Lately I have felt a little disillusioned with my line of work. Not that I hate it, but I've been in my position for five years and I guess I've grown tired. I do the same thing just about every day, and the lack of mobility sometimes troubles me.
Of course, I am very glad to even have a job at all. Most people my age cannot say the same, especially locally. I think about opportunities a lot, seeing what is out there, but it is so easy to think that maybe I cannot do something. I spoke to my mother at length recently and she thinks I should look at parks, as in rangers etc. This has a certain appeal. I always love the idea of being out of doors, leading nature walks, and explaining things. I always love to learn and share what I learn with others.
I even thought about going back to college for a time to learn Political Science, but then I remembered my own college experiences. The thought of siting in political classes listening to the politics of teachers has no appeal. I usually disagreed with the political motivations of my teachers long ago but I usually stayed quiet so I wouldn't potentially fail a course. Still I have a lot of dreams lately where I'm back in college, probably because it seems like an easier time with less responsibilities, more free time and fun. Easy to look back in time with rose colored glasses, especially since it was never easy.
So I am left with myself and my job. At least I have the security, and I have time for my writing. Thats all I need. I just hope that maybe one day I can do more with my talents and abilities, a job that applies to what I love.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
On Japan
I was going to write this on Sunday, March 13 but given my internet troubles I never had the chance. I had many more ideas that since have fled, but I'll do my best. Here goes.
There are so many words to describe the crisis in Japan: overwhelming, astounding, tragic, heartbreaking just to name a few. The pictures of the waters coming in, of the faces of people, of devastation ... I can't imagine it. The whole ordeal sounds like some bad dream. Part of me hopes to wake up and find that it's some sort of nightmare. I am an ocean away, but I'm living it every night on the news, in the day on the radio at work, and in my own heart.
See, I love Japan, Japanese culture and history. I have since I was a little guy who had a Japanese friend back in elementary school. I remember going over to their house and trying seaweed for the first time and being hooked on everything Japanese from then on. This is not to say I am an expert or an "Otaku" as another term in the popular culture is applied to extreme lovers of all things Japan.
I always wanted to go to Japan myself. I was planning to in May, but of course that plan was canceled. I honestly don't know if I will ever get to go. I can only hope. The Japanese people are a fine, tenacious bunch, and I can only hope that things will work out for the best, especially with the nuclear situation at the Fukushima plant. That whole situation raises a different set of concerns that don't need to be mentioned here.
My current project, one book that seems to have blossomed into three, is a result of my love of all things Japan.
The story itself is a simple premise. A young man goes to Japan to teach English. He falls in love with his translator and ends up in a more interesting situation than he originally imagined when another outside party falls in love with him. This may seem like simple love story, but when the outside party is a mischevious Japanese spirit things change dramatically. At the moment I am struggling with some very terrible writer's block in the second part of my story (the second "book"). I seem to get that a lot recently what with working back to back shifts constantly, I have no time to really rest and get my brain back.
This story is one I almost took myself. Before I started my current job, I toyed with the idea of going to Japan for a while to teach, learn the culture and get first hand experience in this mysterious land which I have so longed to go. Now, considering what I hear about foreign workers fleeing Japan, I am somewhat glad I didn't go. I also wonder about the future of my story as much as I do about Japan's. I pray for the people there and that whatever god or gods watch over them that they deliver them from this disaster to a brighter horizon.
There are so many words to describe the crisis in Japan: overwhelming, astounding, tragic, heartbreaking just to name a few. The pictures of the waters coming in, of the faces of people, of devastation ... I can't imagine it. The whole ordeal sounds like some bad dream. Part of me hopes to wake up and find that it's some sort of nightmare. I am an ocean away, but I'm living it every night on the news, in the day on the radio at work, and in my own heart.
See, I love Japan, Japanese culture and history. I have since I was a little guy who had a Japanese friend back in elementary school. I remember going over to their house and trying seaweed for the first time and being hooked on everything Japanese from then on. This is not to say I am an expert or an "Otaku" as another term in the popular culture is applied to extreme lovers of all things Japan.
I always wanted to go to Japan myself. I was planning to in May, but of course that plan was canceled. I honestly don't know if I will ever get to go. I can only hope. The Japanese people are a fine, tenacious bunch, and I can only hope that things will work out for the best, especially with the nuclear situation at the Fukushima plant. That whole situation raises a different set of concerns that don't need to be mentioned here.
My current project, one book that seems to have blossomed into three, is a result of my love of all things Japan.
The story itself is a simple premise. A young man goes to Japan to teach English. He falls in love with his translator and ends up in a more interesting situation than he originally imagined when another outside party falls in love with him. This may seem like simple love story, but when the outside party is a mischevious Japanese spirit things change dramatically. At the moment I am struggling with some very terrible writer's block in the second part of my story (the second "book"). I seem to get that a lot recently what with working back to back shifts constantly, I have no time to really rest and get my brain back.
This story is one I almost took myself. Before I started my current job, I toyed with the idea of going to Japan for a while to teach, learn the culture and get first hand experience in this mysterious land which I have so longed to go. Now, considering what I hear about foreign workers fleeing Japan, I am somewhat glad I didn't go. I also wonder about the future of my story as much as I do about Japan's. I pray for the people there and that whatever god or gods watch over them that they deliver them from this disaster to a brighter horizon.
Charter Communications Gaff
My internet went out last Sunday and technicians didn't arrive until Tuesday. I was informed that the internet would be up the next day. No such luck. Apparently they forgot to tell the company, so now I have to wait until this coming Monday. So I've had 8 days without any ability to do much. Oh well, so it goes.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
That Ultimate Question
Recently my Uncle Dale passed away. He was some eighty-five years young, and he left behind my Aunt Kay who is perhaps one of the sweetest and kindest women one could ever hope to know. Dale had been suffering from Alzheimer's for a long time, and he and Kay had moved from their home in Texas. It's a very sad thing, and I cannot say I know either of them well. We attended their 50th wedding anniversary long ago, and I don't remember much about them. It wasn't until recently that they came back into my family's lives. Given Dale's condition, my mother sent Kay a copy of Aboard the Phantom Express. Given the book's subject, and her own situation, I was nervous about how she would receive it.
Kay was remarkable. She read the book cover to cover and loved it. She shared it with her friends and book club. She could have been my agent to several publishers for her enthusiasm. It was her comment about it that stunned me the most. She said that after reading it, she had a sense of resolution, a sense of letting go of Dale. Even though he had not passed, his mental facilities and all else were long gone, even though he himself remained. Still, as anyone who deals with Alzheimers can tell you, this is not living...but I won't go into Alzheimers this time. Kay read this book as I originally intended it, as a way of dealing with that ultimate finality of death.
It's strange to look back on my first years writing this book. I was very young when my grandfather (on my mother's side) died, and although I remember very little about him, I remember clearly the emotions of the time when I was told. I was traumatized. Up until that point, I knew nothing about death or its existence. The concept that my grandfather was gone and not coming back just didn't register. I remember curling into a ball on or under my bed and crying very hard for a long time. To this day I think on the time and shudder. All told, I lost a lot of loved ones young. Each of us in our own time is bound to.
Over the years, coping with death is a constant struggle. We all know we will one day cease to be, and I suppose the thought of a ceasing of consciousness is especially hard for me. The dark, unknown void frightens all of us. It twists in my brain sometimes like a terrible snake, or it wrenches at my heart for a few minutes, then it passes.
It's funny that I started writing out of self preservation. I thought if I wrote, some part of me would remain. I would remain alive in some sense in others' imaginations. I wrote and found I loved writing but still the lack of resolution remained. Then I stumbled on the Phantom Train and I thought, "what a perfect way to explore my phobia ... that ultimate question that nags everyone. 'What is on the other side? How do I get there?'" I started to write so that I could find that resolution, so that I might find peace.
It's been fifteen years of constant rewrites, of toying with different thoughts and ideas and still this book is an unfinished or rather unpublished work. Sure, I had self published it, but somehow the lack of widespread diversity hampered what I felt was the true spark in it. When I got the letter from Kay, I finally felt like I had accomplished what I set out to do.
A few weeks later I showed it to my boss, and in reading it she started to cry. She'd lost her aunt very young, and reading the book she got a sense of the same resolution. In the end, this is a children's story, and kids love the adventure and mystery of the train. Ultimately, however, it's adults who have come to grasp the story's true meaning and purpose.
I don't have an answer myself to that ultimate question. I don't know if anyone has or ever will. One day we all must take that journey, like it or not. If we are lucky, a part of us will remain in those around us, in the works we have done for others. I suppose it is there where part of the answer to the ultimate question lies. In life, and death, there is always love.
Kay was remarkable. She read the book cover to cover and loved it. She shared it with her friends and book club. She could have been my agent to several publishers for her enthusiasm. It was her comment about it that stunned me the most. She said that after reading it, she had a sense of resolution, a sense of letting go of Dale. Even though he had not passed, his mental facilities and all else were long gone, even though he himself remained. Still, as anyone who deals with Alzheimers can tell you, this is not living...but I won't go into Alzheimers this time. Kay read this book as I originally intended it, as a way of dealing with that ultimate finality of death.
It's strange to look back on my first years writing this book. I was very young when my grandfather (on my mother's side) died, and although I remember very little about him, I remember clearly the emotions of the time when I was told. I was traumatized. Up until that point, I knew nothing about death or its existence. The concept that my grandfather was gone and not coming back just didn't register. I remember curling into a ball on or under my bed and crying very hard for a long time. To this day I think on the time and shudder. All told, I lost a lot of loved ones young. Each of us in our own time is bound to.
Over the years, coping with death is a constant struggle. We all know we will one day cease to be, and I suppose the thought of a ceasing of consciousness is especially hard for me. The dark, unknown void frightens all of us. It twists in my brain sometimes like a terrible snake, or it wrenches at my heart for a few minutes, then it passes.
It's funny that I started writing out of self preservation. I thought if I wrote, some part of me would remain. I would remain alive in some sense in others' imaginations. I wrote and found I loved writing but still the lack of resolution remained. Then I stumbled on the Phantom Train and I thought, "what a perfect way to explore my phobia ... that ultimate question that nags everyone. 'What is on the other side? How do I get there?'" I started to write so that I could find that resolution, so that I might find peace.
It's been fifteen years of constant rewrites, of toying with different thoughts and ideas and still this book is an unfinished or rather unpublished work. Sure, I had self published it, but somehow the lack of widespread diversity hampered what I felt was the true spark in it. When I got the letter from Kay, I finally felt like I had accomplished what I set out to do.
A few weeks later I showed it to my boss, and in reading it she started to cry. She'd lost her aunt very young, and reading the book she got a sense of the same resolution. In the end, this is a children's story, and kids love the adventure and mystery of the train. Ultimately, however, it's adults who have come to grasp the story's true meaning and purpose.
I don't have an answer myself to that ultimate question. I don't know if anyone has or ever will. One day we all must take that journey, like it or not. If we are lucky, a part of us will remain in those around us, in the works we have done for others. I suppose it is there where part of the answer to the ultimate question lies. In life, and death, there is always love.
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