17 August 2016

A Story About Guilt - Part 1


At 15, Jason was not a bad kid but definitely angrier, more confused and more rebellious than most kids his age. It’s hard to say where it came from. He had a good family that was solidly in the upper middle class, so he wanted for very little. He lived in a very nice home in a good suburban neighborhood where he had his own room, his own computer and other luxuries that many of his friends did not.

But something had been eating at him since he hit puberty. The kind and gentle child his parents remembered had become a teen who never smiled, always seemed upset, argued with them at the drop of a hat, and made them worry until they were almost sick. Especially his mother.

When Jason was 12, his father got a big promotion at work that meant a lot more money for the family, but also robbed them of his time. Where father and son had spent a lot of time together when Jason was younger, now his father just didn’t have as much time for the family. And when his father was at home he seemed more stressed, less patient and had became more and more authoritarian.

Jason’s older sister by six years was not so affected by the changes that came about toward the end of her teens. When she started into her adolescent transformation she had more of her parents’ attention and support. And her personality was different: she had always been more self-assured than her little brother, a dominant force among her friends and classmates. It was always apparent that she was going places. Her father absolutely adored her, and although she and her mother quarreled at times, it was nowhere on the same scale as the bitter shouting matches that Jason started having with his mom.

How and why Jason had turned in this direction was a mystery to his mother and the saddest aspect of her life at the time. She was a woman ruled by emotion who took things deeply to heart. Jason knew this, and he used it to his cynical advantage. He would often say very hurtful things to her just to get her to back down and give him his way. He didn’t seem to care that his words were so painful; for him it had become about winning battles in some kind of personal emotional war.

Jason waged most of that war internally. Part of him still remembered and longed for the simplicity of his childhood: playing children’s games, imagining the wondrous things that only children can imagine, and basking in the warmth and security that comes from loving parents. Another part of him, a new and strange part, felt it necessary to push those “childish” thoughts and feelings away and forge a new path.

But he didn’t know where that path was, how to find it or where it would lead. It was more like he was wandering in a dark forest trying to find the right way. Still, he felt instinctively that he had to move away from his sunny childhood, no matter where it took him. And anything that tried to keep him mired in that sunny childhood, like the banal concerns of his mother, was something to battle against.

His father wasn’t around so much, but at least he didn’t treat Jason like a child. His mother, on the other hand, still called him, “Jaysie,” “Jayseroni,” “my baby,” “my little man,” and any number of other names that made Jason’s adolescent blood boil. While a part of him that was falling deeper and deeper away still wanted her to hold him and comfort him, the now-dominant part of him just desired to keep as far away from her – and from most of the world – as possible.

Jason’s refuge from the world in which he felt so out of place was his room. Like many teens, he sealed himself off in his room and took extreme indignation when anyone dared to even look through the partially open door. It was his inner sanctum – no one else allowed.

But this room was in his parents’ house, and although they gave him a lot of space and privacy, there was a point at which he had to conform to their rules. His father demanded that Jason keep his room tidy. “Orderly surroundings support an orderly mind,” he would say. But Jason generally ignored the orders, and his father almost never checked or followed up. For his mother, cleanliness was the issue. She felt that a clean room and bed were more comfortable, so she pleaded with Jason to keep his room clean. He seemed to take even greater pleasure in ignoring her requests.

One day, she had enough. She went into his room while he was out, stripped the bed and washed the filthy sheets and dirty clothes, cleaned up all the soda cans, empty packages that had once contained chips and other snacks, and removed the dried pieces of food that had fallen under the bed and in other places. She dusted, made his bed with fresh linen, and put all his clothes away neatly. She was taking care of “her baby,” and this made her feel good, motherly, needed. She was sure he would see how much nicer his room was after her efforts.

Of course, she was being far too optimistic, and she should have known better. “Nicer” was a concept that never entered his mind. He was absolutely livid that anyone – especially his mother – had dared to “violate” his sacred space, and he lashed out at her with a fury that even he had not displayed before. He exploded at her like a volcano. His face and neck flushed red, and his eyes bulged wide and penetrating as he tore into her with the intensity of a raging wildfire. And he let fly words he had never dared to utter in his parents’ presence before.

“You worthless cow!” he screamed. “You have no fucking respect for me, for my privacy. Why do you have to go snooping in my things? This is MY room, MY space. It’s the only place where I can be me, where I don’t have to put up with your bullshit and the bullshit from everyone else. Why do you still treat me like such a child? Can’t you see that I’m almost a grown man? I’m not your damned “little man” anymore. Why can’t you get that through your fat, ugly, shit-filled head? I hate you! I absolutely hate you for this. I wish I had never been born to a stupid pig like you. I wish I had never been born at all. I’d rather be dead than be your son!”

And with that, he grabbed his jacket and backpack and stormed out of the house.

His mother was too stunned to ask where he was going. She stood there for a moment in shock. Then she felt a growing weakness in her legs as she stumbled toward a chair. The weakness overcame her and she collapsed on the floor before she could make it.

It was at that point that her churning stomach heaved, her body convulsed, and she broke out into uncontrolled crying, her tears streaming sideways down her face to saturate the plush carpet that cushioned her head. She turned her face into the carpet and grabbed at it with her hands as if to pull herself into it. And she just wept with great sobs and enough water to float a small boat.

After a time, she managed to get herself up to her knees, and then with the help of the chair she had tried to reach initially, she pulled herself up, turned, and sat in the chair. She pulled her tear-dampened hair back from her face, wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands, looked up toward the ceiling, and tried to gather her composure. Her heart was still beating a mile a minute, and her chest felt like a bear had been dancing on it. She needed a way to calm down.

As she thought about what had just happened. Every little hurt Jason had piled on her over the past few years came bubbling up and joined with the new trauma to completely overwhelm her with emotion far beyond sadness. She felt like her life was over. It was a complete emotional breakdown.

For a moment, she thought about having a shot of vodka, but she wasn’t much of a drinker. The last alcohol she had drunk was half a glass of champagne to celebrate New Year, almost four months ago. She decided to do the one thing that always seemed to calm her down: go out for a drive. It was evening, so there wouldn’t be much traffic on the interstate; a good time to just drive, think, and try to relax.

She pushed herself up out of her chair, found her purse, and fumbled through it for some Kleenex to clean her face a little better. She threw on a jacket, grabbed her keys, and went into the garage. After getting behind the wheel of her car and hitting the remote to open the garage door, she backed out into the driveway and headed off down her street.

It was raining. It had been raining for days, but it was coming down a little harder now. She wondered where Jason was, worried that he might be walking in the cold rain, and thought about looking for him. Motherly instinct. But then she figured that even if she did find him, he would just refuse a ride and probably hurl more epithets at her. She decided to head toward the coastal highway.

She never made it.

Between the water on the windshield and the water in her eyes, she had a hard time seeing clearly as she approached an intersection on a green light. It was dark, and she never saw the car hurtling through a red light from her left. The car smashed directly into the driver’s side door of her car. She was crushed by the impact and died almost instantly. Her final thought was that she loved her son and truly believed that in time he would snap out of his funk and everything would be all right. She was sure of it.

Her love for her son was the last thing she was ever sure of.

---------------------------------------------------

Part two is coming soon (that's where the actual guilt comes in).

06 July 2016

Spiritual Detox - Redoux

I originally posted this in mid-March. But after a few days, maybe a week, I removed it. Maybe I thought it was too dark. Maybe I didn’t like what it said about my state of mind at that time. I’m not sure, but I decided that I wanted to present a more positive view on this blog, and this post didn’t fit.

But as I’ve been having some writer’s block lately, I decided to look at some old posts for inspiration, and I came across this. I thought about what had led me to write it, and I realized that some of the same motivations were still at play, but in a slightly little different way. And my reaction has been different. I’ll get to that after the original post, but in the meantime, here’s what I posted in March:



17 March 2016

Today I began a five-day juice detox program. Each morning, I receive a bag with eight specially-prepared bottles of mixed juices, and I drink them at hour-and-a-half intervals throughout the day. Overall, it’s about two liters of juice to keep me going each day. I can also drink water and green tea. That’s all.

The idea is to cleanse my system of accumulated toxins, feel better and, of course, lose some weight. I did a three-day program a little over a month ago, and it worked pretty well. So I am looking forward to the results of this one.

This program is intended to cleanse toxins from the physical body, which is a good thing and something I need. My eating habits are certainly not the worst in the world, but they haven’t been the best either. So I know I have a lot of crap that needs to be flushed out of my digestive system, my circulatory system, my muscles and bones, right down to the individual cells.

But as I was walking home from work in the late afternoon, it occurred to me that what I need even more is a detox program to cleanse the various toxins that have accumulated in my soul. I think there may be more poison there than in all the cells of my body combined.

To the best of my knowledge, there is not a juice combination that can do that.

For more than a week now, I’ve been especially upset, nervous, depressed and angry. Actually, it’s been happening for a lot longer than a week; it’s just that the past week has been especially bad. I find myself being super judgmental toward the people I see on the streets; I see stupid people everywhere, and under my breath I curse them as idiots and morons. And I obsess in my mind about certain problems to the point that it almost makes me crazy.

Perhaps more than almost.

I have always liked to think of myself as a basically positive person and as someone with a spiritual nature. But lately I wonder if that’s just a crock of bull, a lie I’ve been telling myself along with a whole lot of other lies that just seem nicer than reality.

Sometimes I think I can actually feel the light that should be warmly shining out from my spirit being slowly engulfed by the cold darkness of this toxic tide. And it scares me. When the light is finally snuffed out, there will be nothing left. It feels like a slow, painful death.

And I try to understand why it is happening, what factors are to blame. Is it the nature of my life in this city, this country? I’ve written before that I’m sort of a fish out of water – a country boy living in a crowded foreign city. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe living for so many years in a different culture, with a different language, has affected me worse than I have ever realized.

Or maybe there is some unseen environmental influence that has been eating my insides away all these years here. It could be something in the air, the water or the food.

It could be my reaction to the changes I see in the world and our civilization (if we even have the right to call it that). I watch too much news, and that’s enough to drive anyone mad. As I see people around me being turned into dumbed-down, uncivil automatons staring mindlessly into mobile devices everywhere, I wonder what the future holds, and I am sad.

Maybe it’s just the loneliness of my own life. I work, I come home to a small apartment where I live alone, and my contact with the outside world is often limited to what shows up on a damned computer screen. That can’t be good. I have fewer real friends to turn to than I used to have, and there hasn't been a true love in my life for a very, very long time. Those are the things that help shield you from spiritual toxins, and I don't have that shield.

More and more, I think that the growing darkness in my soul is simply the result of my fear of getting older and all the little horrors that come along with that, horrors like the changes I see in the mirror or in photos and the slow, gradual breakdown of the body that had served me pretty well until recently. I look at what I’ve become, and I wonder what the hell happened! When did I become like this and how can I make it go away? I can’t make it “go away,” and therein lies part of the problem, one of the sources of the darkness.

Maybe it’s realizing that rather than accept all these things and learn to live with them, I deceive myself with impossible dreams – dreams of regained youth, dreams of finally achieving things I let slide for too many years, dreams of making a difference, and dreams of being loved. And when the improbability of those dreams rises up and smacks me in the face, a little more darkness invades my soul.

Recently I've been feeling like I am losing a special treasure, and I can't seem to stop it from leaving me. But it's a treasure that I really never had, which only exaggerates the frustration. And the darkness grows.

I don’t know what the source is. Maybe it’s all of those things and more. But I know that I do need a spiritual detox before it’s too late. I need to find a way to purge the dark toxins and let some light shine forth again. I need to get to a happy place.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about going to someplace like the west coast of Ireland and just spending a bunch of days simply sitting and looking out at the ocean. That sounds rather nice.  Maybe it would be a good start.

Spring is coming, biking is coming, and more sunshine. That will help. But I know I need to find something else. And it won't come in little plastic bottles.

--------------------------------------------

Back to the Present

So that was the original post. I felt pretty down last March, and I didn’t like my reaction to it. In retrospect, I know exactly what the catalyst was. All the things I mentioned in the original post played some part, but it was a disappointing personal situation that pulled me into the darkness. This is often the case because such situations can hit you at such a deep and personal level. But we don’t have to let them have such an effect on us. The fact that I did is my own fault.

The post caught my attention when I read it again the other day because almost immediately after I returned from my trip to the USSA a few weeks ago, I found myself hit with a replay of the same situation. But my reaction has been a lot different this time, and much better. This time, I have been pretty much able to just let it go. It bothered me at first, of course, but that “bother” didn’t last long, and it didn’t go deep. 

During my first weekend back, I was able to enjoy the really great company of friends for at least a part of each day for four consecutive days. Good talk and a lot of smiles raised my spirit and took my attention away from any negatives. Friends are perhaps the most important ingredient in a great recipe for a spiritual detox.

And that came on top of a relaxing and enjoyable trip back to spend time with friends and loved ones in Colorado. Every day was a (Rocky Mountain) high. I didn’t think about work or problems; I just enjoyed the time I had and the people I was with. Those two weeks of positive feelings around friends and family strengthened my spirit and made me more able to resist any negative influences. That certainly added some healthy ingredients to the recipe.

Plus, it’s summer, the weather has been good, and that always makes life better. Being able to enjoy the sunshine of late June and early July is worlds better than the gloom of March when winter is still doing its best to hang on. And I’ve been able to exercise in one way or another every day, from gym workouts to biking to just walking to and from work. Nice weather and exercise are more great ingredients for a spiritual detox.

But perhaps most important, this time I was able to simply choose to not let the situation get to me. I had the strength to just put my head in the right place. I was able to get to the point where I could just turn away, say, “I don’t care,” and let any negative feelings slide off my back. Maybe I finally had had enough, or maybe it’s just recognizing that there is no point in continuing to deal with a negative situation when there are plenty of positive ones to pay your attention to.

And we can make positive situations for ourselves. In fact, we should be doing this for ourselves all the time. The photo at the beginning of this piece shows someone getting some kind of spiritual energy from a rising (or setting) sun by the ocean. While that kind of inspiration may certainly help, it's not essential. Still, it can help, and being in such a place is an example of creating a positive situation for yourself. It's something I plan to do for sure this summer (experience a sunrise or sunset by the ocean). Ireland or Portugal are in my sights.

The point of reposting my March effort with the extra commentary is that happiness really is a choice. Choosing to turn your back on the darkness and just stay in the warmth and light is the best thing you can do. It’s not always easy, but it’s always worth it. It’s freedom, and freedom is always a good thing.

--------------------------------------

20 June 2016

It's a Mystery!


I just don’t understand what’s wrong with the local guys here.

Over the past three days, I’ve had the pleasure of having dinner or lunch with three amazing young women in their late 20s or early 30s. Each of them is beautiful, smart, funny, deep, and perhaps most important, each is a genuinely good person.

And each of them is single, which is the part that I don’t understand.

What in the world is wrong with the local guys that treasures such as these girls can go for so long without being discovered and “claimed”? Each of them is what we would call a “catch,” so why haven’t more guys been clamoring to cast their nets in these girls’ directions? I just don’t get it.

And it’s not just these three; they are just the tip of the iceberg. I know or have known so many girls here who should have guys worshiping at their altars and begging matrimony. In my close circle, these are just three of many. So again, I just don’t get it.

You might suggest, I suppose, that these girls are just very selective and – unlike a lot of women – are holding out for a man who is more than just “slightly better than a monkey.” And to be sure, being so selective suggests that in their hearts they know they are special – that they do have an understanding of their innate worth and know that they deserve the very best. But still, there must be plenty of guys around this city who are worthy of such women, can recognize how wonderful these girls are, and would do what it takes to make them part of their lives.

Some of these girls have expressed a certain amount of frustration and even sadness that they have gotten to the “thirtyish zone” and are still not hitched; they’re honest about it. And it saddens me when I see someone who dearly wants a family and is really a “catch,” but hasn’t been “caught” yet. This is all the more the case when I look around at the really bad ones who have started families, only to find turmoil and dysfunction in those families, much of which they create themselves.

On the other hand, I often hear some of these girls say things like, “Well, I am just really focused on work and my career, and I’m not ready for any permanent relationship anyway. So it’s all fine.”  Maybe so, but very often when we have encountered failure or frustration in something, we claim that we are really focused on something else simply as a cover. If something hasn’t worked out like we had hoped, it’s easier to just say that it wasn't important to us anyway.

But I can’t imagine anyone – especially an amazing woman like each of these friends of mine – NOT wanting to be loved, to have a partner she can rely on, open herself up to and be opened to in return, someone who would always be there for her when she needs it, but able to give her the freedom and support she needs to accomplish her own goals in life. I think almost all of us want a relationship in our lives that is like a safe, snug harbor from the stormy seas of life around us. We sometimes say that it doesn’t matter to us if we find ourselves alone, but I think that at some level – either close to the surface or deep inside – it does matter.

And it never has to come down to a choice between a relationship OR a career. The two are completely compatible. It only depends on the people involved. Those who really want it all and are ready to do the work can absolutely have it all.

For me, this is merely an observation. Unfortunately for me, I am too old to be anything more than a “friend” to girls such as these. So there’s not much I can do about it except to sincerely hope that each of these beautiful friends of mine eventually (but sooner, rather than later) finds precisely what she needs to be truly happy. Some others have, and I’ve been ecstatic for them.

But… I have to admit that when I spend time with some of these girls, look into their eyes, listen to them talk, and admire all the beauty they radiate – internally and externally – I find myself wishing that there was some way that I could be a much, much younger man. Then my only dilemma would be choosing which heart I would devote myself to winning. 

Well, actually it wouldn't be a dilemma; I DO know which it would be (but I'll never tell).

It’s a pity that the guys here who are in a position to do that “winning” don’t seem to realize what they are missing. If a burned-out old fart like me can see it so clearly, why can't they?

To me, it’s really a mystery.

---------------------------------------------------------

09 June 2016

And so it Continues


Thursday, 9 June, 2016. I am just past the half-way point of this Colorado visit.  In less than a week, I’ll be on my way back to Ukraine. 

Jet lag has affected me a bit more than usual on this trip. It took me about four days before I could sleep pretty much through the night. And even now, I tend to wake up much earlier than I want; last night I woke up around 2 a.m. and was only able to doze from time to time until the alarm went off. I am sure that I’ll be fully acclimated by the time I fly back to Ukraine so that I can deal with the reverse jet lag all over again.

Hooray for Driving!

One of the things I look forward to the most whenever I visit the USSA is driving. I’ve written about the joy of driving several times in the past, especially in this post after a trip to Italy. On my past trips, I’ve had sedans like the Ford Fusion or Nissan Altima, but this time I have a Jeep Cherokee. The current version of the Cherokee is little more than a car. They call it a “crossover” SUV, but this thing could never go off road like the old Cherokee could. Still, it’s a little cooler than a standard sedan.




I don’t know how many miles I have put on the car during the past week, but it’s been a lot. One daughter lives more than an hour’s drive north of where I am staying, while the other lives about an hour south. Plus I tooled around in the mountains all day Monday. I’ve already refilled the gas tank twice. Still, driving is such a joy, that I don’t care how many miles I travel or how many gallons of gas I use. After this trip, I probably won’t drive again until the next time I return (or possibly in Western Europe).

The Lure of the Hills

On Monday, I took a drive up to visit old haunts in the high country. To me, the mountains are Colorado, not the Denver metro area. I drove by my old home in the mountain community of Bailey, but I wasn’t able to take a good look; the current owner was home and sitting out on the front porch. It was a bit disappointing to be able to do no more than just drive past the house.




Since I was already as far up as Bailey, I decided to go further and drive up to Kenosha pass, which is at an elevation of 10,000 feet and provides access into the large valley known as South Park (yes, the one made famous by the television cartoon). Even before I lived in Bailey, I used to camp and hike in a wilderness area just west of the pass.

Being in the mountains is always a high point for me. It’s what Colorado is all about. I got out of the car at several points, walked a bit, and just took in the feeling. If there is one thing that can really draw me back to Colorado, it’s being in the mountains. It’s a pity that I won’t have an opportunity to camp, enjoy sitting around a night campfire, and really live the mountain experience. Maybe next time.




Big America

Last weekend I went to two events where I was harshly reminded of why most of the world thinks of Americans as being grossly overweight. I am definitely overweight myself, but I saw a number of people at those events who made me feel positively skinny. I won’t get into insulting details about the people I saw, but several of them really amazed me – and not in a good way. And Colorado is consistently rated as the fittest state.

But it’s not like everyone is waddling around with the equivalent of an extra person attached. Although it’s clear that there are a lot of Americans who are very obese and in terrible physical shape, there are also many, MANY Americans who are extremely devoted to their health and nutrition. It depends on where you are and who is around you. While I did see a lot of out-of-shape people at the rodeo on Sunday, I saw far fewer yesterday in Boulder.

There is no doubt that some aspects of the American lifestyle – like driving everywhere, eating fast food, etc. – tend to create “bigger” and less healthy people. But there are plenty of people who take care of themselves too. Gyms and health clubs are big business, and there is a lot of awareness of health and fitness. And even beyond that, there are many who go the extra mile to develop themselves as top-flight athletes.

I attended a softball tournament on Saturday for girls 18 years old and under, and I was blown away by how good they were. They train, they practice, and they hone their natural talents. They are really dedicated to the sport and have an affinity for fitness that will serve them well all their lives.

Looking at Myself

For my part, seeing all those out-of-shape people over the weekend just reminded me of how badly I’ve treated my own body and how I don’t want to end up that far gone. I hope I still have a chance – at my advanced age – to pare off the pounds (or kilos) and keep myself in good enough shape to stay active for a few years longer. I know it’s possible.

To that end, I bought a sport watch yesterday. I needed a new watch anyway, and this seemed like a good way to go. I still have to learn all the ins and outs of it, but if it helps motivate me to move and work out, then it’s a good investment. I allowed myself too many “guilty pleasures” during my first week here, and I feel it. For the rest of my time here, I am shifting back: less eating and more moving. Yesterday was a good start – I began with cereal and blueberries and finished with a salad.

The City



Yesterday I drove into Denver to meet one of my daughters. I didn’t feel comfortable in the city. The heavy traffic on I-70 made me nervous, and once I got off the highway I felt like I was in a foreign place. I was in the north end of Denver, which is quite a bit different from the south suburban areas I’ve know for much of my time in the metro area. The streets and buildings are different, the people are different, the lifestyles are different, and the feeling is different.




I will delve into these differences more in a future post, but what it suggested to me is that I definitely would not want to live in the city. I know this to be true in Kharkiv too. I’ve grown accustomed to it, but not really happy.

I am a country boy, not a city person. If coming back to Colorado some day meant a return to a mountain community, closeness to nature, peace and quiet, etc., then it would be great. But if it was just replacing one city (Kharkiv) with another, it would make little difference. I would still be a fish out of water.

And fish die when they are out of water.

------------------------------------------

31 May 2016

Thank You, Stephen King



Cristin Bruggeman is going to be a successful novelist in the not-too-distant future. Who knows – maybe she’ll even be famous with adoring fans anxiously awaiting her next work, adapted movies, and the whole nine yards.

Cristin is my daughter, and her potential to become a great writer is one thing I like to believe she inherited from dear old dad. But she is way ahead of her dad in realizing that potential. She is wrapping up rewrites on her second novel and has interest from at least one publisher. And she already has an idea about her next project.

Dad, on the other hand, still has little more than “concepts.” If things continue on their present course, “potential” will be dad’s only claim to fame.

I’m not going to delve too much into the reasons why so many years of potential have gone unfulfilled. It’s all in the past anyway; can’t change that. But it is a source of embarrassment and sadness. For a long time, I suppose, I was just uninspired, or too busy with other things like working for a living. I know that there was a time when I decided that I just wasn’t good enough, so why bother trying?

And for some years closer to the present day, I guess I looked at all those lost years, reasoned that there just wasn’t much time left, and figured there was no point in trying if I hadn’t been able to budge myself to write – really write – for the majority of my adult life. It’s like a lot of things in recent years: I’ve been in a “it’s almost over anyway, so why bother?" mode.

That’s a bad mode to be in. It affects everything in your life, and not in a good way. I thought about that a bit earlier this morning while looking at my utterly disgusting naked form in a full-length mirror (damned hotel). But I got over that pretty well after I returned to the miracle of clothing. Still, I really need to do something about that disgusting naked form, while there still might be time.

Enter Stephen King


I have never read one of Stephen King’s books. I should slap myself for that. Maybe I was just never interested much in his particular genre of horror-mystery (or mystery-horror… whatever). But he is a self-made master of the novel, and to have not read at least some of his work is a kind of literary heresy.

A few years ago, Cristin gave me one of his books as a birthday gift – not a novel, but a book he wrote about writing. I was appreciative, and I took a cursory look through some of the pages. Then it found a place on my bookshelf to collect dust along with my Russian-language texts and a few other assorted books that I thought I’d like to read but rarely have found time for.

A couple of months ago I took some small steps toward renewing my interest in writing. Maybe it was a New Year resolution thing (I don’t really remember) or maybe it was the encouragement of a friend and a feeling that I’d like to reward that encouragement with some real effort – finally. I took a serious look at my old story ideas that had been collecting virtual mold and even came up with a few new ones. After doing a little survey, I settled on one to start.

But my first foot forward was still not finding solid ground. I pumped out an opening scene and then went blank, a victim of my own writer’s block, work demands, and the lure of the Internet. As I wrote in a recent blog post about writing, I was still finding it very hard to get myself moving with the requisite sense of urgency.

About a month ago, I took that Stephen King book off the shelf and started reading. The first half of the book was a partial autobiography of King’s early years. It was interesting, but not riveting. I made slow progress with the book. But the second half has hooked me.

In the second half, King gives so much great information and advice about writing that I’ve been almost stunned. I only have a bit left to read, and I’ll probably finish it before I depart Frankfurt for Denver (I am flying to Frankfurt now). As I’ve been taking in all of King’s ideas and sage advice, I’ve resolved to do three things: 1) boil it all down to a bullet list of the things I need to put into action and keep in mind as I write, 2) create an effective writing space once I return to Kharkiv, and 3) decide who my “Ideal Reader” is.

The Advice


King discusses obvious things like the need to read a lot and write a lot (I’ve been deficient in both areas), notice what’s good or bad in other writers’ work, develop vocabulary, avoid bad constructions, and be correct but not overly anal about grammar (which I know I am – anal, that is).

He also showed me a lot about story vs. plot and how one can get so focused on outlining a plot and sketching characters that the real story gets lost. And he gives a great formula and some practical rules for doing the first draft and then the second. He talks about writing the first draft quickly with the “door closed,” letting it stew for a month or two, and then going to the second draft with the door open. Great advice.

King introduced me to the idea of the “Ideal Reader,” one particular person for whom you sort of unconsciously write the story. The Ideal Reader is the first person to read the draft when it’s ready and the one you trust most to give you the kind of feedback that helps you to make effective corrections. I think I know who my Ideal Reader is, but I have to stew on that a bit.

Anyway, Stephen King’s advice has come to me at just the right moment, a moment when I’m getting more serious about my writing than at any point in my life. It’s true that I’ve let way too much time go to waste, and there’s no telling how much time I have left, but hell, I could have been hit by a pineapple cart when I was 27. So who can say really how much time any of us has. Might was well get busy.

So, I am very thankful to Stephen King. And in gratitude, I fully intend to start reading his work as soon as I can download a few of them to my Kindle.

And I am especially thankful to  and proud of  my prodigal daughter, Cristin. Maybe someday, if I work hard and apply myself, dad can walk in his daughter’s footsteps.

-------------------------------------------

Side Note: For those who think I might be siding with a "liberal loon" for displaying my appreciation for Stephen King's talents, I want to be clear that while his political views are almost 180-out from mine, that has nothing to do whatsoever with his mastery of the writing craft. He and I would argue until the cows come home about politics, but that has nothing at all to do with the craft of storytelling in print. We shouldn't refuse to acknowledge genius just because we don't like the person's political views.

And So It Begins

The alarm goes off at 2 a.m. Yes, that’s right – two frickin’ o’clock in the early morning. Even birds aren’t dumb enough to wake up this early. I have a second alarm set for 2:15, just in case I’m too numb to respond to the first one.

This was one of those moments in which you simply can NOT oversleep. And I had put in a pair of brand-new foam earplugs when I got into bed. The airport hotel is not exactly a place of divine silence, and I am easily distracted when trying to sleep. I’ve been using earplugs at home almost every night to combat the various noises that attack my bedroom and improve my odds of actually sleeping. I’m addicted now.

I am starting out on another trip to visit family and friends in the USSA. My flight from Kyiv to Frankfurt is at 06:30. It’s 04:45 now, and I am all checked in and relaxing in an airport priority lounge. Here it’s actually quite calm and relaxing, a far cry from the normal hub-hub of the departure concourse with lots of people, lots of noise, and terminally uncomfortable seats.

As a result of opening some premium accounts at my Kharkiv bank, I got a Priority Pass card, which give me access to the business lounge. I need to send a thank you to my personal account manager at the bank. There are only a few people here, the food and coffee are free, it’s nicely air-conditioned, the rest rooms are clean, and the seats are comfortable enough that I can even lie down if I want. Nice!

It’s early Tuesday morning in Kyiv. I’ll spare all the flight details, but by the time I arrive in Denver, get a rental car, and finally make my way to my friends’ home, this part of the trip will have taken about 24 hours. But at least it is starting out nicely in this lounge, and I have a 10-hour direct flight from Frankfurt to Denver, which is nice also. I’ve definitely had longer, and worse, trips, so this will be a piece of cake.

But back to that hotel.

I took a short hop from Kharkiv to Kyiv’s Boryspil Airport Monday afternoon. The airport hotel is only a 10-minute walk from the terminal, but the humidity in Kyiv yesterday was high enough that a soaking-wet sponge would actually suck moisture OUT of the air (and the same this morning), so I worked up a bit of a sweat walking there.

The Boryspil Airport Hotel should be regarded as a last resort. It’s cheap, and you get what you pay for. The basic rooms are small and have no air conditioning. Mine faced the setting western sun, and when I got there the drapes were open. It was hot and stuffy inside. Somehow, the humidity manages to get into the room, but the cooler outside temps do not. More sweat.

This immediately called for an open window (glass door, actually), and a trip to the restaurant for a salad and a couple of glasses of wine. Calling it a “restaurant” is being kind, but it sufficed.

The bed is adequate for one normal sized person, which I am not. But I made due. I had to take a cold shower first and then kick off most of the covers. But with the drapes closed and earplugs in, I managed to sleep for a few hours.

The shower is a thing of wonder. Anyone wider than me would NOT be able to fit into the shower stall. And even someone smaller than me would find it difficult to move around comfortably while taking a shower (children and dwarfs excepted).

At one point, I dropped my soap. It was impossible to bend over to pick it up until I finished the shower, pried myself out of the stall, and was able to reach in from outside to pick it up.

But at least the water temperature was, well… warm. For my before-bed shower, I wanted cold water anyway. But for shaving and showering in the morning, hot would have been good.

Despite the humidity, I chose to walk to the terminal instead of waiting 15 minutes for a shuttle bus. It was quiet, light was just starting to break, and the birds were finally waking up (lazy critters that they are).

Check-in, security and passport control were a breeze, and here I am. It’s 05:40 now. Boarding begins in about 20 minutes. Time to finish my latte, hit the head, and make my way down to the gate.


I’m off.

-------------------------------------------

Note: I have not had enough coffee to cast a keen editorial eye on my work, so if there are mistakes in the above text, I disavow any responsibility... for now.