LOOKING FOR WHO I AM

eye am eye

The lead question for day 2 of blogathon: Who are you and what do you see your work as "being?" What I hear in my head is the Who: Who are you? Who-who? Who-who? The funny part for me is that I hold being-who-you-are as number one. Everybody seems to automatically know what it means to be-who-you-are. I take it for granted I know who I am. But, when it comes to answering a direct question, I don't know what to say. I like the Rasta answer: I am I. It sounds pretty, but it's a cheap shot. It's like defining beer by saying beer is beer. What constitutes I? Blake said the eyes are the windows to the soul. No doubt about it. Here is a picture of my window. This picture of my left eye was taken by a 5 year old boy, Landon. I gave him the camera to take some pictures and he took pictures of my eyes. I'd been taking pictures of him, so he took pictures of me. I'll start here, with Landon, the five year old. I've known Landon's daddy, Justin, since Justin was a baby. His mother and dad were my friends. Justin was my child friend when he was little, my teenage friend, my wild friend in his wide-open years, and now his kids are my friends. I like kids. I like it when a child shows me toys and dolls. I like to see a child smile and laugh. I like a child to show off for me; do a dance, sing a song, throw a ball. I feel like I understand a child is every bit as conscious as I am. My few memories from very early childhood are of adults who listened when I talked. I listen closely when a child tells me something, anything. The Justin I knew all through his childhood is the same Justin I know now. I'm glad to see who he is now at age 30 is the same as who he was when he was 5. What I'm looking for in self to answer who I am is that something that has been who-I-am since birth, the thread that runs through a string of beads, aspects of self.

landon, 5

 

For anyone acquainted with reading horoscopes, this tells who I am in brief; Sun-Taurus, Moon-Cancer, Ascendant-Sagittarius, 19May1942SanDiego8:52pm.  Taurus is my main drive. A Taurus is like a donkey in that if he doesn't want to do it, it aint gonna happen. I've got stubborn in abundance. I have no problem with it, same as a donkey doesn't have a problem with it. Somebody wants me to jump through a ring of fire, I'm not going to do it if I don't want to. Call me a wuss, call me a pussy, call me a jerk-off, I'll laugh out loud; you're just barking to hear your head roar. It really pisses off anyone I get involved with in any kind of way who thinks controlling me is the way to go. I dove into six years of psychotherapy to find out what was motivating my attraction to women looking for somebody to control. Bingo: mommy. That wasn't all I went through the process for. It felt like the next thing on my path. Know thyself. It took. I learned a very great deal. And now the psychotherapist is a valued friend. Still, it's difficult looking for who I am to put into words, instead of just feeling intuitive about it. Perhaps the most important part to me of who I am is a lover of God. And where who I am is concerned in the God department, I go my own way. I cuss, I drink liquor, I do all the things somebody who claims a spiritual path is not supposed to do. Who says? I cuss because I like the spice and music in language. I drink because I like the bite of straight liquor, not to get drunk. A church would not accept my refusal to give up my sins. They're not sins to me. They're everyday life. God doesn't want us to walk a tightrope over a pit of crocodiles unless you're Philippe Petit and want to do it for the fun there is in it.

 

caterpillar watches the birds

 

What I have found that it could be about the poor that God loves is the poor live close to the bone. They don't pretend. They want to say every forbidden word there ever was and they know how to do it. The poor are animated by their humanity. They have nothing else. Want to get drunk and sprawl face-down in the dirt, go for it, do what you gotta do. Nothing about social climbing attracts God's attention. Fake people God stays asleep to. God waits for the individual to come to the end of needing to fake it. God waits. I've spent my adult life wondering what it is about the poor that God loves so much. Meher Baba, when he was in the body, sitting receiving people who came to see him in a long line or individually, he always stood up when greeting an American black person. The very people the white people look down on so forcefully. I don't attempt to be God-like by imitating saintly behavior. Makes me barf to think about acting sweet all the time. By the example of King David I've learned it isn't being nice that God loves. It's being yourself, it's following your own light, it's allowing the people around to follow their own light, it's getting shit-faced drunk if I feel like it. Last time that happened was sitting at the kitchen table with my friend Jr Maxwell, who was 82 at the time, New Year's Eve. We decided to spend the evening at the table talking like we did over our drams of white liquor, the best on this earth. By midnight our foreheads were on the table and we were laughing because everything was funny. I believe God thought it was funny too. One afternoon I stopped by his house and saw, in alarm, the storm door open a little ways and his foot was holding it open, him on the floor. I went to him fast as I could go. First thought: heart attack. I saw his glass was sitting upright on the floor beside his hand. I knew he was all right. He went down slowly and sat his glass on the floor on his way down. I did the stupid thing, woke him up and tried to help him up. No. He was fine where he was. OK. I put some bluegrass on the cd player of fiddlers he used to play banjo with. He stayed on the floor and lay there with a serene smile on his face for probably an hour. He was where he wanted to be. When he was ready, he got up.

a recent painting of jr maxwell

I had to take a break. Went over to Justin's with Melvin to see the race at Phoenix. Good race today. Play time with the kids. I went with the question of who I am in mind, thought I'd observe self amidst my closest friends, people I would die for. Self was content and happy the whole time. I look at them in the line of the people I have been close with over years, people gone for many years. In each generation I have seen the waning of mountain culture from generation to generation. Yet the culture continues through very different circumstances such that the culture is still very much alive in the mountain people. I am a naturalized hillbilly. I came from flatland culture, but adopted hillbilly culture for my own. I'm still relatively comfortable with people of urban/suburban culture, but am at home among my hillbilly friends. I don't see their culture a lesser version of city culture. I see it unique unto itself with its own history. An individual's humanity is important among mountain people. We know each other for who we are. I came to the mountains as a monk going to a monastery. In my imagination I identified in the early years with Chinese poet Han Shan, known only for his hundred poems that make the book Cold Mountain. He was a monk who lived in the mountains of southern China. I don't tell this. It's just my own personal self-image. I live quietly on a back road and stay to myself nearly all the time. On Sundays I go see Justin's family and sometimes on Friday night drive to Woodlawn, Virginia, to hear some good music of the region. On trips to town for drug store or grocery store or anything, I'll stop in at the coffee shop and see who's there. Who I am looks for the god in everyone I meet and I like to connect with others in that way. Not by talking about God. Rather by simply being open. Several years ago, I don't know about now, I had the name all over the county of a "white witch." Word was that good things happened to people who spent time around me. I had a guy I didn't know come to my door at 7 one morning because he needed a change in his life, needed whatever it is. I've heard it in different ways from different people. The consensus is that good things happen to people who know me. I don't pay it any mind. If there is something coming through me, I would ruin it attempting to take control of it. I just leave it be and pay it no mind.

round and round

 

 

 

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SCENE FROM A SOUTHERN NOVEL

landon

Visiting with friends this afternoon, outside at sunset. Three kids, Vada 2, Landon 5, and Cheyanne 6, were playing the game Freeze. Cheyanne and Landon ran across the grass of a half acre yard until Vada hollered, "Freeze." The two running stopped and waited for Vada to say, "Green light," and they'd run again until Vada hollered, "Freeze." This game evolved into kicking a soccer ball trying to kick it past daddy, Justin, to score a point. Then daddy would try to kick the ball past Cheyanne and Landon. The kids were animated in continuous motion, missing the ball, turning and running after it, returning it with a barefooted toe kick to daddy. Daddy told Cheyenne it wouldn't hurt her toes if she kicked the ball with the inside of her foot. Cheyanne said she liked kicking it with her toes. She knew how to kick it. The sky had plenty of light in the gloaming and we noticed a bat flying around, then the lightning bugs came out. The kids ran around trying to catch them. Cheyanne was a good one at catching lightning bugs. She just reached up and plucked one out of the air with both hands, taking care not to hurt it like it was a bird. At one point, Cheyanne talking said, "Y'all," speaking to all of us, and I got a flash that I was reading a Southern novel. Looking at the kids, I saw Southern kids growing up Southern. It's in their blood. It's in their habit patterns.

vada

It was actually a sublime moment for me with these people who are so close to my heart they're the same as my own. Crystal carried Vada to me and told Vada to "Do bless-your-heart to TJ." Vada put her hand on top of my head and moved her hand down my cheek to my chin saying, "Bless your heart." The fun in it was she says it with such soul it's comic in a two year old. We laughed, Vada giggled and tucked her head under Crystal's chin laughing. These are the people I love with all my heart, playing, laughing, daddy teaching the kids skills with ball playing. Justin is inclined to teach his kids ball game skills on his own. I heard a few months ago on NPR a child psychologist talking about how important play with a ball is in a child's brain development. When I told Justin what I'd heard, it affirmed for him that it was as important as he intuited. Cheyanne is evidently going to be playing soccer soon with a children's group.

cheyanne

One day last week, Cheyanne was running over a gravel driveway, tripped and fell flat down on the gravel. Her left elbow was skinned a little bit, not bleeding. She got up sobbing lightly, went to daddy, and daddy told her she's going to have to get used to falling down if she's going to play soccer. It's time to start learning to suck it up when you fall down. You get up and keep on going. She drifted over to me and leaned into my left side. I put my hand on her shoulder, gave her a gesture of a hug and said, "I know it hurts." I felt like that was all she really needed was for somebody to acknowledge with her that it hurts. I thought of putting kerosene on it, because kerosene draws the pain out. Can't explain it, but it works. No kerosene. I thought of water, but we'd have to go all the way to the house for water. Suddenly, it didn't hurt so bad. She saw the other kids playing with a Frisbee and she ran off to throw Frisbee.

landon

 

Landon can run in flip-flops as fast as he can run in shoes. Justin said he wears flip-flops all the time. That's what he likes. I've seen Southeastern Asians in documentaries wearing their version of the same and running. I watch in awe seeing Asians run in flip-flops. I can't even walk in them. This evening I was watching Landon run full tilt over the grass, them little legs just a-flyin, flip-flips hugging his feet like they were taped on with duct tape. It heartens me to see the good times Justin has with his kids and his wife, Crystal. I feel good in the heart chakra seeing them all together playing as hard as they could go. One time Vada fell flat on her face running full speed on the grass. It stunned her. She started to cry, stopped herself, jumped up laughing and took off running full speed. Being able to run wide-open like Cheyanne and Landon is new to two-year old baby. She laughed all the time she ran and she ran for the sake of running, ran everywhere she went. It was like watching Wendy in Peter Pan learning to fly.

cheyanne

 

landon

 

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FUN WITH MY HILLBILLY FRIENDS

Yesterday I experienced the joy of acting as guardian for a kid 5yr and 2mo for a couple hours at a softball game where his daddy was playing. This is a child I learned to love just by knowing him. Landon is Justin's boy by an Xgirlfriend. Child support and every other weekend visitation, vibes with pointed edges between daddy and Landon's mama for reasons of their own. I've known Landon for a few years, concerned that the kid didn't have a life at all. He just sat on the couch and watched tv. Told what to do, he'd do it, and back to the couch. He zoned out all the time he was there. I did what I could to see him smile or make him laugh. It took determination. One night when he was four and it was night-night time, we hugged and he said, "I love you." I was stunned into silence and then he went on. Ever since then I've regretted I did not say, I love you, in return. Over time, we advanced unto him showing me his toys, his new soccer ball, his spider-man hat. I've been waiting for the moment to tell him I'm here for his support and it arrived Sunday after our drive in the afternoon, I hugged him when I left to go home and said, "I love you Landon." He said, "I love you." Over the last few weeks, Landon has changed dramatically. He has come out of his daze, is wide awake, misses nothing and has a clever mind for a kid his age. I've seen a Landon I've never seen before who has a quick and very clever mind.

I sat on the beer cooler at the edge of the baseball diamond in Wilkes, next to the Yadkin river in the industrial part of town, nice and flat because a runway for planes used to be there. Now it is grass and several baseball diamonds and soccer fields. It has a convenience building for toilets. At the baseball diamond next to the one Justin was playing, a game was going on among pre-school kids. Little things. They all wore orange tshirts. Both boys and girls. It was funny to see them run; they looked like miniature adults from a distance, and even further away for being so small. They kept the corner of my eye entertained. I didn't watch the game, but a collective screech would rise from the area and I'd look to see what caused it, like a kid hitting a ball hard enough to get himself on first base, half a mile away for short legs. Part of what got him there was the ball rolled past two kids before the ball stopped in the grass and the third one could pick it up and start the relay of the ball from kid to kid on the way to first base---too late. It was funny because of the proportions, a softball in a little tiny hand. It was like playing baseball with a basketball. The little legs would go like a buzz-saw and merely move along, kids hollering excited, all of them engaged. One adult was with them. He acted as umpire and helped the kids when they needed help. I thought, what a gift for him to work with that many kids, at least 20, by himself and them be playing ball in the time of a kid's life when throwing a ball where you want it to go is a challenge. These are the people communities overlook when it comes to praising for community service, naming bridges and highways after.

Landon and I threw the softball back and forth quite a lot. It was a matter of tossing the ball into his hands. He is getting better at catching a ball. I saw Justin has been working with him. He can throw a ball where he wants it to go, not necessarily as far as he wants it to go. He wanted to go over and play ball with the kids. I explained we can watch, but it's their game. Around ten kids were with mothers in the shade of a couple trees. Landon wanted to play with some kids. Alas, the kids were either too old or too young. He asked a boy a few years older to play catch with him. The kid was reluctant, but played for a little while and stopped, bored by a kid too young. The other kids were too little for Landon to play with. I was interested in their exchange because the older boy looked like a classic Our Gang bully. He was very generous with Landon and I found the kid what you'd call a really good kid, not good like perfect Sunday school attendance and never gets in trouble, but good-hearted. His daddy was the biggest man there, a gentle giant. I let Landon introduce himself to the other kids and interact with them as kids do. I saw right away he was respectful with the other kids, didn't provoke anybody, was gentle and simply wanted to play. Unfortunately, none of the kids were his age, so he wallered grandpa, jumping onto my back like he's a monster getting me.

We played invisible a lot. I'd look at him and say, Where are you, Landon? I can't see you. You're invisible. No I'm not. You can see me. I'm right in front of you. No I can't see you, you're invisible. No I'm not, I'm right here. Then he'd play at me like I was invisible and he couldn't see me. It came to we both went invisible sometimes and visible sometimes, at will. In what I call our word games and mind games, mimicking a tv commercial he said, Pizza hut, piece'a hat, piece'a pillow, and we threw back and forth to near exhaustion of his vocabulary taking turns playing fill in the blank after piece'a. Much laughter. These are the kinds of games I like to play with kids. Not many adults can play a repetitive game like that with a kid for very long. I can do it for hours, well past the time the parents tell us to stop because it's getting on their last nerve. I sat on the cooler under a light pole and Landon stood in front of me or wallered on my shoulders and back, or sat on my knee, we talked invisible talk. "Where'd you go? I don't see you anymore?" "I'm invisible." The one that really got me conceptually was in the truck riding back to the house, it was getting dark. I said to Justin, "I think Landon fell out the window. I don't see him." Landon said, "You can't see me because it's dark. I'm visible." I think of them as verbal catch games like with a ball, but with words and their conceptual meanings. Like when I said, piece'a table, I could see that one threw him, a hard concept to get his mind around. I don't know why, but it did. The ball he didn't catch. I feel like it stretches a kid's conceptual possibilities in the time their minds are so in need of exercise.

I let Landon wander about where the other kids were, and look at the kids his size playing a baseball game. Sometimes adults would look at me, wondering if I was watching the kid, because I never corrected him. I saw he was in his own flow. He never bothered anybody. He eventually introduced himself to all the kids, looked at the babies with curiosity. I saw no reason to stop him from seeing the people around us and talking to them. He was open-hearted, without defensiveness and was respectful everywhere he went. I kept my eye on him without watching him. I let him go with his own flow. We bought him a bottle of "bug juice" on the way there. He drank it all and wanted more. I told him there's no way to get more until the game was over. "I'm thirsty." I asked if water would do. Yes, water will do. I told him to take his empty bug juice bottle to the men's room and fill it at the sink. "NO. GROSS!!!" I said, "Then you're not thirsty," and dropped the subject. Inside a minute he was ready. I walked over with him, didn't want him going that far alone. Kidnapping was in the front of my mind more than anything else. I wanted him to be self-sufficient in that he was safe in my sight but I didn't need to be standing over him. He took care of filling the bottle himself and was happy to have the water. It was something of an adventure to find he could use that water for something besides hand washing. I assured him it was not toilet water, but water like in the sink at home. Driving back in the car, when asked by daddy how he was, I told Justin so Landon could hear, I never corrected him the first time. That meant he'd been a good kid and was appreciated for it. I wanted him to know. I carried my camera but was so engaged in the moment I forgot the camera altogether.

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