"Beat on the brat with a baseball bat..."

"Hit me with your best shot!" - Pat Benatar

It was the spring of 1973, just a few days before my 3rd birthday. My family made their annual trek down to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina from our hometown of Glen Rock, New Jersey to stay in our trailer in Ocean Lakes Campground. To the best of my abilities to put the timeline together, we left Glen Rock on Saturday, April 7th, 1973. We drove straight through to Myrtle Beach. My dad always drove "straight through" like it was a test of his manhood. He would get off of his shift at the police department, usually around midnight and catch about 4 hours of sleep before we left as the first rays of dawn appeared in the sky.

"Every man's memory is his private literature." - Aldous Huxley

The picture above is a Polaroid, labelled on the back, in my mom's handwriting, with "My 2nd birthday cake." I'm not sure why there are 3 candles, but I don't think it's my 3rd birthday cake, unless we celebrated before we left New Jersey. I'm pretty sure that the finger just creeping into the picture on the right hand side is my grandmother's, and my mother is just out of frame on the left.

My parents went to Myrtle Beach for every vacation possible from just after they were married in the late 40's until I was 5 years old. They made 30 years of vacation memories there, many of them at Ocean Lakes Campground, which is still being operated by the same family who opened it in 1970. My parents have always been "trailer people" and camped in a succession of progressively larger trailers until my dad retired in 1980. I know the proper word is "RV" but back then, they were just trailers. My parents always dreamed of living in Myrtle Beach when my dad retired, and he made that dream come true as soon as he turned in his police uniforms.

"Memory... is the diary that we all carry about with us." - Oscar Wilde

I have many childhood memories from our times at Ocean Lakes. There was the time when our toy poodle, "Susie" ran away and we found her swimming in the ocean. After that, she always liked to go for a swim. Towards the end of her life, she disappeared during a thunderstorm and we found her swimming in a nearby lake. I remember watching my dad grill chicken outside of our trailer and seeing him drop a piece in the sand, look around for my mother, pour some beer over it, squirt it off with the hose and drop it back on the grill. I remember fishing in one of the lakes at the campground and catching 5 fish, while everyone else went home empty-handed.

I also have very vivid memories of the time my dad decided to ride out a hurricane in our 17 foot travel trailer about 100 yards off the beach at Ocean Lakes. It was not a smart decision, but my father has always been a very stubborn Dutchman. The police came through the campground telling us all to evacuate immediately, but my father earned his vacation time, damn it! He would NOT be chased back to New Jersey just because of some wind and rain. I don't remember which storm this was, or how old I was. I just remember being very scared. My parents decided to stay awake and watch, but my brother and I went to sleep... or tried to. We were on the top bunks in the back of the trailer, about our parents' beds, but they were at the kitchen table up front. My father tied and strapped the trailer down as tightly as he could, but I remember it rocking back and forth violently in the wind. I also remember at some point opening the little roll-out window in my bunk and seeing one of the coolest things I have ever seen to this day. Out over the ocean, which was basically right up to our trailer, I watched a whole cluster of bright bluish-white balls of light zoom across the sky less than 20 feet above the water. I assume it was some form of ball lightning, but I was amazed by it. What I don't remember, because I didn't see it, was that at some point through the night, the pop-up trailer in the site next to ours, whose occupants also elected to ride out the storm, flew up into the air about 30 feet, by my dad's estimate, flipping as it flew, and crashed back to the ground. The terrified, but not seriously hurt couple inside ran to their car for shelter and stayed there until morning, when the storm had passed. I do remember that when my dad opened the door in the morning, the water was almost to the floor level of our trailer. I also remember that it smelled bad and there were fish in it.

While that was one of the most frightening experiences of my young life, for my parents it paled in comparison to what happened on April 9th of 1973. It was only our second full day at the campground and we had the rest of the week ahead of us before we would have to return home on Sunday, April 15th. My brother had to be back in school on April 16th and my father also had to return to work.

“Pain is such an uncomfortable feeling that even a tiny amount of it is enough to ruin every enjoyment.” – Will Rogers

Though many of my childhood memories before the age of 6 are hazy and fragmented, I clearly remember what I was doing when "it" happened. We met another family in the campground who was also there from Glen Rock. We went over to each other's houses occasionally and the father was an auxiliary police officer. They had a son my age and a daughter my brother's age. Now, my brother would be 12 on May 11th and this girl was also 11, but she was huge. She was more of a man than my brother. The two of them would play baseball together in the campground and she could hit a ball farther than him. Everyone considered her a "tomboy" and she earned that moniker. She was also just plain mean.

I was playing in the sand at the edge of our campsite with their little boy. We were using our little Tonka trucks to move sand around and build roads and all sorts of things. We were lost in a world of our own creation. I never noticed that this girl whose name I don't remember (I used to, but it has escaped me now) had moved over to where we were playing and was taking practice swings with her baseball bat right over our heads. My mom told me tonight that she walked out of the trailer to check on me a few times, and each time told the girl to get away from us if she was going to be swinging that bat. Mom told me that each time she came out, the girl was right back over us. I think I vaguely remember her being there and taunting us a few times, but mostly she was quiet. I knew she had a bat, but I didn't think about her swinging it. I wasn't even going to turn three until the next day!

At some point I stood up from the ground and the aluminum bat made solid contact with the center of my forehead. She had timed her swing perfectly and taken a home run cut. I don't remember if I screamed, or lost consciousness. I know I was on the ground. I think my mom carried me into the trailer. She told me tonight, when I called her to refresh this story in my mind, that she cleaned me off and as she did so, she watched a huge lump form quickly on my forehead and swell to a size that split the skin in only a few minutes. Now I was bleeding quite a bit. My mom told me that my eyes kept rolling back and soon began vomiting.

My parents rushed me in their car to Ocean View Memorial Hospital, pictured above, about 10 miles to the north. The doctors at the emergency room there saved my life. I received stitches in my forehead and my parents were told that when I was released, I had to be kept in cool darkness and not moved for two weeks. My brother was going to miss a week of school and get to stay at the beach instead. My father had to make arrangements to have his shifts on the police force covered for the week. My little misfortune earned everyone an extra week of vacation. My mom took care of me and made sure that our trailer was as dark and cool as possible for the next two weeks. She told me that she brought me straight from the hospital over to the girl's house to show her parents what their daughter had done. Her father pulled up the bandage, looked at my damaged face and replied, "Looks like he'll live."

I don't remember my birthday, and actually my memories of the 3 years after that incident are extremely fragmented. My memories don't become coherent again until I remember being nearly 6 years old. Then, my timeline returns to normal. I have always been plagued by fierce headaches, and developed a bit of a "lazy eye" (ambleiopia) by the time I was in 2nd grade. My smile has always been a bit lopsided, with the left corner of my mouth turning up normally, but not the right, which barely turns up. Lately, when the stress of my job was at its worst, the headaches, when they were particularly bad, were sometimes accompanied by a slight tic of my head jumping to the left every now and then. I haven't had it since I quit my job, so I take that as a good sign.

“The pain passes, but the beauty remains.” – Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Why did I choose to tell this story here? Now? Well, a few days ago I posted "The Face Behind the Blog" and had to include a picture of myself. I got as much of a close-up as possible, but with the size of the photo and the lighting conditions, it is difficult to see one of my most characteristic features. It shows the best when I'm sunburned, embarrassed, or angry and tends to freak out the people who do notice it. Most people only see it when it's pointed out to them, or when I'm in one of the above conditions and they ask, "What's that?" I tell them someone took the advice of The Ramones that I used for my title.

As I got older, my brother used this feature, along with the fact that all three of my names have 6 letters (666), to justify calling me the "Anti-Christ." You see, ever since that day almost 35 years ago, I have a small (just under an inch tall and about a half-inch wide) cross in the center of my forehead (or at least it was the center before my hair began it's retreat up my scalp) just above my brow ridge.

The detail photo above doesn't even quite do it justice. I took it myself with normal lighting and no sign of anger, embarrassment, or sunburn. I can see it clearly though, but maybe that's because I know where to look. People who do notice it sometimes ask me if I ever take it as some sort of sign from God, but I'm not really sure what it would be a sign of, or why I would merit such a thing. I'm sure I'm not the only one out there with a mark like this on my forehead.

The only times I ever think about it are when someone notices it (I can just make it out on the picture in the other post, but then I know exactly where to look), when I go to an Ash Wednesday service, or when I was Lutheran and there was a baptism ("You have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever."), or sometimes my eyes drift up to it when I look in the mirror or see a picture of myself with any level of close-up detail. I don't think it means that I'm the "Anti-Christ" whatever that means. I'm not "born again" or anything (once was enough - as big as I've grown I think it would really hurt my mom the second time around). I just don't attach any special significance to it, or even think about it often. I was thinking about it tonight though. I thought it would add another dimension of "face" behind the blog. It's one of my strange stories... one of a string of strange injuries I've endured (hit by a falling tree, brown recluse bite - thankfully small and quickly treated, bitten by horse, industrial drain "snake" suddenly snap its packaging when I worked in a hardware store and lodge in my knee, broken rib from sanctioned BMX racing, etc.). I don't even get hurt like normal people. I always have to do things my own way.

“Whenever I think of the past, it brings back so many memories." - Steven Wright

I got my return call this afternoon regarding the interview I went to on Friday evening. They were quite impressed by my extensive knowledge of music and movies, and thought my friendly, out-going nature would suit me well for this job at a retail CD and DVD store. Since I asked for a good bit more money than is customary for an entry-level position in this company, I am going to start out with the wage I requested (which was as high as I could go unfortunately), but I am only going to be working an average of 30-35 hours each week. I'm used to working 60-80 hours a week. So, I start training on Monday. After my training period, I am supposed to meet with the store manager from the smaller, but busier store closer to my house and schedule the necessary background check, drug test and interview for a management position at that store. If I get a management position in the next month, the financial situation will be difficult but acceptable, especially if any of the queries I am planning on sending out amount to any paid freelance writing gigs. I've been extremely honest that I have to seek higher pay at the first opportunity, whether it's within their company, or elsewhere. They seem anxious to make that happen, so please continue to send me good vibes, positive thoughts, prayers, and best wishes.

“Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain” – William Faulkner

"No matter how fast I run I can never seem to get away from me."

"Man... cannot learn to forget, but hangs on the past: however far or fast he runs, that chain runs with him." - Friedrich Nietzsche

My title today is from Jackson Browne's Your Bright Baby Blues. Lately, I have seen several others tackling the issue of dealing with, and ultimately escaping their past. Actually, I think the word "escape" oversimplifies this concept and is a virtual impossibility. The best words I have seen to explain it is the quotation that Loz used on his blog.

"All we really want is to get to the point where the past can explain nothing about us and we can get on with life." - Richard Ford, The Sportswriter

Obviously our past is something we are powerless to change. There are many things in our past that we may not be proud of. We are all too painfully aware of the many and myriad mistakes we have made throughout our life's history. The only thing we can do is to live our present and future life in such a way that indicates that we have overcome our past weaknesses and failings.

“Men are born to succeed, not fail.” – Henry David Thoreau

The desire, as expressed by these two excellent writers (here and here), is to reach that point, as Richard Ford says, where the past can tell us nothing more about ourselves. The point at which we have examined our actions and experiences and have learned all that they have to tell us about who we were, and ultimately, who we are. Since we are the product of all of our past experiences, this may be an extremely difficult point to reach, if it is even reachable.

Most people seem to run hand-in-hand with their past, never quite conscious of what it tells us about ourselves, until they reach that point of reflection and self-examination that many people call a "mid-life crisis." Thanks to the input of several of my wonderful readers, I have quickly come to instead call this experience the "second-life awakening." At this point of awakening, we often take stock of all that has gone before and, whether it's conscious or subconscious, make an accounting of our lives. Often, we find ourselves lacking.

"The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become." -- Charles du Bois

We who are beginning to embark on our second life can be our own harshest critics. We hold ourselves accountable for our failings and shortcomings. We look at how we have treated others and fallen short of being the people we now know we could have been. We are becoming. We are trying to shed the baggage of our past. We are atoning for our past wrongs and looking to move forward, unburdened by these failings. While we cannot change the past, we must release our regrets and forgive ourselves for the mistakes of our past, knowing that the person who made those mistakes is no longer who we are.

“You have to know the past to understand the present." - Carl Sagan

I don't think we can ever block out the past, for it informs our existence every day. Without the frame of reference it provides, we are doomed to repeat all of our failings; relive all of our worst memories. What we strive for instead, is to reach the point where that past self has been put away. The point at which we can come to terms with the things we did in that life, but not to allow it to define our future capabilities. We want to transcend the person we once were and be reborn into this second life clean, awakening unfettered and free of the shackles of our past. While it is true that all of our experiences define us, at this point we can begin to create new experiences and new memories, armed with self-awareness and the impetus to redefine, or at least clarify, ourselves and our lives.

"Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Is there a point at which our past can no longer teach us anything about ourselves? I'm not sure that exists, because when we reach the distant horizon, we arrive with the experiences that have become our new past. We look ahead and see that the horizon still stretches in front of us. We are constantly evolving and assimilating our new past, filled with new memories. Hopefully, we are gradually refining ourselves so that this new past is much more acceptable to our current views of what it means to be who we are. So, while we cannot totally escape that which has gone before, we can shape it anew with each day that passes into history.

"With memory set smarting like a reopened wound, a man's past is not simply a dead history, an outworn preparation of the present: it is not a repented error shaken loose from the life: it is a still quivering part of himself, bringing shudders and bitter flavors and the tinglings of a merited shame." - George Eliot

"In my life I find that memories of the spirit linger and sweeten long after memories of the brain have faded."

Welcome back! I've been remodeling. As you can see, I've moved things around a bit, freshened things up, opened some windows and let some light into this place. Hopefully, it will be a bit easier on your tired eyes. I know... it even looks bigger in here. It's amazing when you choose the right color scheme how much brighter a place can look.

"Some of them were dreamers
And some of them were fools
Who were making plans and thinking of the future
With the energy of the innocent
They were gathering the tools..."
- Jackson Browne, Before the Deluge

Back in the summer of 1993, the world seemed so much simpler, for me at least. I was only a few months out of college and had gotten married at the beginning of the previous summer. We had been living in subsidized housing with jobs that paid only a pittance. My wife and I both spent the spring after my December graduation working for our college's education department. She was a secretary and I was an interviewer for the accreditation study that we were conducting. I also taught private clarinet lessons (clarinet was NOT my principal instrument and I barely considered myself proficient on it, but I have always had success teaching others how to play it well) and played in a rock band (Slightly Used), which cost a lot more than it paid, I promise.

As I've related previously, after much interviewing, wailing and gnashing of teeth, I secured a job most of the way across the state in a place neither of us had either lived previously. Also, neither of us had ever lived in a place so rural. Sure, my wife's family on her father's side had grown up in the country, as farmers, but we were both children of the suburbs.

"Let me tell y'all what it's like
Being male, middle-class and white."
- Ben Folds, Rockin' the Suburbs

We soon found ourselves living in a small town in the middle of a rural area. The school where I was going to be teaching was in a part of the county about 15 miles north with extremely high poverty and few other white faces. In the tiny town where the school was located, the white people that could, sent their children across the attendance lines to a predominantly white school in the next town, or to private school. I have never considered myself prejudiced, but I had never been seen as a minority before. The school was functioning under a recent court order to desegregate... in the 1990's... in America. They were under a requirement to hire a certain percentage of white teachers and staff and curb the problem of students crossing attendance lines. The school was short on funds and the building was in terrible shape, having once been the town's "colored" school in the days of "separate but equal" in which separate seemed to still be the case, while equal definitely wasn't.

When I moved into the band room, I noticed that the carpet was lime green shag. It was in a building all by itself at the rear of the campus, with no windows and, for most of my three years there, no air conditioning. It was like working, living, in a brick oven. We had no band uniforms. There hadn't been more than a half-dozen students in the band program for the past four years. The "music" they made on that first day made the inaugural notes of Mr. Holland's band sound like a symphony of angels.

"Playing music is supposed to be fun. It's about heart, it's about feelings, moving people, and something beautiful, and it's not about notes on a page." - Glenn Holland, Mr. Holland's Opus

When I received my class rosters a few days before the school year started, I couldn't believe my eyes. I would be teaching two middle school band classes and a high school band class. I would also be responsible for teaching the middle school band students physical education. The thing that astounded me was that the classes were nearly empty. They really weren't kidding. I had never done this before and I was going to be responsible for making the numbers grow from the six students on my class rosters to a musical ensemble that could give a Christmas concert for the student body in... what? Only about five months. Before that however, I was supposed to start putting together a marching band to perform in the stands at football games (thankfully, I would not be required to give halftime performances that school year... no field show). I had work to do.

“There's a time when a man needs to fight and a time when he needs to accept that his destiny's lost, the ship has sailed and that only a fool will continue. The truth is I've always been a fool.” – Ed Bloom, Big Fish

I started by looking at only a small group of select sixth grade students to be considered for admission into the seventh grade band class as beginners. No recruiting had been done, and it was not an easy task, since being in the band had an even worse, by far, stigma at this school than it does at most schools. I managed to recruit two sixth graders, one on trumpet and one on saxophone. Since the program was so small, my performances would have to combine all students of all ability levels, from these raw beginners, up to the more experienced high school students. While I was recruiting these sixth graders, I also began combing the classrooms of both the middle school and the high school, looking for students who had dropped out of band, or had been members of the band at a previous school. I managed to find a number of these students and convince some of them to join my band. I lured them into an open house in the band room with an instrument repair technician, since many of their instruments hadn't been played in years, and most were handed down... what the technician called M'uncle horns ("Son, where'd you get that horn?" "M'uncle played it."), and most importantly, my open house featured something no self-respecting teen or pre-teen could turn down... free food.

Soon, my band had grown to over thirty mostly warm bodies, including the high school principal's son, a member of the varsity football team, two cheerleaders, and a talented tuba player who had transferred in from another school. It was time for my first marching band practice. I rounded them up on the football field and began showing them proper marching techniques, just like I had been taught when I was in high school. They stared. They started laughing. The tuba player was helping me demonstrate. The principal's son was trying to get his fellow students to give it a try. It wasn't working. In less than thirty minutes, the "rehearsal" turned into a rout. Only a few students were still present. The rest marched straight to the principal's office demanding that this "crazy white man" be fired and replaced with a proper "black" band director. He left no uncertainty when he told them that the next practice I held, they had better be there doing exactly as I told them to do.

I was young, persistent, resilient. As Paul, the school's softball coach and as time passed, one of my closest friends during those years, soon taught me, "Not everyone's gonna want what you have to offer." He also taught me that "life sucks, grab a helmet."

I begged. I cajoled. I struggled. I gave every ounce of everything I had to get that program started. The principal got a former band director friend of his to put together an alumni band to "drum up" (pun intended) community support for the band program. I contacted the city newspaper in the nearest large city of Charleston and got a reporter to make the drive up to the school, about an hour away, to see the band rehearse. I chose an indoor music rehearsal, and the only song they knew how to play, "Under the Sea" from Disney's The Little Mermaid. My sense of humor and my rapport with the students quickly captured the reporter's attention. Since that ill-fated practice, we had begun to bond and work towards a common goal. One of my favorite quotes from that article was when I stopped the rehearsal for a moment, wiped my brow and said, "We need saxophones." One of my trumpet players quickly retorted, "We need Jesus!"

"Now let the music keep our spirits high
And let the buildings keep our children dry
Let creation reveal its secrets by and by
When the light that's lost within us reaches the sky."
- Jackson Browne, Before the Deluge

Not too far into the football season, we had a band that could perform a few simple tunes in the bleachers during football games. I bought used uniforms from a school halfway across the state and drove the school's battered activity van all the way there to pick them up. My wife carefully ironed patches over the other school's name on every single uniform. We both worked incredibly hard. By the afternoon of the homecoming game, I passed out on the floor of my office's private restroom. The hours were grueling. We gave everything. We developed pride... and discipline.

In late October I took the band on a long bus ride to the Lower State Marching Championships, the equivalent of a semi-final round, for high schools our size. I told them before we got off the bus that we were there to watch and learn. I looked around that bus and told them that we would be returning the following year... to compete. As they watched the bands march across the field, they were incredulous. Most of them had never been to a marching band competition before. They couldn't believe what they were seeing. They couldn't believe that these bands were using the same fundamentals, the same marching style I had been teaching them, and were putting together these amazing productions, almost theatrical. They couldn't believe the pageantry and discipline on display. As we boarded the bus for the long drive home that night, several students told me that there was no way we would be ready to do that in only a year.

"A teacher has two jobs; fill young minds with knowledge, yes, but more important, give those minds a compass so that that knowledge doesn't go to waste." - Principal Jacobs, Mr. Holland's Opus

As a matter of fact, that next week, one of my talented clarinet players, also a cheerleader, was overheard talking about our band in a very negative light at her lunch table one day. In class, I stopped rehearsal a few minutes early. I talked to them about how negatively we were already viewed by the rest of the school. I talked about how difficult it was to change that image when the members of our own organization were championing those negative views to their peers. I singled out the clarinet player in front of the class. It was silent. I told her how much it broke my heart that all the effort I gave, all the effort her fellow band members gave, was nothing to her. How could she talk about the band this way, I asked, now with eyes growing a little moist. She tried to argue. She tried to defend what she had done. I pointed out how it just made her look ridiculous, giving so much time and effort to this organization that she was putting down to her non-musical friends. I will never forget the speech, the impassioned plea I uttered that day. I can recount it, hear it in my mind like it was yesterday, instead of fourteen years past. "Give me one year" I begged her. "One year... If in one year, you feel ashamed to be a part of this band, then I will personally tell your mother that she needs to let you quit. Give me one year. If you still feel ashamed to have me as your band director, then I will quit. I will go do something else. Give me one year."

Kelly agreed. She told me that she would give me one year. There wasn't a dry eye in the room. We shook on it. One year.

When other bands ended their marching band practices for the year to practice for concert band performances and other engagements, we continued to have at least an hour of marching band practice three days a week, every week, in addition to our concert rehearsals. The next year, we marched at football games. We had a 32 person marching band and performed The Hits of Mariah Carey as our halftime show. I wrote the marching drill myself, in what was to become an annual tradition for the next twelve years after that first show. Yes, we did march in the 1994 Lower State Marching Band Championships. We finished dead last, but we performed. Kelly stayed with the band. She was never caught ridiculing band again. The next year, my third year at that school and the final year it was open, Kelly was one of the drum majors of the band. She stood on a podium at football games and competitions while the entire school watched her conduct the band... HER band.

"You love music and you made the kids love it with you." - Rowena Morgan, Mr. Holland's Opus

I have taught hundreds of students since that first year, but I will never forget that first group. I can see the faces and hear the names. I'm sure I learned at least as much from them as they learned from me. Actually, I'm pretty sure I learned much more than they did.

Yesterday, I noticed that the high school of a beautiful, small rural town nearby, a town we lived in and loved for the first five years I worked at the job I just left, is looking for a band director. My mind drifted back to the memories of my first teaching job... to those first students... to the simplicity of that life. I thought about how difficult that job seemed at the time, but how I also knew there was no way I could fail. I thought about how easy it had been to give everything, every ounce of my life, to that job, and to loving those kids. Then I snapped back into the present, mind once again joined to body and firmly planted in reality. Things which seem effortless at age 23 are not the same at age 37. I realized that, while I have the fond memories of those first years of teaching, I am now also fully aware of the cost. As the title, from the movie My Dog Skip, implies, I also know that I view those early days through the hazy lens of memory and the softening filter of time.

"I'm not sure all these people understand
It's not like years ago..."
- R.E.M., Nightswimming

The thought of rebuilding that band program, while exciting, fills me with feelings that are not welcome. Having to fight tooth and nail for every inch of ground the program gains is immensely rewarding, but physically and emotionally draining. The idea of establishing relationships with dozens of students, parents and teachers I have never met before and working tirelessly to gain their support would be a harrowing experience at this point in my life. I discovered that I'm just not interested. That is simply not what I am anymore. It is a part of who I am, just as anything I have ever experienced has shaped me, but I am content to savor my memories and leave this opportunity to someone else, hopefully someone who is just starting their journey, to create their own. I hope theirs are filled with joys and sorrows, sweetness and pain, just like mine.

"Some of them knew pleasure
And some of them knew pain
And for some of them it was only the moment that mattered
And on the brave and crazy wings of youth
They went flying around in the rain
And their feathers, once so fine, grew torn and tattered
And in the end they traded their tired wings
For the resignation that living brings
And exchanged love's bright and fragile glow
For the glitter and the rouge
And in the moment they were swept before the deluge."
- Jackson Browne, Before the Deluge

"Meet Me In Montauk..."

"The lights went out
and darkness filled the house
on a tiring night under a Long Island sky."
- Bayside, Montauk

Seiche has once again proven to be an inspiration to me. When I read his post about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I knew that I had to write something about this wonderful, quirky movie. I have been a huge fan of this film since it was released and have championed its merits to anyone who would listen. I'm proud to have introduced a number of people to the ranks of Eternal Sunshine fans over the past few years. This quickly became my favorite movie as soon as I saw it. I also love the soundtrack to this movie, as well as Bayside's tribute song, Montauk. I've even seen Gondry's disappointing, but intriguing follow-up, The Science of Sleep.

For those of you who are not familiar with Eternal Sunshine, it was released in 2004 and based on a screenplay by Charlie Kaufman, whose other films include Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. Director Michel Gondry, best known for his work on several groundbreaking music videos, worked with a great cast, including Jim Carrey, Kate Winslett, Mark Ruffalo, Kirsten Dunst and Elijah Wood. It was shot using two hand-held cameras without rehearsal. Available lighting and authentic locations were used whenever possible. These techniques add to the film’s unique character.

"Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders." - Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

The plot revolves around a couple, the shy and reserved Joel and the free-spirited Clementine, who meet who meet on a nearly deserted beach on Valentine’s Day, unaware that they have a history together. The majority of the action occurs in Joel's mind, as he recalls the memories of his relationship with Clementine while they are being erased by Dr. Howard Mierzwiak and the incompetent technicians of the nebulous Lacuna, Inc.

The title is taken from the poem "Eloisa To Abelard" by Alexander Pope. This poem is the story of Peter Abailard (1079-1142), a famous scholar, who at age 38 became the tutor of the 18 year old niece of the canon of Paris. The two became involved in a passionate secret love affair, which resulted in Eloisa's pregnancy and eventual confinement to a convent, while her uncle hired men to attack and castrate Abailard.

"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd."
- Alexander Pope, Eloisa To Abelard

Eternal Sunshine is a twist on the standard “boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy and girl are reunited and live happily ever after” formula. It is a love story with elements of science fiction and has several deep philosophical questions that the film not only raises, but also seeks to answer. If we could erase painful memories from our lives, should we? Can we escape our fate, our character, or ourselves by running from our past? Is love worth holding onto, despite the pain which comes along with it? Are some people or things in our lives "meant to be" no matter how much we try to deny them? These and other questions are central to the meaning of the film. The film tells us that all of our experiences have shaped us and made us into the people that we have become. It tells us that our memories, good and bad, are a part of ourselves. Fate is a part of our character and running from ourselves is futile. We are the sum of our experiences. Also, if we erase our painful experiences, then we are living a lie. Our pain teaches us. Consider a child who puts his finger on the hot burner of a stove top. He learns from the pain not to burn his finger anymore. Erasing the pain from our memories could doom us to endlessly relive the mistakes of our past, because it would remove valuable lessons from our lives. Memories, especially painful ones, help us to refine ourselves.

"I'm becoming more and more myself with time. I guess that's what grace is. The refinement of your soul through time." – Jewel

In Kaufman’s script, Clementine has a line that was cut from the movie.

“You love someone – that’s it. Forever. You choose to do something with your life – that’s it, that’s what you do. It’s a sign of maturity to stick with that and see things through. And my feeling is that’s how you die, because you stop listening to what is true, and what is true is constantly changing.” - Clementine, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (shooting script)

If we pay attention to our constantly changing truth, we can overcome our past tendencies and mistakes. We have to resist the urge to make life follow some predetermined pattern based on how we think we will handle situations. Life is constantly changing and we have to change with it to survive.

"Change your heart,
Look around you.
Change your heart,
It will astound you."
- Beck, Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometimes

If you haven't seen this fine movie, I highly recommend it. Carrey gives an excellent performance as Joel, and the rest of the cast turn in fine performances in their respective roles as well. Since most of the action takes place in Joel's mind, Gondry was faced with the task of giving the film the surreal quality of distant memories, seen through the lens of a single person's perceptions of the events as they took place, then altered and filtered through the passage of time and subsequent events. He accomplishes this with stunning effectiveness.

"I wish I'd stayed, too. Now I wish I'd stayed. I wish I'd done a lot of things. I wish I'd... I wish I'd stayed... I do." - Joel, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Today I heard from the band captain's mother again. She said that she had a group of parents that were willing to band together to petition for my return to my former job. I respectfully declined this offer, explaining once again that my resignation was voluntary and necessary for my health. She told me that the rumor mill was now in full force with people saying that I had been fired or forced to resign, that I had inappropriate relationships with children or stole money. It disgusts me that I gave my life for these people's children for the past 8 year and these rumors are out there. I know it's human nature and I have resolved not to look back, but it makes me, quite literally, sick to my stomach to hear these things. I also know that any organized attempt to refute these rumors or stand up for my innocence could also be seen as an admission of guilt. I hate human nature sometimes. I can't wait to put as much distance as possible between myself and these people. Yes, there are some that I will miss, but there are some that tempt me to physical violence. I am not a violent person by any stretch of the imagination, but they make me consider it a sane option sometimes, especially now. I am most definitely glad that I did NOT stay.

“Never look back unless you are planning to go that way." - Henry David Thoreau

It is now time to share the wealth of some of the awards I have been honored to have received recently. First up is the Thinking Blogger Award:


1. If, and only if, you get the Thinking Blogger Award, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think, or have schmoozed you into submission (depending on which award you receive).
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn’t fit your blog).

Ladies and gentlemen, the envelope please. Our five nominees for the Thinking Blogger Award are:

1. Ingrid at Boricua In Texas
2. CCC of Leaving Corporate
3. Bobby Revell of Revellian
4. Andrew from 4th Avenue Blues
5. Lilly at Whirling Open

Next up is the Creative Blogger Award:



The rules are:
1) If you have received an award simply choose either the dark or light background image and save it to your files, then post it proudly on your blog!
2) Pass the award on to five other people, you can choose any of the awards from the series, you do not have to pass out the exact award you received. Choose whichever of the awards below that you'd like to give out. You can give out one of each or five of the same one, whatever you prefer.
3) You can change the size and color of awards to suit your blog, that's up to you, it's your blog, just leave the titles the same.
4) Please link back to this post so that people can read these rules and so that the meanings of the awards will not be lost.

And the winners are:

1. Nick at Anything Goes
2. Contrary Woman
3. Bop of Extras In My Ordinary Life
4. David the FoulBastard
5. ...Why Paisley???

More awards...? Yes, Seiche has given me the great honor of a Thoughtful Blogger Award, which I will pass along tomorrow. Congratulations to the winners! If you want to know why they qualified to win these awards, just visit their page and look around. You'll see immediately why I chose them for the award they received.

"I don't deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don't deserve that either." - Jack Benny

"If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts..."

I guess one of the things I have to look forward to as I move into the "Second Act" of my life is the gradual betrayal of my memory circuits. The biggest problem is that my memory has never been all that great. Sure, I can remember all sorts of useless trivia, jokes, song lyrics, baseball statistics, you name it. Unfortunately, most of the time I can't tell you what I had for dinner last night. Sometimes I leave the house and forget where I'm going. Being an adult with ADD definitely doesn't help this situation.

The lyric I chose for my title is from the Counting Crows song, Mrs. Potter's Lullaby. I think its a pretty profound statement. At mid-life, we begin to experience a plethora of changes. Our attitudes change, our interests change, some of us undergo personality change, or changes in career or relationships. Many of us go through separation or divorce at mid-life. One of the biggest relationship changes we face is the change of relationship with our parents. They have always taken care of us. Now, many of us are beginning to take care of them. Some of us have already had to say goodbye to our parents. Fortunately, I still have both of my parents in my life and nearby. Well, they're far enough away that there is some space, but close enough that I can reach their house in under 15 minutes. They are already into the portion of life where their once reliable memories have begun to fail them. My dad would call this a blessing if he could only forget to bring my mom home from the store one day.

My point about memory is this: Whenever we begin to consider changes to long-standing elements of our lives, such as career, marriage, residence, etc., we are often held back from making these changes by the memories of how things used to be. We tend to look back at our life through the rose-colored lenses of memory. We recall fondly the "good old days" or as Bruce Springsteen calls them, our Glory Days. Is there some way to honor this memory of times gone by, the good and the bad, yet still move on with our lives and not be held to static attempts to relive these supposedly halcyon days of our youth?

You can get just so much from a good thing
You can linger too long in your dreams
Say goodbye to the "Oldies But Goodies"
Cause the good old days weren't always good
And tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems
- Billy Joel, Keeping the Faith

I have some extremely fond memories of the previous fifteen or twenty years of my life. Many of those memories are either experiences from my college days, where I prepared for my career and met my spouse, memories from the fourteen years of my teaching career, or memories of good times I have had with family, friends, wife, and other loved ones. When I consider wholesale changes to large portions of my life's canvas, I sometimes feel as if I am dishonoring these memories. We often think, "Things were so great, surely they can be that way again."

“Much as we may wish to make a new beginning, some part of us resists doing so as though we were making the first step toward disaster.” – William Bridges

I have often heard the proverb, "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't." This fear of letting go of our past, not just the pleasant memories, but also of our gremlins, our devils, our inner demons, holds us back from stepping off the solid ground of our seemingly secure current life and leaping into that great abyss of change. What is this disaster we fear? If we fall freely in that abyss for some time, surely we will at least feel the exhilarating rush of wind past our face. The only thing we have to fear after such a long fall is the sudden stop at the end. However, are we not falling already? Is the ground of our current life as stable as it seems to us? I can certainly feel tremors and see cracks opening in the ground of my life. I would rather willingly step into that land of change rather than being thrust into it unwillingly. I will welcome the fall on my own terms. Still, it is difficult.

One of the things that has helped move me towards change is the power of synchronicity. Things have led me to where I am. To borrow another song title, this one from Amber Pacific, Everything We Were Has Become What We Are. I was reminded recently that when I was considering my last big life change, synchronicity pushed me over the edge and gave me the impetus I needed to make the change.

It was the late spring of 1999. My brother had recently died (July 4th, 1998). My mother had even more recently survived a minor stroke, which she had while in surgery, with doctors right there... talk about synchronicity. In the fall of 1997, I had been stalked and threatened in the course of my job. This situation had led my wife and I to have to spend a weekend in a hotel and have police protection for a week and then a restraining order. A student was expelled from the high school where I was teaching at the time over the incident. It was an ugly scene. In the fall of 1999, some students stole nearly a thousand dollars of fund raising money from my office. They even made a videotape of them opening the locked kevlar bank bag they stole and counting the money. My principal still accused me of stealing the money, even with solid evidence to the contrary. One of the students was facing charges for mugging a customer outside his place of employment and needed the money for his legal problems.

What caused all this misfortune? Its simple. At the end of the summer of 1997, I had made one simple statement. I said, "I think I will stay here at this school and make a career of it." What a mistake that was. My life was turned completely upside down for the next several years. God, the universe, whatever you call it, wanted me to enter a new stage of my life and, as I recently told a friend, when God wants you to move, he doesn't just gently prod you in the right direction. He tends to slap you in the face, grab you by the shoulders, and give you a good shove. Otherwise, we would never move. Yet fear and the rose-colored lenses of memory were keeping me rooted in place. I remember the day when it happened though. It was a clear day in early April, 1999. I was driving to work when one of my favorite songs came on the radio. It was A Long December by Counting Crows. The final line of this familiar song brought the sudden sting of tears to my eyes: "Its been so long since Ive seen the ocean. I guess I should." Wow! Talk about powerful. My parents lived at the beach and I had been considering moving closer to them so I could be close and help them through their health problems. After all, my mother's stroke had happened less than a month before. That was it. I decided instantly to pursue the job which I am now strongly considering leaving.

I have felt the strong pull of synchronicity in my life once again. I guess I'm just waiting for that "Eureka!" moment that speaks to my soul. This job has served me well. Ever since my first teaching job, I have felt strongly "called" to each position I have held. Now I feel called to seek out the next thing. I have no idea what it will be. As I have already said, I love books and music. I have always wanted to be a writer. I have considered enrolling in a program that would lead to an M.S. in Mental Health Counseling. I'm not sure where I am being led or "called" next. I have some vague feelings about where I am supposed to end up, but maybe my subconscious mind doesn't want to admit those feelings to my conscious mind just yet.

Now I need to find a way to exorcise these memories that hold me in place and "send away the ghosts that haunt me now" (Crash Test Dummies, Ghosts That Haunt Me). Its bad enough to have to face the fear of the unknown, but to have to do it with the ghostly voices of memory constantly whispering in my ears makes it nearly unbearable.

"The price of a memory is the memory of the sorrow it brings."
- Counting Crows, Mrs. Potter's Lullaby