Carry On

On the turntable CSN&Y's "Carry On" is spinning and it seems apropos to the day. 

“One morning I woke up and I knew
You were really gone
A new day, a new way, I knew
I should see it along
Go your way, I’ll go mine
And carry on”

Today is the third anniversary of my dad's death. At breakfast, Mom asked, "can you believe it has been three years?" I felt bad saying yeah, but that's exactly what it feels like. I have no problem placing that day in my history or remembering who I was and who I have become. I'm not clearheaded on all matters, but in this I know what's what. Like the song says, a morning came when I woke up and knew he was gone. He went his way and I go mine. We carry on. 

Shortly after he died, a friend invited me to drink bourbon and hang out. We drank two-thirds of a bottle of Basil Hayden. About an hour into the bottle, he said, "tell me about your dad." I paused a moment, then told stories. Good ones. The kind that made Dad almost present in the room with us. The whiskey helped, but mostly it was a friend indulging my grieving and healing. 

“The sky is clearing and the night
Has gone out
The sun, he come, the world
Is all full of love
Rejoice, rejoice, we have no choice
But to carry on”

I still find myself conflicted some, but mostly over what others need. The cemetery is a good example. There's nothing there for me. It's a place of solace for others, but for me there's no one there. I worked there as a kid, cutting grass, trimming trees, watching the backhoe dig and fill graves. Dad was a funeral director. I was around the dead and the grieving often. Because of that, I don't find Dad at the cemetery nor do I need him to be there. I have no choice but to carry on and it becomes easier each day to rejoice, rejoice as I accept the sky, the night, the sun, and the love in my world. 

The record has moved onto Neil Young's "Helpless." I'm shaking my head. I like the song, but it's not how I feel. Dad rarely seemed helpless and that was the thing I most wanted to learn from him. The car breaks down miles from home? Fix it. There isn't enough money in the bank? Make more. Dad died suddenly? Carry on. 

“Where are you going now, my love?
Where will you be tomorrow?
Will you bring me happiness?
Will you bring me sorrow?”

Carrying on is asking and trying to answer such questions. I wonder where I'm going, where I'll be tomorrow. I'm curious but not worried because the answer to the questions about happiness and sorrow have obvious answers. I've already found a vein of happiness and am mining it for all its worth. 

I find myself often reminded of the man and smiling a little. Then I say, "hey, Dad," and I carry on. 

Extra Ordinary

Yesterday I had an idea for a short essay about school. I scratched a note on a post-it and went back to teaching. At lunch, I took fifteen minutes to knock out a rough 850-word draft, then began editing and revising down toward 600. Halfway through, I was called to a meeting which lasted an hour. Back from that, I picked up where I had left off and made it through to the end. I read it through again and posted 560 words to the world. 

No big deal. I write like this all the time. It's the most ordinary of things. 

Last night, I was at a party where one of the hosts played electric guitar in a four-piece band. They played a tight instrumental rendition of Steely Dan's "Peg" which I love. I watched him as the song wound toward the solo and wondered how he would handle something Becker and Fagen tried with dozens of guitar players. He hit the first note and moved into a solo that nodded at the recorded version but which he made his own. 

I love watching musicians perform and studied him. It seemed extraordinary to me, as musical performance often does, but when we talked about it, he shrugged like he had just written a short essay and posted it to his blog. No big deal. He does this all the time. 

Earlier that day I tweeted that "I can't be the only one who has this feeling that anything I'm able to do can't possibly be extraordinary." I was thinking then about my writing. I could have written it of my friend's work with the guitar. So many things are extraordinary until we do them. 

One thing that remains extraordinary for me is the prose poem. I wrote one this week, February Fifth, and it surprises me. It began with a line in my head and the approaching anniversary of my dad's unexpected death. "It always snows on the fifth of February even when it doesn't." That stuck with me for a day before I typed it and let the other words come through me. I revised the hell out of it and posted it, waiting for reactions. There weren't many.

My wife says that it's tough to know what to say about poetry. At first this wasn't enough for me. Then I thought of my friend Chris's photography. 

Chris began as a nature/landscape photographer. (Actually, he began as a fertilized egg, but I'll skip ahead.) He has moved on to fine art photography. He'll forgive me for saying that he produces fewer pretty pictures and iconic shots of obvious majesty. He's onto something far less ordinary, a world in which he largely has to decide what is good because fewer people can follow him there. A shot of pine needles on snow confuses many because it is extraordinary. 

I say that word in exploded fashion: extra ordinary. Out of and beyond the ordinary. 

There is something to be said for going beyond what we are used to, for reaching toward the extraordinary. There is a lot to be said too for the things that we have made ordinary: my friend on guitar, Chris creating photographs, me writing essays. Taking on the extraordinary and coming to feel them as natural doesn't diminish them, but it does leave me wanting to reach beyond. I love writing essays such as this and enjoy the comfort with which I can compose and polish them. I also love reaching for something more even when I don't yet know what it is.

I came into this not knowing what I wanted to say. I come to the end not knowing much more of what it's all about, but feeling sure that this is the way to go, the ideas to ponder. I'm creating something. What it is, I don't know. And that, in and of itself, feels extraordinary. 

Inbox Zero

There are loftier ambitions than emptying my inbox, but I take what I can get. I hear of people who get hundreds of work emails daily and spend hours answering them. That sounds terrible. A year or two ago my inbox was a depressing weight on me. Seeing thirty five emails there, knowing each was an obligation, made me want to run and hide. 

I'm not preaching any productivity and efficiency gospel here. I actually prefer inefficiency. However, depression and feeling obligated do me no good. The less of those, the better. 

Rather than preach, I want to tell about reaching inbox zero and trying to work that elsewhere in my life. My story begins with a lot of email, something with which we're all far too familiar. 

I averaged thirty to fifty emails a day in my home account, the one I care about. All of it felt important-ish and shouted at me. I hate being shouted at. I started clearing the inbox. 

First, I ruthlessly unsubscribed from automatic and sales emails even as I worried about missing out. It took an hour and each day's mail brought new junk. For weeks, I opened those messages and clicked "unsubscribe" and that has taken me down to just over a dozen emails daily. 

I have been just as ruthless with those emails. I try not to email when I can contact another way. I see friends in the neighborhood. I call Mom and my brother. I also archive messages based on subject lines. I try to deal only with stuff that matters and do so right away. 

This morning, after writing, packing lunch, and writing a note to my wife I found three emails in my inbox. One asked me to review a package my daughter had received. I went to the account, changed it to her email address and archived the message. A second asked for a quick review of service. I clicked "good," wrote a one-sentence note, and archived that. The final message was from a friend. I wrote a short response and archived that too. Inbox zero achieved. 

Inbox zero is no nirvana, but it is slightly life changing. I'm free of those obligations. When I check later today, there will be a message from my wife that I'll enjoy without distraction. Then I won't worry about email for hours. 

I do the same with bills, paying them as they come in. It might be more financially sound to pay later, but the pressure of obligation costs me more than the money might earn. Bills don't make it past the kitchen table before I pay and recycle them. I could automate this, but I like knowing where our money is. This system, another kind of inbox zero, works for me. It clears my mind. 

This morning at school, I sat to read an article. Next to those pages were my writer's notebook with a note about a story I want to write, a draft of a poem to edit, handwritten pages to transform into a blog essay, and a book I've been not reading for two weeks. There was also a draft of this essay waiting on the computer. My monkey brain kicked hard against its cage. The article I was reading was long and not very good. My mind turned to all those other things and I had to work to keep my eyes on the article. The struggle, as my students say, was real. 

I looked at the book. I was on page 101 out of 489. There is no chance I'll finish it today. I looked at all those things on the desk, thought how much I wanted to do them all, and then realized that I didn't want to do them, I wanted to be done with them. I wanted inbox zero. But what then? And really, is there an inbox zero?

Life is a desk with more things on it than I can attend to at once. Since this morning, I've had five more emails. When I get home, there will be bills and other mail on the table. I accept that as well as I can and then work back to inbox zero. 

I finished reading the article and dropped it in the bin. I worked the poem with a felt-tip pen and typed my revisions. I wrote enough of the story in my writer's notebook to be able to finish it later. Then students arrived. I set the unread book on top of the handwritten pages and pushed them aside. No inbox zero, but my mind felt clear enough to go forward. And so I did.