The Power of Slide

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“Let it slide.”

Ever heard that line? Admittedly it has its downside, and that’s not an intentional pun. But without Slide, life would be just about intolerable. The trick is to use it judiciously. I freely admit, I’m still working on it, and I always will be...because it’s a dynamic term, applicable in very many ways and in so many situations. Misused, it’s just another way to procrastinate. But if it’s used well, it’s extremely advantageous.

Slide is tolerance. Let’s face it, everybody makes mistakes. No two people are always in sync with their thoughts and intentions, although some are better with that than others. Being out of sync with the feelings of another is no crime, but how often does it affect a relationship? If you asked me, I would say, continuously. My head doesn’t seem to work like anyone else’s. So if a significant other says something that sounds like it’s stupid, or maybe it’s vulgar, or even obnoxious or damaging, do you let it slide? Can you? Should you? Your decision will be based on how important the person is to you, for your own sake, keep that in mind. It will depend on the frequency of such occurrences. On the severity of the apparent infraction. Unfortunately, some of us have no tolerance at all for a misstep or a misspeak. But sometimes, people do screw up. Slide is not necessarily forgiveness, it’s somewhat tentative coolness. “Okay I’m just gonna let that slide.” A bit of advice...if you hear that as a response, take it seriously. Oh and by the way? Everyone is different, whether that difference is in appearance, demeanor or ethnicity. Slide should be on full-automatic for that, to your great advantage. In those cases, it may have less than nothing to do with any kind of personal relationship.

Slide makes it easier to re-group. Even some chickens know this. A flock of chickens is just about the most excitable assemblage on earth. I’ve kept chickens, you can come to feed and water them at the same times every day, and still, they’ll freak out when you enter their pen to do it. But they’ll re-group, settle down, and then mob the feeder. You’re forgiven, it’s time to eat. And there are always a few of the birds who hang out on the outskirts, placid and cool, because they aren’t as excitable as the rest. They’ll be the first ones to the feeder. Be cool. Is that project daunting? Set a time to begin, and take a break. When you reach the point where you told yourself you would start, hit it hard...but until then, you’re sliding. Be careful with this one. Your employer may not know how to let anything slide. But if he or she does not understand the importance of mental attitude, again, the job can become just about intolerable. Some bosses never learn this. It’s unfortunate. Trying to see things from their perspective may allow you to let that slide, too. Good luck.

Slide makes re-evaluation possible. It’s the exact opposite of a knee-jerk reaction. Sometimes, the situation seems to call for packing a bag and getting the hell out, or reacting with anger, or worse. Whoa! Slide is a step back, a step away, but it isn’t burning bridges. It isn’t getting you arrested. It isn’t getting you fired. It isn’t escalation of any kind. It doesn’t take a hike, it takes a walk. It allows one to cool off. It eliminates, not postpones, but eliminates conflict. Think about that! And how many songs have been written about regrets? How many families have been decimated by quick decisions? Think about the position from which you would prefer to re-evaluate. Unemployment? Alone, in a motel room? In a cell? Brother, sister! Slide. When you have to take action, at least know that it’s necessary.

By now it’s plain that this could go on forever. However when I sit down to write something, I never, ever just rip it off. I walk away, I walk circles, I think about it. I look things up. I re-word everything, as seems appropriate. I don’t publish it before it has aged a while. I re-read after my perspective has had a chance to change.

I’m not the best slider in the world. I’ve messed it up at least as much as I haven’t; but I’ve learned from it. At this point in time, I’m letting more slide than I should be. I consider it to be an adjustment. And it allows me to write.

My final bit of advice on the topic will be straightforward, and there's some urgency in it: Allow yourself to live. Take time, so that it doesn’t take you.

Slide.


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A Story Writes You

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All this time I had believed that a writer writes stories. How silly is that? It just happens to be where I am at this moment. Looking backward as I've done at the pieces I've completed, I can see it wasn't me inventing tales. If it had been, all of them would have been exceedingly boring. Insults accepted later, hear me out.

Sometimes I thought I had a story to tell. But in fact, happenings that revealed themselves as something quite different later on in the story, were unplanned. That must be what's meant by stories writing themselves. It can take on a life of its own while in process. In fact, though, each of these have real substance in the form of occurrences that actually took place, or that might have in some surreal existence, based on some real experience.

There have been things I've written that took shape, but that had no planned ending. In those rare cases I had to find an ending that would hopefully satisfy readers, releasing them from the tale to return to their personal lives and pursuits. However in most cases there's somewhere I want to go with an idea, before I begin. I have a character, I have a setting, I have a point. I may even have an ending. Now the objective is to seize the attention of the reader, give him something to care about, and hold his attention while I wrap him personally into the scenery. Then, I will push him off of the edge of a cliff. He will not survive unless he gets my point before he hits the rocks.

That's all a pile of crap, of course. I'm not that good. In fact, when I write something it's because Icare about it. I care about the limitations of careless, lazy, unthinking, robotic humanity. I care about the natural world, and everything in it. I care about the majesty of the universe, what our place as a species could be rather than what it seems likely it will be. Like, stop hurting each other, okay? Listen to Bill and Ted, and be excellent to each other. And I care about humor, because it helps to preserve my, 'um, sanity. “How are you today?”

“Hahahahahaaaa, ssstable!”

Everything's relative.

Writers of fiction are chicken. We're unwilling to come right out and say what we think, because people might hate us for it. If they hate us, there's no way we'll ever get paid. We're journalists who are unwilling to do the homework to write articles using sound, provable facts. If it's plausible, more or less, it's good stuff. If we know something or just believe something, we can use it, 'cuz it's fiction.

I've reviewed the things I've written from time to time, because it helps me to see just a little bit better how they might impact a reader who hasn't already seen them. Thanks to a crappy memory, I can do that. But that's not what caused this little piece to be written. What did? I just watched a video that takes you to the places from which J.R.R. Tolkien probably got his inspirations for his epic series of books. He definitely had some real points to make, and he assembled the materials from a lifetime of experiences. A fantastic imagination took over.

And so I have one more thing for which I could thank him. If his works defined him,
then my own writing may be defining me.

I can live with that.

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The Book Sale

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I’m wondering if I can successfully tie a simple community book sale to a veritable lightning strike. Today is just an ordinary day, one on which the local public library is holding a semiannual fundraising event. A year ago the same thing was happening, on a very similar fall day. I remember it well; I’ve decided there are no days when one's life cannot drastically and unexpectedly change. Further, one never knows when one’s path is about to be set.

On that beautiful day one year ago, I had several Saturday morning errands to run. I needed gasoline for the mowers, to make a stop at the bank and to pick up a few items at the store. The usual short-cut I take happens to be a less-traveled side street, and then through the parking lot of the local public library. On the way through, though, I couldn’t miss the banner over the entry walkway of the library. “Book Sale Today” it proclaimed, in large, red, hand-painted letters. “Hm,” I thought, “I haven't been to a book sale in years.” I didn’t consider stopping, either, and went straight on to the bank.

However on my way back, I thought maybe I should. In years past I'd watched for these book sales, and Saturday has always been the last and the busiest day. The best choices would likely be gone, and the prices would be halved to try to clear out as many of the donated books as they could. As I'm seldom in town during the week, Saturday was generally the only day I'd ever been able to go and look at what they had, anyway. I decided to stop, if only for old time's sake. It had always been with the family before, so it would seem different.

Entering the library, I realized it had been so long since I'd been there that I didn't even remember where, exactly they held the sale. I inquired at the desk, and then of course I remembered. Through the green door and downstairs to the basement. Down I went, past the childrens' story room and childrens' books section. And there it was, in a musty, squarish room with pastel-green block walls, the books arranged on tables and chairs and even stacked on the floor, and with incomplete book sets displayed in cardboard boxes. They could have sold books for another full week at least, although the room was nearly full of browsing people.

I ran into an old friend there whom I hadn't seen for at least a decade, so we shook hands and carried on a brief conversation. Then I looked around, and at first, nothing caught my eye. I didn’t know if my browsing skills had atrophied that badly or if, in fact the magic was gone. I was about to leave when I spotted a book on the historical progression of mechanical devices. That looked interesting, so I picked it up. Then I noticed there were more novels than anything else. At last it occurred to me that here was an opportunity to pick up an inexpensive novel or two, as examples of successful works. I'm never too old or too far along to learn at least something.

So after a few more minutes of browsing, I selected a paperback copy of Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand, because it was marked “#1 New York Times Bestseller,” and James Herriot's All Things Bright and Beautiful. I'd expected that like everything else, the prices would be three to five times higher than the last time I'd been there, so I had a twenty dollar bill ready. But for some reason, the things that are most worthwhile are sometimes the least-supported, and the presumed values were still far too low. The half-off price totaled thirty-eight cents. I donated a dollar and felt embarrassed. If I'd had a five or even a ten, I'd have given that to the attendant.

Call me a rebel, but I sometimes read books from the middle toward both ends when I'm curious. When I got to my car, I opened James Herriot's book and started to read. It was something about veterinary work, and I had opened to an engaging story about saving the life of a bull calf that later grew up and almost took the vet's life. I closed the book and headed for home. When I got there, I'd been thinking about the power of a good opening to a story, but even more importantly, a strong ending. So before I went on to my next task, I opened the back of the book, and on the very last page I read:

“The shops were still closed and nothing stirred in the market place. As we left I turned and looked back at the cobbled square with the old clock tower and the row of irregular roofs with the green fells quiet and peaceful behind, and it seemed that I was losing something forever.

I wish I had known then that it was not the end of everything. I wish I had known that it
was only the beginning.”

I'm afraid I can't quite explain how that affected me. I will never forget the moment; for the first time, I knew I would be writing for the rest of my life. For the first time, I realized what power I have at my fingertips when I do. For the first time, I did not doubt that my writing would be read.



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Photo credit: ~Brenda-Starr~ / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND

A Girl by the Road

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There’s a young girl outside, standing by the road.

I often revisit the dusty roads of my memories; once in a while, it’s a purposeful journey. More often, however, a wandering trek through the passageways of my experience comes without necessarily any approval from me, or any real intent. Such has been the unfortunate case, once again. So much for my peace, which admittedly has been disturbed. It comes, and on occasion, it goes.

But seemingly, it took so little; this time it’s just a girl who is standing by the road. In her early teens, hands clasped behind her back, head tipped downward, watching her bare feet as she pushes pebbles and grasps at the stunted roadside dandelions with her toes. And every once in a while she steals a furtive look at the long stretch of country road that runs by both her home and mine, peering one direction and then the other, but favoring just one. She’s looking for someone, no doubt a boy of about the same age whom I’ve seen before, when he’s come to call. She has been out there for a while now, occasionally stepping inside, but each time, returning to the side of the road before many minutes have passed.

Could there be a reason, I wonder, why simply observing someone whose heartstrings are being tugged, pulls in turn on mine? After all, men are raised to be comparatively insensitive. That’s an opinion, backed by a tsunami of fact. Strength is expected of us, but then we are also blamed for it. Ours is the gender expected to train and to take up arms, to leave behind all that we’ve lived and believed, and to kill our fellow man. Circumstances and the realities of violent conflict and war sometimes necessitate it. And then, if we have survived and we get to come home, we are expected to leave all of those behaviors behind and to function like all other civilized persons. But it doesn’t take a war; the conflict might have been on the street. Those of us who have not seen combat must live and work and compete with those who have. And in either case we are dysfunctional if we cannot nurture our children, serve as loving spouses and do what’s right for our families. Sensitivity does have its place, after all. I’m only being sensitive.

Or maybe it’s something else.

Memory can be a deeply cruel thing, and despite my age, I am both blessed and cursed with an extremely vivid memory. I recall as if it was only moments ago, the first time I experienced the sensation of being struck in the face by an older boy who was intent on a fistfight. I remember that he wanted the change in my pocket, and that he took it. I recall the resultant rage and resolve that led to my learning to deliver the same, how to clench a fist and how not to, and discovering that I had the strength and speed to compete. As long as the other kid wasn’t too big, of course. I have similar memories I am unwilling to share, but such things as those are just one side of the coin.

The other side is the one revisited this evening. As a young man, I quickly learned that I am no less vulnerable to attachment and to pain than members of the opposite sex. I’ve been left behind. I have made unpleasant but, I thought, necessary choices and thus, delivered the same. While perhaps an unavoidable part of life, it can be and has sometimes been unpleasant. That’s putting it quite mildly.

I am no longer a young man. I am not in a position to counsel the young girl whose roadside vigil has caused me to sit down to write. And even if I happened to be her father, I’m not sure I would try to tell her anything. Some things have to be learned the hard way. One would hope that sooner or later, the hard lessons would stop coming. But they don’t. In fact, we don’t learn such things very well at all.

For in my own way, I have been by the side of the road, and more than once. I have experienced the disappointment she is presently feeling. I’ve also been in the place of the young man who has not appeared. He’s made a decision I’ve had to make, and would very much prefer never to have to repeat. It seems to be bothering me, far more than it should.

On most evenings in this pastoral valley, the five-toned horn of a passing train, blaring through the haze of the river and echoing through vine-covered trees, is melodious and welcome music to the ears. But tonight its descending wail is plaintive and mournful, the evening air, damp and sullen. I try to tell myself that a life without regret would be no life at all. I try to tell myself, it’s just that I’ve opened my heart to emotion, an effort to help me to write. If that’s all it is, I’ve done a terrific job of it.

Darkness will fall shortly. She may as well go inside and try to make herself busy at something, even though I know it won’t help.

He isn’t coming.


It comes without warning. I whisper softly.
Father. Please forgive me.


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Snowflake

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Make no mistake, this is a genuine bit of writing. That said, my opening will read a little like an ad. That’s because I want to take an opportunity, just one, to tell the people who have been coming here to read my blog that I also have a website, ad and spam-free and loaded with my short stories, all downloadable, free reading.. BenTrayne.com is the url. I have a lot more effort in those writings than in this blog, and for some strange reason, the blog is getting more hits than my site. Bookmark it. Enjoy. Pass it on.

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Snowflake is a skunk. A real, wild creature who visits my back porch nightly to feast on the cat food my outdoor pets haven’t eaten. Snowflake is admittedly only half-white, but she’s plainly deserving of the name, because she’s a real sweetheart. Oh, she’s dangerous, like all healthy skunks. But she’s not aggressive like some are, luckily, and I can tell she likes me. I’m sure she believes I put that food out for her, and in a way, I do. I could easily bring it all inside before darkness falls, and I’m quite sure it would save me money, as well as the time I currently spend scrubbing the feed dishes each morning. But the fact that she is “loaded” at all times is the reason the photo I will post at the end, isn’t a better one. A man’s got to know his limitations.

That last line came from a Dirty Harry movie. I don’t remember which one.

I came to know that Snowflake was non-aggressive because of a cigarette. It was many months ago, she was much smaller, and I was still a smoker. I have never smoked indoors, in fair weather or foul, so I had donned a jacket and had parked myself in a comfortable chair on my back porch, just to have a cigarette.

Long-time smokers are experienced. We know how to light up on windy days by facing into the wind rather than turning our backs to it. It’s the only way cupped hands will shield a match. We know that even if you tear the tobacco from the filter when you’re finished, pocketing the filter is a no-no. It will stink as bad as the whole butt. We also know that lighting up while driving is roughly equivalent to texting and driving, and that opens up a myriad of other ways smoking can kill you.

But few of us have been cornered on their back porch by a skunk because of a cigarette. I think Snowflake’s appearance was the first thing that made me actually consider quitting. I thought she just hadn’t seen that I was sitting there, within six feet of her, as she appeared and clambered up onto the bench where the cat dishes were lined up. It was chilly out, and immediately the cold seemed to soak right into my bones. I felt about the same as if a big rattlesnake had just slithered up and coiled itself at my feet.

“Way to go, slick,” I thought. “How the hell are you gonna get out of this one?”

After all, six feet is still, six feet. To get to the door I would have been within two or three feet. I would have had to get closer just to escape to the great outdoors beyond the porch. I figured that as soon as she realized I was there, it would be all over. I froze.

But lo and behold, she'd known I was sitting there all along. As she finished scarfing up all of the dry food nuggets, she raised her nose in the air while looking right at me, and she appeared to be sniffing. A new chill passed through me as she turned her back, and I prepared to make a leap and a run for it. But it would have been for naught, because she had only turned to leave. She climbed back down from the bench and made her way off toward the woods.

Since that night, I’ve been on the back porch while Snowflake was there, many times. I talk to her, and she looks up at me while she’s eating. It’s a win-win situation, because she will, in fact, drive away competing possums with her only weapon. The possums are afraid of me, and they’ll leave if I step outside, thus, she doesn’t stink up the area to secure her food supply.

I’m probably a distant relative of the first human to ever befriend a wolf, leading to the current variety of canine breeds. I’ve always taken chances this way, never mind the cigarette. Years ago I remember being the last guy outside at a wilderness camp, feeding marshmallows to black bears. Everyone else had gone inside and most were watching from a window. Tip your beer, toss a marshmallow. Marshmallow, beer. See how close they’ll come.

Okay, maybe it was the beer.

My whole point was, Snowflake gave me a chance. Perhaps she’d seen me putting the food out, and knew I was the source. Or maybe she was just young and inexperienced. Whatever the reason, she’s welcome here. I would never harm her, or try to trap her out. She and I have a fine friendship that will probably last, because we both know we aren’t dangerous to one another.

I think everyone should try that. Oh definitely, keep an eye out for yourself; but try exercising just a little bit of trust. Especially if you ever meet me.

It seems to work out fairly often.

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A Path to Peace

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Recovering peace, or achieving it as the case may be, can be simple or it can be almost insurmountably difficult. At the moment I’m entertaining the opinion that the difference between the two is a personal one. I say ‘at the moment’ because I reserve the right to change my opinion, which is part of my formula for reaching a state of internal peace. It also places me at variance with almost everyone except politicians, and in those cases, who knows what they really think, if in fact after years of waffling practice they are even capable of forming honest opinions of their own.

But as usual, I digress. The subject at hand is finding the path to peace, which admittedly has to be a personal one. That’s why my title begins with “A” instead of “The.”

The personal differences in each of us seem to dictate whether we can find peace if we want to, how difficult it will be to get there or even if it suits us to find it. I’ve known people who were abused as children, and some of those were abusers themselves. I’ve known people who were or are enablers or perpetrators of all sorts of destructive or self-destructive behaviors. As a former smoker of many years I can’t honestly say I’ve never been among those. Smoking is sometimes, but I’m sure not always, a form of death-wish. But the very first task at hand might be to examine one’s motivations for whatever one does that might qualify as abusive or destructive. Obviously the next step would be to find ways to mitigate the behaviors that offend one’s health or peace of mind. I’m not talking about anyone else’s health or peace of mind, but yours alone and specifically. For my part, I’ve found replacements for the habits I once believed were a necessary part of my existence. Supplements. Exercise. The occasional snack, underscore occasional, these have replaced tobacco for me. But here’s the key; I’ve done it because it suited me to do it, not because anyone was haranguing or forcing me to do it. If I decide to smoke, I will. I have chosen not to. It was my choice.

That’s what’s important.

What I believe I am expressing is the critical importance of suiting oneself, in most things. It probably won’t be possible to do better than most. There are roughly seven billion other people here too, there are also power structures and governments, not necessarily the same but all corrupt. We age. The prime of life comes and just as surely, leaves us. Being at peace with it certainly does not mean acceptance of all that comes on its own. And that’s why I chose to quit smoking, you see. It gave me an edge in the battle that was probably crucial.

Being at peace does not mean settling oneself with all that’s less than ideal. The effort to be prepared for anything that may come has to be balanced with some common sense. I do not plan to arm myself or to build an impregnable bomb shelter. A decent emergency food supply, however, makes sense to me. A generator seems like a good idea, and so on. And if I see an opportunity to right something that’s wrong, I will act swiftly to do so. I am not a man to be feared, but respected. If there’s anyone that doesn’t suit, that’s too bad.

I knew I was on the right track when on a nice Sunday afternoon I visited the local grocery store. I just needed a few things, I didn’t need a shopping cart. I was dressed as usual in comfortable jeans and a long sleeved shirt, work boots on my feet. As usual my hair was too long and no doubt, tousled. I’ve been told that my walk resembles the rolling gait of a pirate, and that’s probably true. My hands were in my pockets and I was smiling slightly while going about my business. If I was the sensitive type, the glare from an old woman that slammed into me as I turned a corner and into another aisle might have done some serious damage. She was dressed in her Sunday best, was probably just out of church, and her gray, perfectly-coiffed hair was heaped above heavy jowls that were intensely expressive of her infinite disapproval of me. Slightly behind her and to her left like an obedient puppy slouched her gaunt-looking husband, who was also well-dressed but decidedly not happy.

I couldn’t help it. It immediately struck me funny, and I laughed out loud. I’m pretty sure that if I’d been within reach she’d have taken a swing at me. I neither know nor care what she thought of me or exactly why she glared, but obviously I was too unkempt and too uncontrolled and probably, too happy to suit her. The woman looked like the mother of my ex-wife and was behaving just the same, although I’d never seen this person before at all. And as I said, at that moment, I knew I was on the right track.

It seems to me, bringing things into focus for oneself is the most important single thing to be done toward finding peace. At the end of the day, what you can handle is how it will be. It may be a little less or possibly even a little more than you want to handle, and then what you want comes into play, and that’s very important. Wherever you land on the board, it must be someplace where you can be satisfied. If you’re not single like I am, or wish not to be, consider this statement, which I believe with all my heart to be true: You cannot really be right for anyone at all if you aren’t right for yourself, whatever your circumstances.

When you are, you will be at peace.


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Dreams

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I’m really no different from you. Not at all.

Before I’m through, it’s possible you may want with all of your heart to believe that I am. But I am not. I could never begin to change that, even if it was what I wanted.

The struggle of daily pursuit of an ordinary living can easily lead one to believe that it’s all there is, or all that ever will be. To think that the mundane and the humdrum and the strife are one’s lot in life, and to wish it was just about anything otherwise. And so we seek various kinds of excitement, or pleasure, and any form of justification for our lives. We search, often in vain, to recapture lost passions from the ash-heaps of spent living. Relationships fade and die, often because we let them. Surely what we have always believed we deserve will appear in the next, or the next. We want money because, well, everyone does. Money is the source of power, and influence, surely security, why shouldn’t it be the root of happiness? But it isn’t. Neither is it the means of finding anything else you’ve ever sought. In fact it’s a waste.

And in fact, limits of every kind are self-imposed. Someone hangs a label on you and even you eventually believe what’s on that label. It was never so. You are and always will be, ever and precisely what you choose. If you believe you are strong, you are. If you believe you are weak, the same is true. If you stand straight, clench your fists, open your mind and feel the power of your own existence, you will handle whatever adversity may find you. If you whimper and cower and live in fear, you will die of it. It’s as simple as that.

Everyone has an opinion, here is mine, you can take it or leave it as you choose. I have lived before. I don’t know who I was or what I did or even if it was more than once. But I’ve found no other explanation for the things I understand or the things I see, whenever I choose to actually look. And I don’t think that’s anything special at all. Because I believe you have too.

If there is anything different about me, it may be that I’m aware. That after perhaps eons of existence, I am still amazed at the stark beauty and complexity of a flower, thrilled by the warmth of the sun on my face and the wind in my hair and the stars sparkling their brilliance throughout the nearly unimaginable depths of the firmament that surrounds this, my world. The trill of songbirds and the scream of a hawk and the roar of a lion, all are of equal beauty to me. Life!! Breath. Existence.

No amount of money can buy it.

No words could ever begin to describe it.

The greatest of all human artists could never hope to capture it.

And yet, it is yours. It is mine.

Let me ask you, do you have a lot? Do you have just a little? Do you even know?

Well I do. I am among the richest men on this planet. And what I have is not for sale. I have peace. If you’d like, you can have it too. It’s free.

“Fear this?” Give me a break. I fear nothing, certainly not death. I fear no one. My life is my own. 

 

And, I have dreams. The beautiful, the sweet, the astounding, the power of the universe, all of it is mine. It can be yours too, if you want it.

Seize it. Live it. Love it for all you can. Human emotion is the greatest power on earth.

And life is the greatest gift of all.

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