overwriting


10
Sep 12

The onomatopoeia of our appliances

Mondays are nothing terrible. Or overly much original or fun. They are inside days. There are no great pictures, or inspiring visuals with tinkling bits of bed music.

I should make more videos. I have a note, I wrote somewhere in a note to myself in one of my notebooks, that says “Shoot more video.”

Many of my notes wind up in my notebooks. Fancy that. The problem with that statement is the plurality. Many books mean less review, which means less remembering, meaning, in this instance, fewer videos.

I did laundry this evening, can you tell? There’s something about the repetitive sounds — next time don’t tune it out, really listen to what your Kenmore is trying to tell you. There’s some sort of story in that kerchunk kerchunck kerchunk, gurgle and blurble. There’s meaning in the chaos of the woosh of the drain.

There’s not, really, a meaning there. I’ve been spending a lot of time with words and commas today, and it can make you a bit silly.

And so I will leave you with this, a profound thing I read somewhere. The sentiment is more important than the original location, I think:

I do tend to repeat myself a bit, but only for the sake of emphasis.

I’m going to put this is in the signature file of my emails. This is only here, again, because it was important the first time. If I felt I’d explained it earlier, you wouldn’t be reading this. My apologies for not having enough time to make the original telling more clear.

Kerchung, kerchung, kerchung, whirrr —

I’ve noticed that the dryer, which turns itself off, can also turn itself back on for a few extra revolutions. I wonder what that means.


29
Mar 12

Ride right

The road was quiet. Everyone had gotten to where they needed to be.

It was empty enough that when the occasional car came by it seemed to do so apologetically. They knew they were intruding on the empty asphalt and how lonely it should be.

Sun

When the hum of the road is your own noise, and yours alone, that’s worth chasing. That’s the moment you ride for.


28
Feb 12

Bo Bikes Bama

Bo Jackson, that Bo Jackson, will ride across Alabama in April, east to west, as a fund raiser for tornado relief.

The man is intense even in promotional videos. I want to ride along. At least for a little bit, if not an entire leg. (I’d prefer the Bessemer to Tuscaloosa day obviously, since we both grew up there.)

You can ride with him.

If I were able to ride with him the only problem would be figuring out to get ahead of him several times so he can pass me and I can describe the sound. So I can write things like this:

Bo riding a bike is an angry mashing of steel gears. Gritting carbon fiber against melting alumnium. He flings acidic drops of sweat behind him, furious that he has to stop and replace his pedals every 45 minutes or so. He’s riding a Trek because it is built like a tank, but he still grinds them into dust. I bet he could ride the 300 miles in the better part of an afternoon if he catches the red lights right. But since he has to wait so often for wheel rebuilds it stretches this thing out over a week. I bet the turbulence behind him helps clean up the tornado debris on some of those central Alabama roadsides.

And not one man will sneer at him when he coasts into Tuscaloosa, because they know.

I told a friend that I was trying to explain Bo to my lovely bride, who was busy being a little girl in another part of the country during Bo’s prime while we were busy agog at what the man could do. A few years later and superlatives can ring hollow. He suggested the uninitiated watch this:

If I rode with Bo I would not act like a fanboy, but I would ask him about coming home to raise money. And I would ask him about his VOX2 Max. And I’d playfully suggest we sprint to the next road sign, just so I could say I’ve been beaten by the best.


25
Dec 11

Peace on earth

MerryChristmas

Not to be Santa-centric, but this particular Santa’s helper is family. I hope your Christmas has been a blessing of family and friends and peace and joy very kind.

We had the chance last night, in a dimly lit church, to sing Silent Night with a fine and internationally renowned baritone. It was about as moving a musical experience as you can ask for. I hope for you that your holidays provide moving moments and lasting memories.

I hope to remember the man I met this week who thought he had cancer in his kidney. A checkup sent him to an oncologist, which meant tests and then an operation. It was not cancer, but he was bleeding internally. Still lucky — timing is everything and he could have bled to death — they removed half a kidney. It is, he said, “the best Christmas in 15 years.”

I hope to remember the Jamaican immigrant, who’d already worked two jobs on Friday when we met and will work two jobs on Christmas day. He’s been here for six years, he said. “And this is the number one country, the best country in the world.”

There are hundreds, thousands, of little stories like that which don’t involve any of the lovely presents we’ve purchased or received. I hope you remember to count them in your blessings, too.

And for no reason whatsoever, remember that Christmas when the world felt very small, and all of creation seemed so much more immense. Our reaching outward, seeking a goal, stretching for some larger discovery and achievement, meant an especially poignant look inward:

“(G)ood night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you — all of you on the good Earth.”


11
Nov 11

Veteran’s Day

Two years ago, we returned from a conference in Canada later than we’d expected. It had flurried on us in Canada, because we had the good fortune to be in Ottawa in November. We got stuck in Chicago for four hours, weathering two broken planes and all manner of other very minor absurdities.

When we arrived in Birmingham it was just before 9 p.m. and our plans to be home and make dinner and all of that were ruined. Also, it had snowed in Birmingham in November. And a tiny little bit of it had stuck to the ground. In Birmingham in November.

So we went to the wonderful DeVinci’s Pizza, possibly for some sort of pasta. And at the end of the evening Mr. Day was standing at the counter, standing over a portrait of his confident, determined son. He thanked me for wearing the poppy on my lapel that I’d picked up in Canada because he’d lost his boy in the service.

And so I think of him, and my uncle who lost a leg in Vietnam, and my great-grandfather who saved mens lives as a medic in the ETO in World War II, and the two ladies of my generation who shipped off for Iraq and people known to me and unknown. They’ve all done far braver things and endured far more than most of us can conceive, because they have a sense of duty, a love of place, an understanding of comradeship that insisted they stand by the people next to them, standing in front of the rest of us, for the rest of us.

Perhaps the highest honors we can give someone willing to do that are gratitude and peace. They deserve both in short order and in abundant supply.