Category Archives: this life

thanks

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Thank everyone who calls out your faults, your anger, your impatience, your egotism; do this consciously, voluntarily.
– Jean Toomer, poet and novelist (1894-1967)

It’s quiet in here. The neighbor’s bumpinthumpin children have drifted off to presumably, hopefully, untroubled slumber. I can hear the clocks ticking, and the spinning of the hard drive in its case. Maybe that’s the fan.

I am a fan of a poetic that looks into mirrors at an angle, seeking the structures of bone but also furniture, a bit of the window’s hungry horizon. Sometimes, a fleeting wisp of ghost.

merry christmas!

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Well, I guess it’s a little late to be yawping out Merry Christmas upon the Hoople-trodden thoroughfare, but I’ve been OBE.* My folks and I returned last night from our annual pilgrimage to the woody shire where my brother the Hobbit Prince dwells in a wee cottage with our kindly kin and a pack of three toothsome hoodoo cats.

I amuse myself. I tease because my Bro lives in a place with lots of real trees, while I live in a handsome condo complex with tall shrubbery; lollipop trees, misbegotten of some illconsidered coupling of Edward Scissorhands and The Knights Who Say Ni.

We had a lovely time. It rained through Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, with even a spattering of hail to keep it exciting. It was nice and cold, which makes it all more Christmasy to me. Good old Santa always comes through, since as a group and speaking very generally, we’ve been good. There were toys to play with and an Elfin Nephew to keep good charge of that. All the family furries got new woobies to gnaw and claw and chase. Our Happy loves to make her woobies squeak; oh, how they do suffer ‘tween her teeth.

We, some of us, came down with Christmas colds, which kinda sucked. But I’m feeling better today. My head is finally clearing, if not my winterslumbering mind. Last night was admittedly miserable. Slipping down off Tejon Pass into the Santa Clarita valley, my ears plugged up and my head felt like a football in a bench vice. So it goes. Should be all cleared up in a few more days, and at least I can stay off the I-5 for the foreseeable future.

I hope you and yours had a holly jolly Christmas too, this year, and got some pudding in your stocking or whatever you’re into. And if you were the host of this year’s Dickensian fete, you might need to know how to clean your toilet with a Coke.

Here’s a Thought For The Day.

Neither genius, fame, nor love show the greatness of the soul. Only kindness can do that.
– Jean Baptiste Henri Lacordaire
preacher, journalist and activist (1802-1861)

*Overcome by Events or Out of Body Experience, your choice.

wait!

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So I’m hanging out in Coffee Bean in Montecito, down the hill from the burn. I’m talking to Bill, a retired professor of English. He lost his home in the Tea Fire a few days ago. I’m drinking apricot ceylon tea. It has an aftertaste that makes my mouth feel arid.

Bill says he’s a happy man. It’s not death, he says. He “learned about life and death and evil on Iwo,” when he was eighteen.” This fire, he implies, is not death or evil. I guess he must mean that it’s life. I have trouble accessing this level of stoicism, and offer my best, mostly-sincere, bright autumn day sympathies. He shrugs them off. What good is, “I am so sorry to hear that,” amidst the potsherds and ash? To face it is a difficult Job.

I sit with my laptop and look around: pretty girls, mauve walls, tile floors, Christmas decorations, packages of coffee and tea priced to make you proud you can afford it.

Wait … Christmas decorations? I shit you not, gentle reader.


That’s just not right. In the midst of all this life and death and evil, whatever you might imagine giving you defense or consolation in it, it is not by God Christmas time. Not yet. No sir.

Christmas comes after Thanksgiving, on any calendar you can find. Halloween, Thanksgiving, then Christmas. Add in any holidays – Hanukkah, for example – that you like, but don’t move Christmas up a month or change the order of things. It’s not offensive or sacrilegious so must as a pallid, insipid, dumbass way to enter the culture around you.

Take a step back, Jack. Let it be, is my point.

thunder, intoxication, and discontent

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Well, that was a pretty productive day, for a Saturday.

I got new brakes on the pickup truck.

Reinstalled Windows XP on this geriatric Dell desktop.

Did my volunteer thing to help a doggie in Florida get surgery.

Which is all nice and good, but I didn’t do any writing. I’m a writer. Writers write. So I sure wish I could get motivated in that direction. It’s been hard lately.I get home from work and I just want to zone out.

I recently, finally, finished a chapter in the novel. It’s pretty dramatic. Thunder, intoxication, and discontent abound. Want to read it? OK, if there’s any interest maybe I’ll post it. Leave a comment on this post. But I’m not going to post it if no one is interested.

I feel like I ought to have something to say about the fires. Over 200 homes lost here in my own backyard, and many hundreds more across southern California. All that comes to mind is Why? What on Earth has changed to make these firestorms happen? Again. I mean, besides the drought and the winds. There has to be a reason. Or not. If you know, please share.

fear

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I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Paul Atreides

My sister-in-law posted this on my Facebook this week. I think it’s one of the most profound insights I’ve pondered in a while. And I believe it does not overstate the unreality of fear. Sometimes it seems so much me, so much what I am and own, but in truth it is trying to own me.

back on your heads

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Well that was a nice weekend, wasn’t it? Weather-wise, a little something for everybody, assuming you like sunshine or fog.

I didn’t get much accomplished, except that I managed to fork over $215 for a new window for the camper on my pickup. Long story short, it got busted, had to be replaced. One of those things.

The book and author festival in SB was nice. I got to hang with some good people and hear Gerald Locklin read. So it was good, except that’s where I discovered the broken window.

I did some laundry, played with the dog, watched football (Way to go, Fresno St!) hung out with my folks and friends, rode my bike around town … stuff like that. Oh, I put OpenOffice on my desktop comp, because my MS Word is acting up. It’s pretty cool.

But first, I was wondering this tonight:

Imagine your home and town were about to be assaulted by a dire storm – say, for instance, Hurricane Kyle. And you have a choice: You can be a little kid, and have grown-ups taking care of you, keeping you safe. Or you can be an adult, a parent with children in the path of the storm.

Which would you choose? Would you abdicate your adulthood in have instead that feeling of security your parents presumably gave you in their love? Or would you trade the luxury of innocence and helplessness, for the powers imparted to those old enough to vote and procreate? Keep in mind, if you don’t choose dependence, you must be willing to protect.

Me? Sometimes I miss being a kid.

the trouble

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Look at his eyes, how they reflect the light cast down from the kitchen ceiling, born back from the white cabinets, shining on the spoons and glasses that he rinses in hot water. The eyes of such a man give back what they cannot keep.

His eyes have sent back everything for years, just a bit diminished, worse for wear. He remembers how he met her on a rainy day in November, saw her standing by the elevator wearing a burgundy dress and black stockings, black shoes, holding a fawn coat. Which is what he thinks about, spraying down the countertops and wiping them with paper towels.

They were not married in the height of summer, when the leaves stood out against the sky pretending to be shocked by sheer neglect. But the birds still sang, so he thought everything was fine.

He has walked out across the highway and along the edge of the hill, where the first blue flowers of spring are blooming, and now he is home. He thought he could smell the dark mushroom life under the trees; all the sweet damp death that feeds their roots. It made him feel apart from things so inevitably rotting, to be a man upright and walking on the earth. The birds singing in the branches almost made him smile.

Wishing he had an onion, he cooks a piece of chicken and eats it slowly, watching the evening news. People are dead for no reason, and he thinks the earth is far too eager to welcome back his kind. It’s a long process, the feeding of soil. It hardly seems worth the trouble to which the planet goes.

Weather or Not

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A couple of days ago, I got a phone call. It was my Dad. He said, “Look outside. Believe it or not, it’s raining.”

So I did, and it was. Which is pretty cool, because we go for several months every year with no measurable rain at all. The Santa Barbara area is basically an arid coastal plain; in other words, a desert. This pretty little spattering didn’t really break the rule, because it wasn’t measurable. And it seems like every summer we get one bleak spattering, one wimpy thunderstorm, barely damp above the level of dry lightning. But it was nice – a brief reminder that God is in His Heaven, etc.

* * *

The wise old man was walking along the road in the rain, carrying his umbrella closed at his side.

His neighbor walked up to him and said, “Hey, wise old man, it’s raining.”

“I know,” he said.

“You’re getting wet.”

“Indeed.”

“Why don’t you open that umbrella?”

“Oh, my umbrella?” He held it out and looked at it, and showed it to his neighbor, as if the man hadn’t already seen it. “This umbrella?” said the wise old man. “Oh, it’s been broken for many years.”

“Then … oh dear … then why in the world are you carrying it around?” asked the neighbor.

“Because I didn’t think it was going to rain.”

* * *

This life is like that. I am a Fool, but in a good way. (A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool. — Shakespeare.) Which reminds me of another one:

A student approached the Master and asked, “Master, what is the path to enlightenment?”

“Humility,” the Master answered.

“And how long is the path?” asked the student.

“How would I know?”


* * *

And weather or not it is clear to you, here is an old poem for today (I’m channeling Garrison Keillor) by your humble poet, from my chapbook Finding Oakland, published by White Plume Press.

Solstice

I thought I heard
the Summer die.
It was a small sound
and hollow.

He sat here with me
under this sky made of steam
with a tired smile
and his hat on the floor.

We only said Good morning
and that was always early
But there was one day
of rain,
one shower at midnight.

I hope he will forgive me
his sad sad death.

(c) 1992 by Kyle Kimberlin

meaning of life part deux

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So I was in the grocery store. I paid for my stuff and turned to find that the kid who was supposed to be bagging it was doing something else, which was holding me up. I thought something like, “Come on, kid, get a move on. I got a life to get on with here.”

Interesting. It says at least two things about my thinking about my life:

  • My life is not going on while I’m in the grocery store, and especially not when I’m trying to get the hell out.

  • My life is what is going to happen to me between the time I leave the grocery store and the time I die; and while I’m stuck in the grocery store, I feel that potential time getting shorter.

Now the other day, I wrote that the meaning one can find in one’s life is expressed in what one as done with that life, with the end of it is reached. It appears, on further retail examination, that I was wrong. At least, my thinking is incomplete.

Maybe one meaning of a life is in our hope, faith, expectation, dread; in the potential that we see in our dreams, our skills, our one of these days. Can we distill it even more than that? Everybody wants to be loved.

3 years

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So leave awhile the paw-marks on the front door
Where I used to scratch to go out or in,
And you’d soon open; leave on the kitchen floor
The marks of my drinking-pan.

~Robinson Jeffers

Love Dogs

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An inquiry into ontology or just a letter to my dog on the anniversary of her passing.

“A peace above all earthly dignities,
a still and quiet conscience”

To Tasha
(August 1990 – August 12, 2005)
at the Rainbow Bridge

Dear Tash,

I miss you, old friend. It’s one of those summer nights, like those last few nights of your short and beautiful life. Do you remember the way it would get warmer in the late evening, before bedtime, after the breeze from the ocean died down? You’d expect the evening to cool, but it doesn’t seem to. It’s the kind of night that makes a little dog itchy. You had some itchy summers in this dank valley with its blanket of sour sea air, didn’t you? I’m sorry for that. The pills weren’t really so much help.

Happy is happy with us here, but you know that ’cause she’s not there. She’s doing fine. You loved her very much, so you’d want to know. She takes a lot of medicine, but she’s OK. The Santa Barbara itch is bad this year. We’ve kept her free of fleas, but there is that something in the air again, that bothers all the dogs. She’s getting lots of baths, since she can’t take the pills.

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, about the meaning of life. I told him I didn’t think the question “What is the meaning of life?” makes sense. Because meaning and life are two different kinds of things. Like the sound of blue. Life just is – it’s an abstraction with a different answer for every life that’s ever lived, and there’s no way to know what it meant until you get to the end and look back.

A better question is to ask “What does a life mean?” And even then, the answer has to be, “it depends.” Which life? And what do you mean by mean? I guess in this context – meaning life – we’re asking to know its importance, it’s value.

So life doesn’t mean anything until it’s lived, just as music doesn’t mean anything until it’s played, like a toy under the sofa isn’t the same as playing with it. And a leash on the peg in the hall by the door isn’t the same as a walk in the sun. Living is as living does, am I right?

Since this is a letter to you — meant to be mailed by some far fetched intentions of love through the veil into Heaven — maybe you’re expecting me to try to assess the value of your life. No, little friend. I can only tell you that my heart has not been unbroken since the moment when I touched your face as the doctor took your life. I have not turned my mind from that time and place, not for three years. And I guess I never will. Maybe I’m getting used to it, but I gave up hope of getting over it. You understand. At the same time, I have so many happy memories. I thank God for the brief, amazing gift of you.

No, if I have a life to sum the meanings of, it’s mine. I admit I’m one of those guys who keeps assuming the need before the necessary end. Then I can only hope that as you lie with the others in the shade of the trees across the creek, you see me walking through this other world of turning time and think my living has improved. Maybe you wish I had been like this — a little more well in my body, in the world where bodies matter — back then, when you were here to walk with me. I know you understand.

I miss you, little friend. I wish we could start over. And if there’s any consolation, maybe it’s that time is always speeding up. The world is spinning in greased grooves, faster and faster, and every precious dizzy turn brings us closer to the day. Which is maybe tonight or maybe forty years, which is the same difference.

Now it’s midnight, and starting to cool off again. I should go to bed and say my prayers and get a good night’s sleep, because tomorrow is another day. Or not, because nobody has promised tomorrow to me. But if it comes, and if the pale indifferent sun glows scattered through the morning’s vapor on the sea, thank God. I can go visit Happy and take her for a bath and a walk, and try to be a better friend to her than I was to you, and a better man walking on the good earth, trying not to stoop from his petty and fleeting concerns. And that, my fuzzy little well-remembered pal, is the meaning of a life.

DOG SONG

for Rascal

My song begins at sundown
when the twilight wind comes up.
A cold wind, brushing
my hair and my tail.

Butterfly light is shining.
Butterflies lift me at nightfall,
and nothing hurts me now.
Look, the light is brighter than …

See the little dogs come running!
See the bigger dogs come running!
See the kitties and dogs come together,
and all the animals singing.

by Tasha
January 2004
based on a Pima Indian song

* * *

There are love dogs
no one knows the names of.

Give your life
to be one of them.

— Rumi

wheee!

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LOS ANGELES – A strong earthquake shook Southern California on Tuesday, and the jolt was felt from Los Angeles to San Diego, and slightly in Las Vegas.

Preliminary information from the U.S. Geological Survey estimated the quake at magnitude 5.8, centered 29 miles east-southeast of downtown Los Angeles near Chino Hills in San Bernardino County.

Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said there were not immediate reports of damage or injury in Los Angeles.

The quake struck at 11:42 a.m. PDT. Buildings swayed in downtown Los Angeles for several seconds.

Yahoo! News

I sure felt it here in Carpinteria, 85 miles NW of downtown LA. It was a side-to-side shaking sensation, more than a wave under the desk feeling.

For some reason, I always think of an earthquake as being here because I can feel it here. You know? So my first thought after it was over was that those little ones are good, because they keep the pressure off. Then I thought, well, that could’ve been a big quake somewhere else.

Hope everybody’s OK. Hold on to your wigs and keys and enjoy the ride.