the ad was for—could’ve been life insurance, could’ve been hamburgers—but there it was, a declaration or promise or encouragement or threat spoken over me whether I liked it or not.

Depending on who you ask, believing in the impossible is either the stuff dreams are made of, or the equivalent of huffing paint fumes. Sometimes, it sounds like hope, other times delusion. Sometimes, hope is like Red Bull—that which gives you wings. Other times, it’s like Red Bull—that which makes you nauseous and want to lie down for an eighty-year nap.

The A’s future is decidedly not in my hands. It’s certainly not in the hands of the players. It might not even be in the hands of the tens of thousands of fans who’ve engaged in organized protests that’ve garnered the attention of national media.

Obviously, I’m not wearing the sweatshirt right now—it’s still summer, it’s still hot and I’m not a masochist. Although I am an Athletics fan, and that Venn diagram sometimes has more overlap than it does difference.

This year, the Oakland Athletics have the worst record in baseball. No money is being invested into the team by management. Attendance is frequently near or at an all-time low. I know I love the A’s, but I also know the A’s—so long as they’re controlled by the Koopa-esque fist of Fisher—aren’t going to love me back. And I accept that.

I wear the sweatshirt because I’m afraid of losing something I love, something that was instrumental in making me into the person I am today.

I wear the sweatshirt because I too am hurtling through love, grief and anger. I wear the sweatshirt because I want to be wrong about what feels like an unstoppable force slowly moving the A’s south to Las Vegas. I want Ben Grieve to kick off the bottom of the ninth with an 0-1 double to the gap, and I want to hear some drums and cowbells sputter to life from the right-center bleachers.

I want the Athletics to stay in Oakland. But that might change.

I wear the sweatshirt because it is in my nature to sound. Because love and grace are the things that keeps me walking. Because my heart can simultaneously beat in my chest and be wrapped around my sleeve for the world to see.

We can be vulnerable, and we can be strong.

We can be strong, and we can be vulnerable.

I can be vulnerable, and I can be strong.

I can be strong, and I can be vulnerable.

And it’s my love that enables me to be both.

I was raised to believe in impossible things.

And sometimes, I still do.

For more information on the Oakland Athletics and their potential move, please this amazing Ringer article by Dan Moore: The Long, Sad Story of the Stealing of the Oakland A’s

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From dust we were gathered,
and to dust we shall return.

I didn’t get the imposition of ashes today
because of the snowstorm that took Portland by surprise.
I left work early,
but apparently not early enough,
since I still wound up parking my car on a side street
and walking the remaining two miles home.

The front of me was blanketed in white.
Snow lodged itself in the patchy growth I’m optimistically calling
”a beard” as well as throughout my shoulder-length hair.

Truth is, I liked walking in the snow.
It reminded me of when I lived in Philadelphia,
and the first time I witnessed a whole city go quiet.
At the time, we lived on one of the few two-way streets
in the neighborhood,
which meant we lived on the bus route.
And though the buses weren’t deterred for long—
for SEPTA, like love, never fails—
there was a span of a few hours where all the commotion of the city
ceased.

If Pentecost was a blizzard of tongues of fire that descended on people
and created a flurry of voices speaking multiple languages,
the snow I saw that morning on 29th Street
was a single, bright song
that fell in thick, metronome flakes
and stilled an entire city—along with my nervous heart—
into precious, thunderous silence.
I was twenty-six and I sat at the front window and said nothing
and watched as the snow
tucked me in to awe.

From dust we were gathered,
and to dust we shall return.

I remained on the phone with Jenae while I walked
and told her about how neither the coffee grinder
nor the coffee maker functioned properly.
Both of them are higher-end models whose design
merges Star Trek, Apple and torture devices.
I pressed the buttons I was told to press,
but they didn’t function as I was told they would function.

After that, I said, didn’t know what to do next.
I examined the devices but couldn’t tell where the seams were,
if any existed at all.
I stood there with my empty cup, pressing the buttons
that seconds earlier, did nothing for me.
I felt powerless to fix either the coffee grinder or maker,
and I felt powerless to deal with my personal work frustrations,
and I felt powerless to get my car home safely.

She listened, said “I’m sorry about the coffee maker,”
then told me about the online class she’s taking
and what she learned that day
about meiosis and possible complications
that arise with pregnancies for people over thirty-five.

We are not pregnant,
but if we were to become so,
those complications—or at the very least,
their increased potential—
would be part of our inheritance.

Earlier that morning,
I opened a pdf that was a journal guide for Lent.
In it, I read that the average life expectancy for the U.S. male is
seventy-six years old.
”Given that information,” the guide said, “where do you find yourself
on that path? How close are you to that life expectancy?”

At thirty-seven,
I’m presently tip-toeing the edge of the halfway mark,
and that’s generously assuming—arrogantly so, perhaps—
I will have a second half of life
void of sickness or personal calamity.
The days are not promised me.
What has been has been a gift,
and whatever remains shall be also.

From dust we were gathered,
and to dust we shall return.

When I arrived home, Jenae had a cup of coffee waiting for me,
and though it was nearly five in the afternoon by this point,
I started off dinner with a piece of the king cake
we made over the weekend.

At six-thiry, we watched the online livestream of our church’s service.
When the video and audio feed first came on,
I heard the voice of who I assumed to be
the sound mixer talking about which mics
were for which person.
Then, the mixer probably realizing this, the feed went silent,
and stayed that way until service began.

After two songs and an opening greeting,
one of the pastors stepped onstage
and asked us to position our feet
on the ground, close our eyes
and practice a breathing prayer
as best we could.
”Here I am, Lord,” he suggested, or another—”Holy Spirit, Come.”

I said neither and thought about what our lives would be like
if we were to get pregnant
and if I would be a joyful parent or not
and if there were to be complications
and would there be anyone to help
and what would that mean for work
and would I still have to come in to work the next day
and would there be coffee
and who was I a year ago
and could I have foreseen any of what was to happen
between the last time someone told me
so gleefully and so emphatically
that I am going to die
and now?

Someone else’s voice broke across the livestream.
I opened my eyes and looked up.
Had I fallen asleep?
Yes. Perhaps so.
Perhaps, if I’m lucky, that is death—
my mind filling with grief, with wonder, with joy and with sorrow,
then falling asleep.
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
I don’t know.

I hope there’s coffee tomorrow,
should I get to see it.

From dust we were gathered,
and to dust we shall return.

Holy Spirit, come.

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Share Dominic Laing and The Feelings

I remember you a beautiful and brilliant white,
shining as you sprinted toward the horizon.
I was eight years old when I sat in front of the television
and watched Bastian, a kid as old as I was, sit in his school’s attic,
open a book he wasn’t supposed to take
and read about how you and Atreyu, your young rider,
set out across Fantasia
to save your world from The Nothing, a malevolent force
intent on consuming everything in its path.

Early in your journey, the two of you entered the Swamps of Sadness,
a seemingly endless landscape of black, muddy water.
“Everyone knew,” Bastian read aloud, “that whoever let the sadness
overtake him would sink into the swamp.”
Atreyu dutifully stomped through the muck,
but at some point, you stopped.
Atreyu tugged once your reins once. Twice.
You didn’t move.
Then, you began to sink.

Your young rider rushed to your side
and begged you to free yourself.
“Fight against the sadness, Artax,” Atreyu said.
Instead, you turned your head away from him and sank lower.
Atreyu screamed and pleaded.
He changed position to pull harder, now up to his shoulders in the swamp.
Tears fell down Atreyu’s cheeks. Down Bastian’s cheeks.
Down mine.
Atreyu pulled at your reins, but you didn’t move.
“Artax,” he said, “please! You're letting the sadness of the swamps get to you!”

I remember the white crescents of your desperate, bulging eyes.
I remember how your head leaned forward
and how the top row of your teeth was revealed as Atreyu
pulled frantically on your reins.
I remember how the dark water crested your saddle
and almost flooded your mouth.
I remember the dark water opening wide and swallowing you whole.

*

Thanks to assorted movies and TV shows I watched growing up,
I thought panic attacks
were the stuff of nervous men, typically scrawny or timid or unpopular—
or all three—usually all three—
hyperventilating and breathing into a brown paper bag.
Which they then popped for some reason.

I was never sure of the process—only that panic attacks were
for people who didn’t know how to handle their feelings—
who weren’t strong enough or smart enough
to handle their emotions and keep them in their places.

My body is a house of big feelings,
and sometimes, that leads to panic attacks.

Sometimes, I feel like my body is too weak and too tiny
to contain my over-grown, over-sized emotions.
Or sometimes, I tell myself
I’m feeling the wrong emotion at the wrong time.
Sometimes, I don’t feel like
my body’s good enough or strong enough or right-sized enough.
Sometimes, I don’t feel like
my body does what I tell it to do; what I believe it should do
in order for it—and me—to be loved.
Sometimes, I’m ashamed of my body
and choose to believe my body has betrayed me
or let me down in some irreparable, unforgivable way.

In these moments of disappointment or anger or loathing,
I want to dissociate, or leave, my body.

But I can’t. My body is, after all, mine.
And this inability to leave,
of feeling trapped,
this produces a flood of emotions,
which in turn produces the panic attack.

Now, maybe you’re reading this, Artax, and thinking,
That’s great, Dom. Thank you for sharing.
I’m really glad you’re able to walk me through this part of your life.
But what the hell does any of this have to do with me?

I’m so glad you asked.

Because at this point, unlike the movie-and-TV-version of a panic attack,
things don’t speed up for me.
Neither my breath nor my heart rate quickens.
Instead, time slows down. My body grows leaden.
My shoulders droop. My head falls. I drag my feet.

I let the sadness get to me.

Jenae, my partner, witnesses my body wilt as we sit
at the dining room table.
She moves her chair next to mine and leans forward so
our foreheads touch.

“Where are you?” She asks.
“Can you tell me what you’re thinking? What you’re feeling?”

Sometimes, I don’t say anything.
In the moment, I don’t know how to tell her
I feel too far from her, as if the real me
has shrunken down to the size of a thimble,
and she’s left with this sad, lumbering shell that looks like a person,
but isn’t.

Or sometimes, I don’t say anything
because I don’t know how to tell her
that sadness occasionally feels like a relief.
I don’t know how to communicate
how pleasant it is to feel one massive thing—even if it’s sadness—
as opposed to a million chaotic feelings.

Sometimes, sadness feels like a hungry blanket.
It soothes and comforts and protects and also consumes.

Jenae calls out from the present.
She encourages me to name things in the room.
She asks me to mirror her breathing.
She hands me a glass of cold water; tells me to drink.

“Can you tell me where you are?” She asks.
“Can you tell me what you’re feeling?”

Sometimes, Artax, in these moments that feel like swaddling or drowning—
or both, sometimes it feels like both—
I think of you.
I think of how everything slowed down for you in that swamp and
how sadness grew big and tall in your heart
and disappeared you into its deep.

Sometimes, Artax, the thought of disappearing feels more comforting
than fighting my way back up to the surface.
Sometimes, I wonder if you felt as sad in the swamps
as I occasionally do in my life.

In your story, Bastian brought you back to life
thanks to the power of imagination.
I’d forgotten this part, but
thanks to the power of Wikipedia,
I recalled the image of you and Ateyu
gleefully galloping across Fantasia’s re-imagined landscape.

I’m sure I loved this as a child,
but as an adult, this read as a cop-out.
Artax shouldn’t come back to life, I thought.
Artax should stay dead. Bad things happen,
and sometimes nothing can be done to fix them.

And that’s true. Sometimes, nothing can be done
to fix a bad thing.
But sometimes, something else happens.

Sometimes, someone inserts themselves into the bad thing.
Sometimes, someone comes alongside you in the sadness.
Sometimes, someone calls your name and loves you back to life.

“Can you tell me where you are?”
“Can you tell me what you’re feeling?”

*

Sometimes, I let the sadness get to me.
And sometimes, Jenae sits with me until I feel safe to speak.

Sometimes, I want to dissociate from myself.
And sometimes, Jenae holds me and hugs me and refuses to let me go.

Sometimes, Artax, I want to disappear,
and sometimes, Jenae calls my name and tells me she loves me.

Sometimes, she calls my name and tells me she loves me.
Sometimes, she calls my name and tells me she loves me.
Sometimes, I remember the sound of my own name.
And I come back.

Illustration by @just_francesca

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You were always the first thing to break.
Night after night, you sat ringside, watched
and bore witness,
the same way I sat on the edge of the couch
of the family room, watched and bore witness.
I was only seven years old
when I first saw you,
when I first saw bodies—glistening, muscular bodies—strut down the aisle.

They bodyslammed, dropkicked and suplexed their way into my subconscious—
Bret “The Hitman” Hart, Razor Ramon, “The Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels,
“Stone Cold” Steve Austin, HHH, The Undertaker, Kane,
Mankind, Dude Love, Cactus Jack,
The Rock—

And you, the Spanish Announcer’s Table—you were there, too.

You readied yourself each night—
a table prepared for us,
in the presence of our enemies—
or in this case, our heels.

Whenever a match veered outside the confines of the squared circle,
you were routinely the first thing to be destroyed.
You were always so generous,
always so willing to let yourself be decimated
by a powerbomb or chokeslam or Rock Bottom—
or in one case, a double Rock Bottom.

A wrestler might be laid out on you like Isaac
on the altar at Mount Moriah,
while the other wrestler climbed to the top turnbuckle of the ring
and readied for a flying elbow or a moonsault.  
But here, the story veers in a different direction,
because unlike Isaac and Mount Moriah,
neither the wrestler nor the altar would be spared sacrifice.

When The Undertaker tossed Mankind off the top of the Hell in a Cell,
thrown down from the heavens like the morning star,
he seemed to fall forever. 
But you caught him and folded yourself around him
like two hands in prayer,
like Mary swaddling the Savior.
You received him gladly.

You were like the Giving Tree,
Always so willing to relinquish yourself.
You broke—again and again and again.
And you, like the Giving Tree,
never asked for anything in return.
You lay there, wrecked and abandoned,
while the match proceeded on without you.

But you never seemed to mind,
because the next week, you were back at ringside,
ready to submit and serve in whatever way possible.
You were, like grace, new every morning—
or at the very least, every Monday night.

I’ll always remember the sound of your breaking
and the sight of your crumpled vestige.
For a moment,
the combined alchemy of your snapping paired with the sound
of the millions (and MILLIONS) of cheering fans
creates a brief and vivid bridge
between the 37-year-old me
and the seven-year-old boy;
he forever perched on the edge of the family room couch.

The book of Jude ends, 
“Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling…”
That’s not your story.
You never kept any of us from falling.
But time, after time, after time, after time,
You caught us.
Held us.
Loved us.

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Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

It’s the first Monday of Advent,
and I’m google-searching to see
if Fred Meyer carries shoelaces
to replace the ones that snapped
at the gym this morning.

I mean, I know Fred Meyer carries them —
I’ve bought them from there before —
I just don’t remember where they’re located
in the store itself.
I don’t remember where loads of things are —
for instance,
the container of gorilla glue at our house.

Last night, the first Sunday of Advent,
I needed to use the glue to, you know,
glue something,
only trouble being
I couldn’t discern its whereabouts.
I could’ve asked my wife Jenae —
she would’ve had more of a clue than me —
but I didn’t want to ask her for help.

We were on the downward slope of
one of them good ‘ole
ticker-to-ticker talks,
the kind that leaves me feeling
more enlightened and more hopeless,
because afterward she knows more of me,
I know more of her and — as I perceive it —
I know more of the ways in which I’m failing her.

We’d been talking about life insurance
and health insurance and umbrella insurance
(which is not, sadly, insurance against an umbrella attack)
and grief and Christmas decorations and family
and kids and money and shame and travel
and anxiety and feeling overwhelmed
and —
and —
and by the end of it, I didn’t feel much like
asking her if she knew where the glue was.

I stood there in the doorway
three times, watching her as she worked on a Christmas gift
for my parents — no spoilers now —
and three times I said nothing,
instead returning to the same drawers I looked in
and hadn’t found anything.

When I finally asked her,
she remembered a spot I hadn’t —
to the shock of no one —
I went to look,
and there it was.
I don’t remember saying, “thank you.”

Instead, I remember sitting down to my laptop
and reading an email from a friend of mine
who’s also a writer,
explaining to everyone on the email
a particular kind of cancer
that’s decided to house itself in him.
“This might be the last time we talk,” he wrote —
or something of that ilk.
(I could look up the email again, but
I don’t want to get all re-depressed about it.)

This morning, the first Monday of Advent,
Jenae prayed for his healing
but I didn’t — me still very much immersed
in that “not asking for help” place —
also, having a hard time believing
prayer would do any good at all.

When I first read his email the night before,
two candles burned next to me —
candles we brought home
from Jenae’s grandmother’s house,
where we spent the Thanksgiving holiday.

Grandma is ninety-three and lives on her own.
She gives sweet hugs, only occasionally listens
to advice about the crossword, prays to God
to help her control her temper,
makes the occasional mean-spirited comment
and pins old birthday balloons of hers
on a wall in the back room of the house,
the same back room in which she keeps
Snoopy Claus (it is what you think it is)
and a quintet of baby pictures of her daughter,
Jenae’s mother.

Grandma gets spells of nausea and dizziness
but she’s probably going to outlive my friend —
Hell, the candles might outlive him.

We lit a candle at church yesterday —
this being Advent and the like —
though I should say it was less ‘we’ and more
the act of a single young woman,
one who’d attempted suicide but, by God’s grace
hadn’t succeeded.

She stood onstage and
read her story off her iPhone.
The hand that held her phone
quaked like the leaves of Aspen trees —
the ones that Jenae likes so much —
the ones that, when animated by wind,
sound like an audience breaking out into rapturous applause.

The young woman at church
spoke of death and hope and God and then
she lit a candle.

The next day, after we’d talked about
multiple forms of insurance
and after I’d shunned help
and after I’d read the email
and after Jenae prayed while I abstained,
I went for a run — my second of the day.

I left the house at twenty to four in the afternoon,
and as I ran laps around Peninsula Park
I watched the sun set in
the Southwest corner.

I thought about my friend
and how bright his eyes were
when I first met him.

I thought about his gentle voice,
his laughter, his curiosity,
his effortless apologies, his tears,
the shameless questions he asked
when he didn’t understand something.
When he needed help.

“Advent,” the pastor said,
“is for those of us who cannot see Him.”

The sky turned indigo and gold and ice blue.

My grief felt pointless
and my striving felt pointless
and the sunset felt pointless
and the writing of this whatever-it-is
felt pointless
but here it is anyways —
because my friend who is sick
and also a writer believes in words —
because he and I once talked about church bells
and how their sounding fills both of us
with equal measures of honey-warm nostalgia
and sharp, stabbing discomfort —
because I didn’t know what else to do but run, cry and
write it all down.

After my run, I told Jenae
how pointless everything felt.
Then we went to dinner and a movie with friends.
And then I wrote this.
And then —
And then —
Amen.

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Seven years ago,
I worried the moving pod
would block traffic on SE 49th Avenue
and upset the neighbors
I hadn’t met yet.

Six years ago,
My sister and brother-in-law visited me.
We went to Vista House and Salt-N-Straw
and when we entered I told my sister,
”Sample as much as you can.”

Five years ago,
I went for an early bike ride
and drank a cup of Good Coffee
while I sat outside the shop
and watched the sunrise.

Four years ago,
I balked at signaling and crashed my bike
into a parked car on N Williams.
I had bruises on my forehead, forearm, nose
and ego.

Three years ago,
I ran the Portland Marathon
with a co-worker in under four hours.
My then-girlfriend-now-wife Jenae
surprised me with signs.

Two years ago,
I ran another marathon,
just two of us thanks to COVID-19.
I cracked my phone screen
on the St. John’s Bridge.

One year ago,
Jenae and I went apple-picking
in Hood River at Mt. View Orchards,
the venue where we had
our fifteen-month-delayed reception.

And now
I’m writing this love letter by candlelight
and checking the air quality on my phone
and struggling to pray in my house.
My home.

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Photo by Marko Tuđan on Unsplash

Geese honked this morning while we kept our heads down and asked for your will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

It was cold and foggy but I was thankful because I’ve been freaked out about the warm October.

One of us prays for patience with their kids. One of us prays for a neighbor they just met. Another prays for contentment and to not be jaded. I confess my pride and ask for help to be a listening, curious spouse.

I hop on an unscheduled zoom meeting with some friends from work in the morning then go for a noontime run, intending to pray during it but winding up not.

I run laps around Peninsula Park because I don’t want to run West toward the freeway and the encampments near the on-ramps.

Like I said, I mean to pray but instead I count the laps and wave to Jenae as she walks and leaves voice memos for a friend for used to live here but doesn’t anymore.

Yesterday there was a camp that caught fire. The day before that, there were shootings and stabbings. Also, there was a marathon. A friend of mine ran it — his first. I hope his body’s recovering. I hope it was joyful.

I’m back in the park now and the laughter of children climbs higher than the trees. High schoolers run laps and three couples pose in front of the still-blooming roses.

Speaking of still blooming, we have strawberries - two of them — growing on a plant in our backyard. We’re also trying to grow pumpkins — not for Cinderella, lest she’s the size of the mice who help her. These’re little tiny ones that’ll be for decoration.

I don’t know which end is up. I don’t know if this is the end. I hope it isn’t. Remember that woman in church when I was young? She was the one who talked about Israel and the end times. Her name was Mary, like your mother. She scared me so much.

I was twelve at the time and wanted you to hold off on the rapture — at least until I had sex.

I’m thirty-six now. Thirty-seven in my sights. Sex isn’t all it was cracked up to be - but marriage is more difficult and more beautiful than I ever imagined. So thanks all the same. Your wonders never cease.

We’re talking about starting a family, but the next door app says I live in a hellhole, so what do I know?

I’m on a park bench and a man exhales as he passes me.

Ruach — the word for breath.

I feel my breath and think of you. I hear my breath and think of you. I ask not to be led into temptation and see my breath and hear the geese and think of you.

For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.

Honk, honk.

I mean, amen.

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I saw you play ten years ago
at a shotgun hall in Philadelphia.
You glittered and sang about
lies and bad days and communion.
The next morning, you did some voiceover work
for our film company, and we paid you
with a fifth of whiskey.

I saw you play six years ago
at an old church in Portland.
You trembled and sang about
hard places and the stone age.
It was the week after the 2016 elections.
You handed out equal pours of hope and despair.
Your songs were solace when none was to be found.

I saw you play two years ago
over instagram during lockdown.
You kept your head down and
listened to a storm as you sang a hymn.
I watched the video o’er and o’er.
Amid all apocalypses and unbelief,
your singing was something to hold onto.

I saw you play last night
at a shotgun hall in Portland.
You shimmied and looked to the stars
and sang about your great-grandmother.
You were so unadorned and so shameless
and so beautiful.
And in being so you invited us to join you as well.
To be unadorned. Shameless. Beautiful.

Listen to David Ramirez

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Share Dominic Laing and The Feelings

Self-portrait. Taken one morning in the dining room — credit to God and the Sun and to whoever made the window in the living room that wound up creating this prism. I wanted to post it because I thought it was a fun selfie.

Okay. Onward.

There’re yellow jackets — or wasps, I can’t tell —
zagging around the campfire this morning.

I flinch when they circle,
the same way I wasn’t supposed to
when Keith or Rocco or Alex or Jesse
or any of the other eighth-graders who were
one cavernous year older than me
told me ‘don’t flinch,’ when they dared me
not to move
as their raised fists twitched and tremored
above them.

I flinch around the yellow jackets —
or wasps — cell reception is crap
so I can’t google the difference —
the same way I tell myself
not to
when my wife wants to massage
my feet or my shoulders or my ass or
my hands.

I am times more ticklish than she is,
more sensitive to and skittish in response
to physical touch.
If she uses the meat of her palm
and presses into
the tender parts of me,
as if I’m a ball of dough
in need of kneading,
I’m able to remain still.

Sometimes I have to hold my breath.
Sometimes I have to tell myself
they mean no harm.
Sometimes I have to tell myself
to keep breathing and that she means no harm.

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Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash

Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland is a stretch of coastline made up of volcanic rock that’s been formed over millions of years into forty-thousand hexagonal, interlocking basalt columns. We visit because someone tells us our trip to Northern Ireland won’t be complete without it.

“It’s like aliens made it,” he says.

I first saw Giant’s Causeway when I was twelve via a Led Zeppelin album cover, back when I didn’t know it was called Giant’s Causeway and all I cared about were the San Francisco 49ers and trying to emulate John Bonham’s bass drum triplets.

Two-and-a-half decades later, Jenae and I descend into the cove, toward the water’s edge and one of the strangest, most surreal landscapes I’ve ever seen. It’s here we meet a couple from Virginia, somewhere in their early 60’s. They’re seated on two rocks amongst the forty-thousand, content to nest and snack while other people bound from stone to stone.

The woman, short and stocky with strands her stringy blond hair tossed akimbo, has a brace on her right foot, an injury sustained on an earlier trip to Hawaii. The man wears loose fitting Levis and worn trainers. He has a salt-and-pepper beard and wears a brown pageboy cap.

Jenae makes a connection with them because she spent most of her growing-up years in Charlotte, North Carolina. The couple asks if she still lives in North Carolina. Jenae shakes her head. The woman asks where we’re from, and we say Portland, Oregon.

“Portland,” they say, and they look us up and down, as if we’re concealing something, as if such information should’ve been guessable purely by sight or smell.

“How is it out there?” The jovial bounce of their southern small talk flattens.

Jenae and I exchange a look, then face the couple. We tell them it’s fine.

They’ve been driving around Northern Ireland, and on one of their stops, they saw Duncle Castle, which was featured in Game of Thrones. This reminds me of the previous day at Castle Ward, two hours south of Giant’s Causeway. There’s another Game of Thrones location on that site, and I observed a family of four gawk and gab and trample around the site.

We tell the Virginia couple that though neither of us watch Game of Thrones, we thought about seeing Duncle Castle, but we might not have enough time.

“Just a bunch of rocks,” one of them — the man — says.

We leave the couple and walk toward the ocean, toward the part of the formation where the waves crash into the land. A trio of young Japanese students stand on one of the outermost points. Each of the students has hair as black as the stones under their feet. They dress in a mix of black ankle-length jackets, gray sweaters, black hats and snow-white designer sneakers. In unison, the students all turn their backs to the ocean and take serious-looking pictures. One stamps out a cigarette and positions himself to take pictures of the other two.

I wait for the students to finish and for the outcropping to clear so I can take a few pictures of my own. I try to time my picture to the wave-crash and capture some ascending spray. It takes several attempts, but I get what I think is a good shot. My eyes look up from the camera lens to the ocean whose end I cannot see.

I listen to the ocean churning just beyond the rocks. To the wind charging over the stones and dirt and grass. To the receding water sliding off the basalt.

Surely, I think, someone’s farted out here. Surely someone’s cried and someone’s spat into the ocean. Surely, I think, someone’s seen God. I look up behind me, hundreds of feet up to the top of the cove. Surely, some dumb sheep have munched on pastureland and kept their heads down and stumbled off the ledge of this place and screamed all the way down to where I’m standing.

During our walking, Jenae informs me — via the delightful audio tour that also speaks of the Irish giant Finn McCool, he who made the Causeway — that long ago, women died while placing baskets full of kelp on their heads and trying to climb up the hillside.

Later in the afternoon, we see the Virginia couple again, seated in a different place now. I walk for a bit into an area that resembles a wall of organ pipes of a church. I look back the way I came, and I see the Virginia man by himself. I assume he’s sneaking away from his wife for what I think is a smoke, but instead he pulls out a small container from his inside jacket pocket, pulls off the top and spreads what looks like ashes.

He holds still and waits until all the what-might-be-ash has dissipated. After a minute, he dusts his hands and turns back in the direction of his wife.

Surely, I think, someone long ago rubbed their hands, left a warm fire one morning and took their time slipping down the muck to gather as much salty seaweed as their head and neck could stomach, and all the time they scanned for seaweed, they weren’t thinking about pictures or cigarettes or hexagons.

And then, somewhere along their return trip, without their planning or knowing, something happened, and whatever hopes or dreams or prayers or hunger they had turning within themselves went away, never to return. They never tasted the gathered kelp on their tongues and they never heard the voices of the ones they shared a roof with and they never felt the warmth of another fire for as long as they lived.

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