New (kinda?) "Cartoons"

I don't know how to describe these: I did the figures while in either New York or in Roanoke, so they're possibly almost four years old (but I never posted them). I ran across them yesterday, and fiddled with them (instead of doing the work that I'm supposed to be doing). Once again, poor photos: deal with it.

Burnout

When I was in my third year of graduate school – for the PhD – I taught my first class. I remember the anxiety about the upcoming semester, but not because of the material the class would cover: the anxiety was about finding adequate childcare for my nine-month-old daughter. The class was logic, and (after an intense bit of work when I was an undergraduate) it comes natural to me. I taught, oh, maybe three or four courses in New Orleans. I have my stories: about Junior and her bell, and the day she came to class with a pierced tongue, or the day I failed to wear shoes to class and was put on the spot about it by a young woman wearing pajamas.  And there was “Failure Boy.” Who could forget Failure Boy. Overall, I enjoyed teaching.

I moved to Roanoke, Virginia in the summer of… damn, I’m old. Anyhow, I was contacted by a (relatively) local community college, and was happy to gain the additional teaching experience. I asked a lot of the students, and got a lot back. I have a few good memories from teaching there, although a few not-so-good ones, including an absolutely scathing student evaluation from the best student I had that semester, who apparently was unaware that is was a community college and most of the students were barely keeping up with my (to her, plodding) lectures.

I had mixed feelings about the spring of 1999: I had hoped to knock out a large chunk of my dissertation, and instead got additional offers to teach. I thought, how could I turn these down? (In retrospect, “No thank you,” comes to mind.) I was frustrated by the students at the college where I taught the most classes that semester, who really didn’t understand what I was trying to get at with the whole “philosophy” thing. (Also, I used a textbook that I ended up really not liking, and never used again. And I started doing shots of Irish whiskey before my 8AM class, which probably didn’t help.) That semester did not end well.

However, once I got through the summer, I managed to find a balance of teaching and writing that worked: I enjoyed teaching on the days I taught, and spent the rest of my time (more or less) researching and writing and editing like a fiend. I was (again, more or less) supporting myself with something that I grew to enjoy: I say that because I was surprised to enjoy teaching at all. I assumed that it would be the necessarily chore in order to make researching and writing possible (as it is for some professors) – but I liked the interaction with the students, liked watching the light bulbs go on in their heads.

At the same time, I sent out dozens of CVs, applied for every job I thought was reasonable. Two years in a row. At the end of the two years (first while ABD, about to finish, the second right after I’d finished) I got approximately zero interviews. (No, make that “exactly.”) That was discouraging. The advice from the graduate student coordinator seemed sound – publish an article! – but didn’t work in practice: I did what research I could, wrote several things up and submitted them, but nothing quite worked. Perhaps I was too ambitious in my topics, or… hell, I don’t know. I just know that I got back a number of rejection letters, and never have published an article in a peer-reviewed journal, and that, in a nutshell, is why I don’t have a full-time job.

I still enjoyed teaching, though. One of the other adjuncts at Large State University survived just on his modest adjunct salary, and seemed happy. I couldn’t quite swing it, though, and there came a point (just after Easter, 2001) where the schedule for teaching didn’t work for me (there’s a much larger story there that I’ve either told before, or will have to wait for another time). At that point, for the first time, I confronted the possibility of not teaching again: just over one year after getting my PhD, and it felt like I was done.

Of course I wasn’t. I got one course for the fall, and then two for the following spring.  At that point – the end of classes in May of 2002 – I did not have a grieving period over the “end” of my teaching career, but it would have been appropriate in some respects: it was without a doubt the best semester I’ve ever had, and I didn’t teach again for another three years. I would have been a good note to go out on.

There’s another job in there, but we skip forward to seminary in a town with few jobs – but a college that needs philosophy courses taught. I was there on-and-off for four years, and I started my blog while I was there (so I know I’ve written at least a bit about that). As my book approached publication, I assumed that I would get a full-time teaching position, and I would have a new life. That didn’t happen (obviously) but it didn’t occur to me quite yet that I wouldn’t teach again. And of course, I did: I got a class in the spring that was relatively uneventful, and a summer class that was okay except for all the cheating at the end which left an extraordinarily bad taste in my mouth – and that’s when I thought, for the first time in seven years, “now I’m really done.”

A few moves later, and I was teaching again. I mostly enjoyed it, although the commute was brutal and the classes were too large; then more teaching opportunities, with mixed results. ("You need to read past page 26 of the book!") Again, more seriously, thought I was done, and even turned down additional classes at all three colleges I was teaching at in the spring of 2011, on the assumption that “something better” would come along. Nothing did, but once again the impossible happened: “can you teach world religions? The class starts in three days.” It wasn’t nearly enough money, but I liked the students and they seemed to learn something; then I left the state, and once more turned down additional classes hoping for something better (or maybe just going back to teaching where I had taught before, even though the bad taste hadn’t left my mouth). But nothing: or at least nothing I was willing to do. Maybe I wouldn’t teach?

Then a friend was going on sabbatical, and needed his intro class covered. I’ve taught this before, should be easy, and after all, I enjoy teaching even if the money isn’t that good. Well: I liked about four of my students, the ones who seemed to read and be willing to ask reasonable questions. The other twenty five just wanted me to give them the right answer, which became increasingly frustrating. At least this time, I really do have something better lined up, something that’s not teaching, and (at least potentially) has a real future. Twelve years after I first contemplated the possibility of not teaching, I’m finally there: not teaching. 

I’m mostly okay with it, because I don’t enjoy it anymore; maybe I would if I could give more time and energy to it (a pay raise would have helped – I was getting the same amount this past semester as I had fifteen years ago!). Accompanying this post was supposed to be a cartoon featuring actual quotes from students, but that will have to wait. 

Suitable for Framing

In some respects, a lot is going on right now; in others, not much at all. 

Mostly I'm thinking about August, and moving away from the little town where I'm currently living. When I moved here, I anticipated putting down some roots  and staying a while; of course that was true in Syracuse as well. This is a nice place, but there aren't a lot of jobs around here, and even before I got here I worried about how I would fit into the community. Despite myself I've managed to make some friends, and I realize now that I seem to have a small network of people that I like, and can turn to for support. At the same time, the semester is over but I still don't have any better place to be than the college; I technically have another job, but I am "underutilized" there (which has been a chronic problem). I'm sad to be leaving a place that seemed to hold promise, but I never really did fit in very well.

And even as I get caught in a qualified nostalgia, I'm excited about the future: I can't wait for August, even though it's also scary. I have a sense of purpose moving forward, a fairly clear idea of what I'm moving towards. That said, I can't even begin to imagine what things will look like a year from now, and it seems to me that it would be foolish to guess. [I've just deleted a longish section where I walk backwards, year by year, where I was and what I thought the future would hold - and how most of those assumptions were way off.] Maybe next year I'll be moving to Japan.

I've always had a bad habit of looking to the future rather than living in the present, and it always seems justified for one reason or other, but I also miss out on what's happening around me. So that's my challenge to myself for the summer: enjoy the fleeting and fragile present.

Huh. I should probably be painting cherry blossoms instead of cranes.

Cold Day in May

Just a cartoon today!

Good morning!

Gandalf might ask, "Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?"

And I would reply, with Bilbo, "All of them at once."

Now, if someone would just grade these exams for me....

Once upon a time…

You’d think I’d come up with a better opening line than that, but I’m not really a writer. Or maybe, I just like to play around with conventions: what are your expectations now that I’ve said that? Will there be a “happily ever after” somewhere, or just a curse that spans decades? Or maybe it’s just that my writing tends to be academic. Yeah, I’ve published a book, but not a literary kinda book, and all the novels I’ve started take place in South Carolina and end up going nowhere.

South Carolina holds a special place in my imagination, and I’m not entirely sure I could explain why without finishing one of those novels (or, more seriously, writing a different one entirely). Once upon a time, I was accepted into graduate school and got my own apartment, and started thinking about what I wanted to do with my life, in little ways and big ways. After a week of spaghetti and hamburgers, I wondered what kind of food I wanted to cook, and decided on Indian food (I’m not sure why that seemed like a good idea, having little experience with Indian food, but here I am still cooking lentils and rice most days). I really liked riding my bike: Columbia turned out to be a good place to do that, even though I never noticed many other bicyclists. I watched a lot of television, until I got tired of it (solely attributable to Sarah Gilbert's speech on why everyone should be a vegetarian, at least for the talk shows. I still watched a lot of afternoon cartoons).

I remember reading Hegel in German up in the graduate student office, for about a half hour, the same two pages over and over again, until I realized that I wasn’t reading the translation. I remember watching H.R. Pufnstuf and the Monkey’s movie, Head, with some friends (well, one friend and some guy I never did like). I remember painting in oils, the one and only time. I started painting more in acrylics, though, and was irritated that what I thought was a pretty good portrait of Amanda was mistaken as a poor portrait of Erin (Amanda having lent me the oil paints). And I remember watching the beginning of what was- to-be the First Gulf War, and being appalled at the people running through the streets waving the American flag, as if attacking Iraq was some great thing.

When I arrived, I hadn’t had anything to drink in over a year, and didn’t drink anything during that first year. That was probably a good decision on various levels: I made Dean’s List my senior year of college after a dismal freshman year, which I attribute to finally buckling down and concentrating on my work rather than socializing (and even as I write that I wonder, did I drink to be social or to avoid having to socialize?). Not drinking was probably a good idea when I was first living by myself in a strange city where I didn’t know many people. By the second year there I felt more comfortable with the people I’d already met, and also started meeting new people. In October of that second year, if I remember correctly (and I probably don’t remember that correctly, for obvious reasons) I started drinking again for complex (and in retrospect admittedly bad – if subconscious) reasons.  And I can say confidently that it was social (at least until it turned anti-social a few years later).

That’s where I’m at right now (and by “now” I mean the past couple weeks) – and I don’t think I’m going to write much more about it. But watch for the painting!

Monday of Finals Week

Roy forgot what he was going to say.
Perhaps I'll have a better post tomorrow.

A Better Plan than Robbing Banks

Do you have one? Because I don't.

On an unrelated note: don't think I've stopped my obsessive tearing apart of the past, just because I haven't posted anything overly revealing recently. Some things clicked a few weeks ago, and I'm painting again - or at least thinking about painting.

But what I really need to be doing is drawing: I started illustrating a F/friend's project back in the fall, and got stuck halfway through.

Also, I need to reread Plato's Apology, because unlike the illustrations that actually needs to be done tomorrow. Bleh.

Cartooooon

I don't usually explain my cartoons, but here's a link. Let me know in the comments how long you make it - I had to stop it at 4:31.

And that's all for today.

Type, delete, type, delete, type, delete

During the past week, I keep starting blog posts about serious subjects, and then realize there's no way I can really post them. Then I remind myself that this blog was always supposed to be about the cartoons, not the writing: so screw it. Meet Mr. Miro again! (Don't expect a book by Marcus Borg.)

I'm tempted to tell you about reading comic books, but ironically that would take too much research for the time I have at the moment. But Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay continues to be my favorite novel, and I was very disappointed with this movie. The slightly longer version of that story is that I was captivated by Frank Miller's vision of Daredevil (the man without fear!) but didn't manage to make the jump over to Batman with him.  

(Somewhere, someone is saying, "but reading comic books is a serious subject!")

Endings, beginnings, and gaps

Sometimes I feel like King of the Odd Picture - but that's what happens sometimes when I want to take a photograph on a dismal day. Hopefully it also explains why I don't post more of my "real art" here - the cartoons are still cartoons, but you really need a good photograph to really see my cranes. At least today I used a real camera for the cartoon.

So: I'm once again in transition. It feels as though I've been in some sort of transition for about five years now, waiting for things to resolve. If I had to put a particular point on it, I'd have to say that the tease from a certain university in south-central Pennsylvania, in the middle of August, 2008, was the tipping point. And I've been in a kind of panic since then, even though that's waxed and waned over the years. I haven't had a permanent job since then, and nothing full-time except painting houses. (That's been pretty discouraging.) Things have gotten a lot better in the last year, for various reasons, but things never quite clicked into place. I thought they might - they seemed like they would - but they didn't. I'm okay with that, more okay than I would have thought. Now some of the things that have occupied my time are coming to an end - and ending are always bittersweet for me, even when I know I need to move on. Part of that has been feeling scattered, having my attention pulled in five different directions at once.

Some of my own reactions have surprised me. I mentioned to a friend recently that for the past four years, at the end of each semester, I've wondered if I was going to teach again. Since the summer of 2009, I've taught at five different colleges - which I wouldn't have anticipated - but also I find myself getting burned out, doing too much work for too little money (and every once in a while telling the students that, and then dealing with the fallout). I'm wrapping things up this semester, and although there are things I'll miss about teaching, I'm really ready for a break. And it's not just the teaching that's coming to an end; maybe I'll write more about that later.

I'm excited about what's coming, at least to the extent that I can anticipate what it will be like (and I think I have a pretty good idea at this point) - and a sense that things will be better in concrete ways. As a person who thinks in abstractions and vague terms like "happiness," it's nice to see the concrete once in a while: more money, shorter commute, more focus. I'm not going to worry about the long-term just yet: I need to make it through the next year, then see where things stand. But the next year should be pretty good.

The problem at the moment is getting from here to there: what do I do for the next three months? My current plan is robbing banks in the state directly to the south of where I live now (I'd tell ya which one, but I don't wanna tip off the fuzz). My backup plan is for my dad to win the lottery (he'll have to because I think it's pointless to play). As you might guess, I'm really hoping to come up with a better plan soon.

Last Day of Class

School's out, school's out teacher let the monkeys out!
Was one jailed, one prevailed,
both asked God, 'how have I failed?'

(bonus points for correctly identifying the source)

Mortality

Last night I wrote a fairly long and detailed blog post, mostly about being aware of one's own emotional state, and communicating that to others around us - that's important in relationships. (I wrote out one fairly detailed illustration from my first marriage.) But by the end of the post, I came around to having healthy boundaries; so you get this instead.

I will tell you about my weekend at a big hospital where I work as a chaplain. We get a lot of bad accidents. I was called to the Emergency Department because we were about to get an accident victim, multiple fatalities, and this was the only survivor that we knew of. My job is mostly to stand at the ready, help deal with family as they come in, and maybe help with the staff if they start feeling overwhelmed. I got there, we're all waiting for the ambulance, and the only thing we know about the victim is age and sex.

Those two pieces of information happened to correspond with someone I care about a lot, but haven't had much contact with recently - and who might plausible have been in the area. What are the odds? Practically zero. But there's a nervousness that built up that I didn't know what to do with. If I ended up talking with the patient, or dealing with the patient's family, I would have had confirmation: this is not my friend (unless of course it is, in which case I would have immediately called for backup).

So: patient comes in, surrounded by EMTs with a neck brace on and I don't actually get to see much of anything except the flurry of activity. I stand outside the room (with curtain drawn) until a nurse tells me that, as far as they know, no one is on the way and I can leave, they'll call me back if they need me. I walk out of Emergency, into the hallway, and slowly feel myself fall apart. Halfway down the stairs (and I always take the stairs), I have to sit down and just start sobbing. Pull myself together, get back to the office, break down again.

I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before (because of other Cat 1 trauma victims), and I'd like to think I would have held it together better if I had. But really, have you ever seriously contemplated the mortality of those around you? Even working in a hospital, even working as a hospice chaplain, I can't say that I really thought about what it would mean for this person to die: there's something very specific about it, and it was very immediate yesterday afternoon.

Now I'm listening to Eric Revis' tribute to Kenny Kirkland (and my laundry go 'round and 'round in the dryer), and wondering how you're doing.

Wednes(cough cough cough)day cartoon

Do you really want more self-analysis and allusions to stories from past relationships? Well too bad: today you're just getting a cartoon.

Second thoughts on the coroner’s report

In my last post, I wondered about the single image as a summation of a relationship – and I have two further thoughts. More than two, really, but at least two.

Does the image have to be negative? Maybe not, maybe focusing on the negative is part of my problem. What if I simply declare that the abiding image isn’t the abrupt departure, but instead: hiking at dusk around the lake, listening to the whippoorwills? I’d never heard a whippoorwill before, but it was immediately obvious what it was. That’s a nice image, one that obliquely reveals what was good about that relationship (at some point I may have to write out that story, but not now).

What about flying a kite on the beach – not just any kite, but the box kite I had made by hand for you? That starts to get at the paradox of this exercise: the images of hope are filled with more sadness – because it’s ultimately hope unfulfilled – than the actual disappointments I wrote about before. I still have the pictures of that first day, the kite getting smaller and smaller as you let out the line, eventually fully extended, that kite soaring above all the others, holding up in the stiff breeze off the ocean. Why are so many of my later memories, in the different cities in which we lived, individual rather than shared: things I did by myself, or with friends of ours, but almost never with you? Of course there are shared experiences - you telling me about your catered lunch, in detail, because you know I like Chinese food, but me absentmindedly singing over the top of your description because I had stopped listening and really couldn’t care less? Do you remember what song I was singing? But the burden here shifted, something that was my fault; or maybe even simply revealing of the space that had grown between us. In any case, I’m back to a negative summation. The positive images all seem to be early in the relationship, not late.

Other images offer different problems: repeated across relationships, perhaps as an attempt to regain what was appealing about that first one. The uniqueness fades, and little is left of that first image. Or maybe they’re elusive, hidden in a haze of alcohol. How is it that I remember so little of the specifics of the relationship to which all others are compared?

Maybe they’re embarrassing - “NSFW”- and yet in that fact reveal the essential nature of the relationship: but I’m not writing erotica, after all. That I can’t write anything I’d want my kids to read shows why it was doomed, based on something ephemeral, not really the basis for a relationship at all.

Does the positive image come from the uniqueness, or from the repetition? Maybe it depends on the person. Playing gin rummy every night – seriously, we wore out a pack of “uncoated” cards – served as a kind of anchor in an otherwise chaotic relationship. But standing in the parking lot of the Japanese Gardens, one August afternoon (and that’s a story I will tell again, one day) - really does capture a lot of what I like about you. And the paradox reemerges: that makes me profoundly sad, in a way that so-called “sad” images don’t.

That question, repetition or uniqueness, leads to a second question: does the relationship need to be over in order to provide an image, or can there be an abiding image that serves as a lived ideal? And if so, does it come from a single moment that captures, not the attraction, but the bonding? Or the patterns that emerge out of time spent together, forging a common experience? In either case, I would suggest that the image, whether of a pattern or an ideal, needs to be something shared if the relationship is ongoing. That is, if the relationship is over, I can shape my own narrative to fit my needs. You profoundly misunderstood me, I never trusted you, you never trusted me, I realized that I didn’t really like you that much. But if it’s ongoing, those images are part of the narrative that two people are (maybe not consciously) building together. You and I tell the same story: this is who we are.

On a different – but not unrelated – issue: I’ve been accused of not seeing people as they present themselves, but instead constructing theories in my head. Well, yes. I live in my head, and have trouble translating that to action, and sometimes am so caught up in my own theory that I miss really obvious things in my environment. (I remember a friend – way back when I was still an undergraduate – saying, “Your students will worry about you as you get older, profoundly absentminded, oh, poor professor is really losing it – and I’ll know, nope, he’s always been like that.”) But my theories allow me to see things that others miss: I ask, “when did your dad’s mother die?” And your answer revealed the solution to the long-standing enigma: he’s a jerk because emotionally he’s stuck right there, never got past being an abandoned teenager. And that’s a powerful insight that no one else ever seemed to recognize. My theories aren’t always wrong.

So here’s my question for you: where am I stuck, and why am I stuck there? My brain, the size of a planet, doesn’t seem to be able to turn that telescope around in this instance.

Sorry, no cartoon today!

Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow

It’s not fair, summing up a relationship in a single image. A year, six years, ten years – reduced to one interaction that can’t possibly capture the complexity and nuance, the reasons you liked the person and the reasons you you’re not together any more.

But it functions as sort of shorthand. Can I really tell the story of a slowly developing friendship, going to prom, spending all my free time with you, when what I really remember is being told that you couldn’t be yoked to a non-Christian? I know it’s not fair, and that one sentence can’t by itself capture why it defines that relationship. But there you have it.

Sometimes I tell the story to see how someone will react: she told me that I didn’t like jazz.  I can tell a lot about a person in their response to that single statement.

Other times I’m giving a warning of sorts: she threw herself headlong onto the couch and started bawling, because the pie crust had crumbled. That’s not fair as a summation – truly fails to capture the bulk of that relationship and what it was really about – but, for me, clearly shows why I couldn’t stay, and what my expectations for mature behavior are.

Sometimes I’m giving myself an out: I really tried, I worked at this relationship! But the anger, the rage she showed while driving down the highway after I mumbled, “there’s the Oscar Meyer Weiner-mobile” shows the pervasive levels of mistrust and paranoia. The manic laughter that followed my belated, clear restatement, “we just passed the Oscar Meyer Weiner-mobile,” was just icing on the cake. There are many, many other stories I could tell, but this woman was just nuts.

What does it mean when someone disappears for a week after I discovered her secret? It was a dark secret –although not as dark as some of the other things she had already shared – but once again, there was no way of establishing a level of trust. I was dating a wild animal whose instincts would always be in control.

I can’t seem to write the story that’s on my heart this week; and there are other stories I’ve left out, maybe the most important ones. But today I’m struck by the vividness of the idea of the single image, how it captures something important and broken at the heart of each relationship, even as it leaves out so much.

And I wonder, what will be the next image? How will the next relationship be summed up? For once, can’t it be something good, something positive? Or is it only possible to find that image after the fact, a coroner’s report – in which case, I don’t want the next relationship to be summed up.

Social Animals

One of the things I talk about occasionally on this blog is our essentially social nature: we need other people in order to be fully human. 

What I don't typically talk about - maybe because it's obvious - is the problems we have with that. So, Aristotle recognizes that "honor" isn't a proper goal of life, because people's opinions are fickle: we can't allow ourselves to be dependent on the value-judgments of others. At the same time, Aristotle is also one of the few philosophers who talks at length about the necessity of friendship. We really do need other people in order to be fully human.

Why is this? Simone de Beauvoir writes, “If I were really everything there would be nothing beside me; the world would be empty.” There's a  paradox there, that one's self-importance taken too far can lead to a vacuum: we need not just to have other people recognize our worth (and I won't get into Hegel's Master/Slave dialectic today), but also recognize the worth of others. But not just that, either: both people have to recognize that they contribute to what is necessarily an asymmetrical relationship. What do I bring, what do you bring? Those two things are unique, never equal, but both vital to the relationship. 

When this goes well, the combination of support and receptivity we give one another expands our capacity to support and receive: in feeling supported, I am able to better support, in receiving from another I am better able to receive. I focus here on receiving rather than giving, because giving is often problematic: our motives are mixed. Sometimes I give you what I have, not what you want; or I give you what I think you need, ignoring your stated desires. Or I give you something that I value - a lesson in philosophy! - but I give it in order to show my mastery of a subject, maybe even my superiority (in a particular realm), rather than giving it as a gift. 

And so I focus on our receptivity: can we really listen to others? What are they trying to convey? That can be the bigger challenge: I've seen people come together, each say their piece without listening to the other, and part feeling unvalued by the other, because they were more interested in talking than listening. I've done that; I sometimes worry that's all blogging is. A lot of times, I've found that what people really need is just someone to listen, without judging, without trying to fix, just listening. Why do we have so much problem with that? As I've said in a different context - correcting John Lennon - it's not easy, but it is simple. But I think we don't listen because we're worried that, in taking a receptive position, providing support for someone else, we won't get our own needs met. If I'm worried that my needs won't get met, I can't be fully present to your needs. To state it slightly differently, if I'm operating out of an economy of scarcity, rather than an economy of abundance, scarcity becomes the norm and becomes self-reinforcing. 

So we have to step out in faith. One of the things I've found myself saying, in different contexts, is that we're all broken, and we all need each other in our brokenness. We all fail, we can feel like failures and blame others for being failures, but in the end we come back together in acceptance of the limitations, because that's the only way forward. Our hearts have the potential to grow larger as we find the ability to let more people in, and in those connections we find the beginnings of healing. Because we're social animals. 

No cartoon today, sorry.

Now with 40% Less Vagueness!

I would post my Holy Saturday sermon (such as it was) but mostly it was me talking about why we shouldn't be having one at all, shouldn't be singing songs - not yet. Holy Saturday is when we contemplate the absence of God. Yes, we have the promised Light of the resurrection, but it's not there yet. I think we have a desire to skip the tomb, go straight to Easter, and avoid thinking about the absence of God. Anyhow, that's it in a nutshell, and it's not particularly timely on the Tuesday after Easter anyhow. 

So let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time there was a man - scratch that, there was a boy - who didn't contemplate failure. He applied to college with no sense that he wouldn't get in, no sense that there wouldn't be money to pay. And lo, he got in, and lo, there was money. Then came struggle - relationships, academics - but he triumphed over adversity. So far, so good.

This story would be tedious if I kept going like this (and maybe you already find it tedious - but I've included a cartoon). So I'll skip the details of the setbacks, because what I want to emphasize is the background is optimism, if not outright idealism (in the non-philosophical sense). So what happens when a basically optimistic person hits a wall?

That could just be a rhetorical question, but it's not. I've told bits and pieces of my story on this blog, but I suspect that most of my regular readers know there was a hope for an academic career, among other things, that never materialized. I worked as a house painter, I worked as a law librarian, I tried to figure out what I wanted to do when I grew up. (For those of you who doubt that I actually want to grow up, I will refer you to my autobiographical song, "Hey Blue Fairy.") At one point, further back than most people know, I had this idea that I could be a pastoral counselor or something like that; several years (and a significant shift in religious understanding) later, I was in seminary, and hoped that my life was getting back on track. (I started this blog in seminary, and even if many of my posts were really vague, I've written extensively about what was happening in my life at that time: I'm not going to cover that ground again today.)

At that point - five years ago! - everything seemed to be heading in the right direction: my book was coming out, I was in what seemed like a really healthy relationship, I was getting actual job interviews for jobs that I was excited about! Finally, finally, finally, things were falling into place. 

Except of course they didn't. And as in a story by Kafka (he did write things other than the Metamorphosis, but of course that's the one I mean) - things went from bad to worse, and while I traveled out to Portland in search of a job, the entire economy collapsed. So, what happens when a basically optimistic person hits a wall?

Have I been a happy, optimistic person, full of energy and able to bring my attention to those around me who deserve it (including but not limited to my children - or my friend, Jack Good)? Nope. I've felt stuck, unable to get any traction anywhere, for years - YEARS! It's really sucked, and I've (I almost wrote "probably," but strike that) been a drag on the people around me. That's what happens when a basically optimistic person hits a wall. 

What's my story now? Well, I'm still not quite where I'd like to be; but I'm finally doing the work I started thinking about twelve years ago. I can see a path forward; a huge part of that is seeing employment opportunities around the corner, if not yet in-hand. I'm sleeping better; I have more energy than I did. I still feel bad about not being fully present to Jack, and to others around me in the past few years. But lately I've been able to actually pay attention to people around me - Steve and Jeffrey, and Paul, and others. And that's been nice. I feel like I'm starting to get back to who I was.

It's still cold outside, but the sun is shining and it seems like spring is finally on its way.

Frustrations

I don't know if it's more awkward to write for a "generic" audience - I don't know who you are, whoever is googling me in Russia! - or to write for a discrete number of individuals who I think visit this blog.

This morning's frustrations are, as with most mornings, with myself: things I said, things I didn't say, things I get worked up about that I wish wouldn't provoke that kind of reaction. More particularly: things I quoted sufficiently out of context that they probably either made no sense, at best. Questions put to me by various people that I evaded without grace. Terse answers to legitimate questions, when even a tiny bit of etiquette would have gone a long way.

One of the things I like about painting is to focus on color, on shape, and let the thoughts float around as they will. Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes not so much. It's always a bit of a jumble in there, and trying to straighten things out usually makes more of a mess. Anyhow, I'd rather be painting right now than preparing to teach (oops - I'm obviously posting on my blog rather than preparing to teach). And with that....

Easter cartoon

...but only in the sense that I'm posting it on Easter, not because it's a cartoon about Easter. But you've already noticed that.

Again, I'll apologize for the oddness of the picture. But it seems to work, with the rain theme and all.

A jumble fills my head, most of which is not really suitable for the blog. I've been wrestling with a song that came into my head last week when I had a fever and was on NyQuil, but the pieces won't quite fall into place. Also, I'm worried that I've stolen the melody (such as it is) from another song, and I'm not sure it's a song from which I want to steal the melody. 

But there's also pictures and such, things that don't quite fit together and I'm not sure how much I should try to make them go (which is to say, I'm still painting, but my latest painting hasn't quite clicked into place, either - even as I am pondering the one after that).

Sick!

Today, I am sick. I will not write much, but I was thinking earlier that I needed to post something - this oddity came to mind, part of a larger project of imaginary book-covers that I don't think I'll be coming back to.

I need to be getting actual work done, but I can't seem to focus sufficiently. I need to be making phone calls, but the only time I stop coughing is when I have a cough-drop in my mouth, which means the calls need to wait, too.

It is an odd thing to be heading (soon) over to a hospital and wondering if I can get some medical treatment. We'll see.

P.S. - apparently I did find something useful I can do while sick: delete drafts of unpublished blog-posts!

Kübler-Ross

I may have mentioned that I'm a hospice chaplain before, but I wouldn't hold it against you if you've forgot: it's not something I talk about a lot here. And I'm not going to talk about it now, exactly.

In recent posts, I've been mopey and sad, but a funny thing happened after I finished the second window painting (it's called "I have no words," but I think I forgot to label it). I felt calm.

My other hospice chaplain friends kept telling me, this is what grief is - you've had a serious loss, just let it happen. And so I did, as much as I could (and I've written about some of that here, including crying in church). I was reading some of the material I had on grief, and as you might guess it sounds very different when you're in the middle of it rather than reading it in a detached way, as something that applies to someone else. But the one thing I hadn't done was go back to Elizabeth Kübler-Ross. (For some reason, she wasn't mentioned in the hospice materials I had, but I have a lot of other pastoral care material from seminary.)

The one thing I remember is that the "stages" of grief isn't quite right: they come in a jumble. And, feeling this calm, I looked at the list. I recollected the early jumble - the denial ("we may get back together!") and the bargaining ("I have a better sense of what you need now!"). And of course the depression. For me that mostly showed up as not sleeping very much, and of course crying and crying.

It took me a couple weeks to find any anger there, but when I found it, it very clear and pushed the other pieces away. And I made myself stay with it, rather than hiding from it, pretending that it wasn't there; and I didn't go try to argue with her, because - you can already see this, right? - that would just be more "bargaining," a step backwards rather than a step forwards. Was I really going to win that argument? What would a "win" even look like?

A big part of this was the twelve hours I spent in the car by myself, driving back and forth to Virginia. A lot of remorse, slowly chewing on things, thinking them through, trying to digest them. By the last part of the drive, my thoughts were starting to take other paths - there are other things to think about, after all.

One thing that surprised me in Virginia: I saw an old F/friend, and she asked how I was doing. I gave her a hug and said I was hanging in there, that I'd been dumped. Very matter-of-factly she replied, "We didn't think you were really going to get married anyway." Huh.

I told this story to a friend back in the midWest, and he basically said, "yeah." And I realized that I had also known it for a long time, too, even though I hadn't wanted to admit it to myself. So I threw myself into the painting, talked to some F/friends around town, and just went into the anger. Then the anger went (mostly) away.

It feels odd to say, "I'm all better now," because it hasn't been that long; but I don't think I've ever really just got down and faced my emotions like this before. The anger in particular seemed to burn hot and clean. And then the acceptance just seemed to roll in of it's own accord.

There's more to the story - there's always more to the story! Even I'm sometimes embarrassed when I say, "let me give you the short version" and somehow it starts back in 1991. But for a blog post that is completely on "how I'm doing," I think it's long enough.

Just a cartoon

Of course I could write a lot. Just not tonight. I've been promising new cartoons for a while now: here you go.

Take It Easy

Yesterday was a day of awkwardness.

On a normal day, I think the most awkward part of my day would have been sitting at the movies with a group of friends in the middle of the afternoon, crying and crying. The movie was “Life of Pi,” and I thought it was very good – it matched, more or less, my (admittedly dim) memory of the book (which I also liked). I was particularly struck with the relatively early scene where the ocean turns to glass; that matched the book of my memory, and was really powerful for me. I may have cried then. But I know I cried through the violence, I cried through the panic. I cried whenever they showed the moon. Mostly I cried at that sense of utter abandonment by God that is so central to the movie.

So how was that not the most awkward part of my day? (Awkward, by the way, is different from being bad; it’s part of being vulnerable, allowing ourselves to be seen. We are all broken people, and we need each other in our brokenness.)

Memory is a funny thing. My memory of reading Life of Pi puts me in Roanoke, Virginia, up in the attic that I had completely remodeled by myself (complete with built-in bookshelves and a nice little reading nook). I had made a place, put down some roots, felt at home for the first time in a long time. That seems like a lifetime ago.

Anyhow, “don’t let the sound of your own wheels make you crazy” sounds like good advice right now.

Saturday Night Preview

Here's a bad photo of my latest painting, as promised. I'm pretty happy with it (the painting that is). There may be one more painting in this series, although of course the moon will continue to show up regardless.

Spring is just around the corner

Sorry about the bizarre-ness of the picture of the cartoon - it seemed like a good picture on my cell phone, and it's clearly not. (Just to be clear, it was drawn on canary yellow paper, so that's not part of the problem I'm thinking about). But when was the last time you got a cartoon?

It seems that the sun only shines when I'm away from my apartment, or don't have the time to take any good photos. It's been cold and gloomy lately, and not just in my head - but spring is around the corner I think. I still haven't been drawing too many cartoons lately - this is an old one, from when I was still at Lowe's (in case you hadn't already guessed). This still seems relevant, since conversations at the hospital don't always go much better than this, sometimes, but we're typically not talking about paint.

Today I need to be working on a sermon. I have a topic, but am having problems trying to frame it properly. And I should be able to focus today, since I'm basically done with my painting (although of course as I finish one, the next painting pops into my head). I'll try to post some kind of picture of this new painting ("I have no words") sometime this coming week, although you'll probably have to wait until August for a really good picture of it.

I have other cartoons, of course, and a lot of screen prints that I could post as well, but as I said, I need some decent light, and that's probably not going to happen today.
Now, back to work!

Why these fish make me sad

I don't mean to be particularly mopey, and I know I said that I would post a sermon here - and cartoons! I promise, both are coming. But today I'm thinking about fish. Why in the world would these fish make me sad? Well, it's a long story.

Back a couple years ago, I bought these fishbowls as a present for my fiancee. She loved them. It took a while - I don't remember quite how long - before they were finally hung up in the apartment back in Syracuse. Weeks; maybe months. But, I finally hung them, and we got fish.

Now, we don't know anything about fish, including good places to buy them, so we bought a lot of fish - little 13 cent feeder fish, but they kept dying. It wasn't the cost so much as the feeling that we were needlessly killing off a lot of innocent animals. But when they were alive, they were fun to watch. The last batch (in Syracuse) was purchased in the summer of 2011, right around the time my fiancee was applying for the job here. Those fish lasted a while; one lived until this past September, over a year. But not in these fishbowls: he migrated to a standard fishbowl, and lived where I was living (and after Syracuse I moved several times before settling into my current apartment - there's more to that story, too, but maybe for another time).

The fish bowls were in a box here for a long time. I knew she wanted them hung, but I was ambivalent - not about the fishbowls, but I kept thinking we were going to get married. Maybe "hoping" is a better way to phrase that; in any case, we couldn't live together in her apartment (too small), so we would be moving into a new place once we got married. And it didn't seem to make sense to really settle in if we were going to move (soon?). At least so I thought. But I want to be agreeable, I want to help; and she wanted the fishbowls hung again. It felt, to me, like giving up: this was her way of saying that she was staying in her own place. But I drilled the holes and made sure they were level and secure, and went to the pet store for her and bought fish. And she was happy, and I like it when she's happy; I like making her happy.

She wanted a shelf, and sent me designs for the shelf; but she didn't want me to simply make it. So together we worked on the shelf: I showed her how to use the different power tools, and we cut and drilled and made a little shelf. (I did some of the work, including cutting the big circular hole where the jar is - more on that in a moment.) Then I showed her how to paint it, and how to put the poly on. Then it was dry and ready to hang: a new shelf, that we made together! That felt really good, a shared project. More than that, we started talking about other places to put shelves, and what might go on them. It felt really positive, even though - and this was always in the back of my head - it continued to feel like she was settling into her own place, rather than planning on moving into our place after our wedding.

(This doesn't quite fit into this story, but days before she broke up with me, she was also telling me about new eye surgery techniques that I should look into - that also felt like "making plans for the future.")

So, fish, the shelf, and then hanging the prayer flags and the bells - both of which she bought on our trips together out of town. It's a neat little wall, full of happy things. And I like seeing her happy, I like helping to make her happy.

This little wall, with all its decorations, ought to make me happy. Now it just serves to confirm the worries I had: she was settling in for a life without me.

PS: I forgot to come back to the jar when I first posted this. She needed a wide mouth jar for this project (so that it wouldn't fall through the hole we were drilling) and I had one in my apartment. What had it been holding? Mustard seeds (I cook a lot of Indian food, so I always have mustard seeds around). If that doesn't ring a bell, then come back: the mustard seed features prominently in the sermon I plan on posting tomorrow.

She left me before the Mango was Ripe

Just a picture for today, and not a particularly good picture at that (of the photo, not the painting - I think the painting turned out really well). People keep asking me to tell them about the painting, but it seems to me that an artist rarely understands what they've done (that is, if I could explain I would have written about it rather than painted it). So instead, you tell me: what do you see?

What Wondrous Love

I will post something like my sermon later - but for now, just a note that it went well, with no text (or notes or anything). I broke down and cried several times during the service, but it was okay - as I told them at one point, it is more difficult to speak (i.e., without crying) with individuals or groups that I trust. They were fabulously supportive.

I wish I had the UU version of the words to the hymn referenced in the title of this post (as one might imagine, they've been changed from the original). But I couldn't sing them, even though this was the closing hymn I selected, because I was feeling that wondrous love this morning from the congregation.

For now, I'll give you this: one of the times I broke down and couldn't speak for crying was during this morning's reading, a poem by Mary Oliver (below) - but someone from the congregation came up and read it for me, then gave me a hug.

The Winter Wood Arrives

by Mary Oliver

I think
     I could have
          built a little house
               to live in


with the single cord—
     half seasoned, half not—
          trucked into the
               driveway and


tumbled down. But, instead,
     friends came
          and together we stacked it
               for the long, cold days


that are—
     maybe the only sure thing in the world—
          coming soon.
               How to keep warm


is always a problem,
     isn't it?
          Of course, there's love.
               And there's prayer.


I don't belittle them,
     and they have warmed me,
          but differently,
               from the heart outwards.


Imagine
     what swirls of frost will cling
          to the windows, what white lawns
               I will look out on


as I rise from morning prayers,
     as I remember love, that leaves yet never leaves,
          as I go out into the yard
               and bring the wood in


with struggling steps,
     with struggling thoughts,
          bundle by bundle,
               to be burned.

"The Winter Wood Arrives" by Mary Oliver, from Thirst. © Beacon Press, 2006. 

Can't Sleep

About twelve years ago, I went through a bad break up. I wasn't sleeping much - often less than six hours a night - but I didn't feel tired, I had a lot of nervous energy. It wasn't very focused, though, and mostly I just ran in circles. Some of that running was literal - I kept moving, walking and hiking, and lost about twenty pounds over that summer. It didn't seem healthy - although in a sense I probably was, since it was the most active time of my life.

One of the things I remember about that period of time was seeing deer. I would come up on them unexpectedly, and they would run off. I think I saw deer every time I went out during that time period, more than normal. Maybe I was just paying attention more. Anyhow, I'm seeing deer again lately. Not every time I go out, but I'll quietly come up on them, and they'll watch me, and I watch them and keep going. Unlike last time, they're not just running off.

Yesterday I kept trying to write a new blog post, but everything I wrote either sounded angry or bitter, or pathetic and whiny. (Maybe this one does too; and I won't deny that those posts accurately reflected my mood.) I kept trying to tell a particular story, which is essentially the story of why this (current) break up shouldn't be happening - from my perspective, at least. And I keep realizing that it really only has an intended audience of one.

Twelve years ago, I eventually pulled myself out of my spiral because I realized - in the clear light of day - that the woman who had broken up with me was so clearly unsuitable - a bad match all around, not least of which because she identifies as a lesbian (she initiated our relationship, which I started off thinking was a bad idea, but she eventually talked me into thinking it might work, before breaking up with me).

One of the things that's so difficult about the current break up is that this (current) woman has been my best friend for the past six years. I won't say we've talked every day over that time - I'm guessing there have been a few short gaps, when we've been apart for one reason or other. We've spent a significant part of that time in different states, maybe totaling a year and a half out of the six. But the other four and half years, we've not only talked every day, we've spent most of our free time together, and that's been a very difficult adjustment to make. I miss just talking to her. I still have things I want to tell her, some that seem very important at the moment, and might - just might! - change her mind, see that we really should get married (she was the one who proposed, after all, and we've been through a lot of preparations for marriage) - but a lot of it is just mundane. I enjoyed the smoked gouda she bought me; I've started reading the book my mom got me for my birthday (it's okay). And of course lots of other things.

I am trying to work on my cartoons, and on screen prints and paintings, so I hope to start posting pictures again soon. This was never meant to be a blog primarily about the written posts - it was always supposed to be about the cartoons. So, more coming, I promise!

Another Thursday

I said I would start posting more often, but I can't seem to get anything together this week. The pieces are all in the wrong places - if I need some notes I took back in October, they're in my apartment while I'm trying to work in my office. If I'm at home, I don't have internet access - but then forget to grab my notes. I have the camera, so I can start posting cartoons and screen prints again, but I don't seem to remember to take the pictures when the light is decent. (And I'm sure that if I would have taken pictures yesterday, I would have left the memory card in the camera anyhow, so I wouldn't be able to post them.)
None of this is new for me, it's just worse this week. And I didn't want anyone - does anyone even read this? - to think that I'd so quickly forgotten about my dusty blog.

A Crowd of Sorrows

I don't know how many people regularly check into this blog, particularly since my posting has dramatically dropped off during the past few months (and it had decline quite a bit prior to that, since I graduated from seminary).

Anyhow: this isn't a good place to make personal announcements, but in addition to being pretty busy, there are some major life changes in the works. It all seems bad at the moment, so please hold me in the Light (if you are so inclined) - but I also know that things have a way of working out in unexpected ways.

Which reminds me of a poem by Rumi (here translated by Coleman Barks) that someone showed me just about eleven years ago:

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

I'm still drawing cartoons, but don't have a scanner (and I need to get my camera back). I'll try to start posting more often.

A cartoon from last summer

 At some point I may start posting the cartoons from CPE.

Nietzsche's question

I've been busy, working multiple jobs, and thinking I ought to post more. I finished up one of those jobs on Monday, and start CPE (clinical pastoral education, a sort of chaplain internship) next Monday; in between I'm continuing my work at the local hospice.
Yesterday at the hospice I was talking to one of the other chaplains, and we were trading stories about our first careers and our call to ESR (including that sense, "I don't know why I'm here, but I know I'm in the right place"). I briefly described my book to him without going, I think, into too much detail.
Afterwards I was reading the chapter in the text for CPE on caring for the terminally ill (since that's what I do in hospice), and the interconnection between my work on Nietzsche and hospice chaplaincy really struck me.
The problem Nietzsche faces is this: a rigid belief in God that places blame on people for what happens (in a manner reminiscent of the response of Job's friends) or a rejection of any framework of meaning, e.g., nihilism.
What do I see at hospice? Either their suffering has meaning as part of God's plan, or else it's just something that randomly happens to people. And those aren't very comforting alternatives: either God is making me suffering (because of the bad things I've done / because it's part of a greater good that I can't understand) or else it's just pointless suffering. This is really the question of theodicy writ small, the question of meaning inscribed on the individual's life. "Why me?"
Nietzsche is looking at a world in which belief in God is no longer tenable; you can disagree with him, of course. However, I suspect that anyone reading my blog would agree that the sort of belief that Nietzsche rejected is no longer a serious option, unless you simply reject a lot we now know about the world. Therefore, our religious beliefs need to be modified, at the very least. Nietzsche chose Dionysus as a placeholder for this new belief (I say that to contrast him with neo-Pagan and the so-called Druids, since Nietzsche doesn't actually think he's reviving an ancient tradition). Most of the people I know wouldn't go that far, but they're also not fundamentalists, i.e., they have a more flexible understanding of a Higher Power.

I don't teach people about Nietzsche, but I do see that same question rising up in people. Where is that alternative that suggests a constructive meaning?