Good Days

The perfect day isn't perfect. It is instead good, very good perhaps. I too often overlook good in search of better and perfect. Good is good. It is contentment which ought to be my only goal because I can choose to feel content.

Since this is my blog, let's focus on me for a bit. Let me tell you about my perfectly good day.

It begins without the alarm but in the October dark. I get up from under a thick blanket and replace blanket with coffee, sleeping with living, dreaming with writing. I go downstairs, grind beans, and press a good cup of coffee. I take my pen and coffee to the basement to write three pages by hand. There's no way I would rather begin each day.

Morning Pages written, I make buttered toast with jam and eat on the couch while reading a book as the family wakes and comes down one by one to get ready for school and work. I offer to drive kids to school or walk the dog, whatever works for them and by eight o'clock the house is mine. I put on a record, boot the Chromebook, and get to work.

First I focus on developing things. Creating. Drafting. Typing. This is when a blog post likely comes to mind, goes to my fingers, appears on the screen, and eventually gets posted online. This is when I continue working on long essays, stories, and sections of a book. I work through a few records until about eleven or noon at which point I print some of that stuff and get out of the chair.

My body needs to move. I go for a walk or a run to work my mind in a different way. I may think about writing or maybe just move. A shower follows and maybe a load of laundry or some brief housework. I warm up leftovers or make somethings for lunch and eat while reading the web or my book.

Then maybe a nap. I set an alarm, read on the couch until I fall asleep and recharge. After that I probably go to the library, buy coffee beans, get cash, pick up something from the hardware store, or make a stop at the co-op. Much as I can, I run these errands on foot, preferably with the dog. Moving my body after the nap puts me back in the world.

The kids and my wife come home and I spend time with them, drive them where they need to go, attend to their needs. We cook dinner and eat together. After dinner we clean up.

The rest of the evening is unscheduled. We may catch the latest Doctor Who or Atypical together. I might would go out with a friend. Whatever the case, the day ends with Stephanie and me tucked into bed, the lights out, rain turning to light snow.

I drift into sleep thinking, I can't wait to do it again tomorrow.

That's a good day. Just about perfect, though I'm content with good. I could be content for years of days like that. Now I just have to make it happen.

Dialing Dad's Number

I just watched an old MASH episode in which Hawkeye is listed by the Army as dead. Hawkeye's dad tries to get through to B. J. Hunnicutt but the call fails. Hawkeye, once he figures out that he's dead and that his dad believes he's dead, is desperate to get in touch with his dad but the lines are down because Eisenhower is coming to Korea. Hawkeye can't get paid, can't get mail, and can't reach his dad, but in the end can't leave Korea and go home either.

The end of the episode has Hawkeye finally on the phone with his father, laughing and enjoying himself. Then he says, "Dad? Dad?" as if he's going to say something important, but it's the line gone dead again. Hawkeye tosses the handset and sits back satisfied that his dad knows he's alive but beyond sad to be so far away from his father, to be so disconnected.

On my phone I still have dad listed in my favorites. I always will. Every so often I place a call to him. It never goes through. I listen to the tones telling me the number is no longer active or valid or whatever the phone companies call it. The line is dead. There's no getting through. And I can't even blame it on Eisenhower.

Someday Dad's number will be assigned to someone else. I imagine that call. Me saying, hello? The other person asking, who is this? Do I tell that person this was my dad's number and that I miss him? If I do, I wonder how the other person will react. I know how I would answer that call from some stranger. I'd ask, how long has he been gone? I would say, tell me a story about him and you. Then I would listen.

Well, there was this one time. It was ordinary. Nothing special. He drove over to my house and parked his truck on the street. I went out to meet him. He asked, You ready? I said, I am. The night was cold and dry, clear all the way up to the heavens. We got in the car, me in the driver's seat, Dad lowering himself into the passenger's seat slowly, slamming the door.

I'd ask, Where were you going?

Up to the Carrier Dome. See, Dad and I had season tickets to the Syracuse Women's Basketball games. We sat in row G, mid court, and Dad talked with the ticket takers, the fans who sat nearby, and me. We cheeredas when the women won and even if they lost because it wasn't about the games. It was about Dad and me.

I'd say, that sounds good.

It was good. It really was.

Then we'd both listen to the sounds of memory, the silence of our dead fathers.

Maybe the person at the other end would ask if I was still there.

And I would say, yeah, I'm still here. We're both still here. It's okay. We're both still here.

Where Books Come From

When I'm really reading, when I read for days and weeks and it's so good I don't ever want to stop, the books come and come to me. Where they come from is no real mystery. They come from out of the blue. Out of the radio and newspaper. Out of one book and into another. Out of the library. Out of the mouths of friends. Books I've ordered arrive in the mail. A friend leaves one in the mailbox. The note says something like, this made me think of you. Books stacked on my wife's desk have titles that call to me. At coffee a friend has a book I really must read. Books arrive from the past because space is curved and all things return after we read them. Reading one book I try not to think of others. I write quotes on sticky notes, in my notebook, between dates on my planner's pages. I dog-ear library books, God help me, and leave pencil dots near quotes that whispered to me. You see, I know where books come from. It's all magic. A trick in which a magician reaches into a dark place that isn't her hat, and pulls out something not quite a rabbit. The ears seem like pages and the magician's fingers are stained in ink. I stand and applaud, hoping she will hand it to me and I can begin to read.

Faint

Vision narrows. The mind lets go of the duties of the body. Things such as breathing, beating the heart, making words. Yet a part of the mind is still wide awake. It turns on the silent alarm. The flashing light atop the ship's bridge. We are going down. Mayday. Abandon ship. That small part of the brain, buried in our evolutionary past like some fossil, triggers a little language. I say, I not good. You hear, uh-nuh-guh. Then even that small part of my mind comes to a stop. Your eyes widen, your heart beats a moment sooner, your brain synapses fire lightning without thunder. You reach for me. Catch me, maybe. Help me down to ground. I won't know. You'll have to tell me all this later when I return to the world. My vision coming back. As I look up into the light of concern, a candle flickering in the breeze of my returning breath.

with apologies to Stephen Kuusisto