Tag: dailyprompt

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Active

No one would ever describe me as having a “sunny” disposition; maybe I am a bit of a grouch. But I’m not someone you’d describe as glum. Activity is a big part of how I cope with the blues. Getting out to the shop or garden helps me develop a perspective on the problem. Instead of rash action, I take time to contemplate a while. Things often do not work out well if I’m rash. Speaking or acting in haste has, more often than not, made things worse. Trust me. It’s kindness if I go out to the shop for a while. The Carreras family is noted for fiery temperaments.
I had a hip replacement about two years ago and could not get a comfortable sleep, no matter how I positioned my body or propped myself with pillows. Everyday physical routines were impossible. Unfortunately, passive entertainment like listening to music or watching television offers only temporary distraction from an inability to do everyday activities. Luckily, I could sit at my desk using a foam pillow and work at the computer. One of the compensations for the very early sleepless mornings was sitting at my desk watching the sun come up in my garden.

In my experience, long periods of turbulent or agitated thought make things worse. If there is nothing I can do immediately, my best course of action is to cogitate gently at leisure while I carve a bowl or an eagle head.
In terrible cases, pull weeds – aggressively and with malice!

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Lithe

I am lithe because I work out every morning in my home gym. My brother,” the Dread Pirate Marcus,” just likes to fight. He works out with the dog in the downstairs dojo and ambushes father on the stairs. Marcus says he likes a more aerobic exercise routine. Our dog brother Max says he is a hunter and cattle dog. He gets his exercise running around outside chasing squirrels, chipmunks, and rabbits. He protects the home from invasion.

Last night, we woke Father during our two AM exercise period. One would think he’d be glad we work so hard at physical fitness. All he ever does is sit at the desk and write!

Daily writing prompt
What activities do you lose yourself in?
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Virtue

The extra evening light of spring means more time outside, either in the garden or the shop. This is great because I am not a TV person, and an early evening inside means contending with the TV. I don’t hate TV; it’s just that I left my TV habit behind many years ago. Being on the road, I was seldom around to catch the shows more settled people watched. Working in coffeehouses and bars meant performing, not watching TV. And after that, I was, believe it or not, too poor in the seventies to own my own TV. I’ve missed generations of television tropes, can’t recognize most TV stars, and don’t miss it. No habit.

Television did appear in my home in the 1980s for my wife and kids. Ask me what I watched those years, and I’d have to say lots of Sesame Street and Fred Rodgers.
A few friends started discussing streaming services the other day. Which do you have? I had to admit that I thought we had Netflix but no others. ” But how do you watch———-?” My “huh?” told them all they needed to know about my television habits—they don’t exist, and I am a total washout when it comes to contemporary culture. If stuck inside during a weekend, I am most likely working on the computer or reading a book.
On occasion, I’ll watch a documentary, or if my wife is watching old stuff on Netflix, I might watch an episode of NCIS with her. But in general, I am not interested in TV. This time of year, I am too busy clearing the wind-blown branches from the garden and finishing winter-interrupted projects in the shop.

One advantage of working outside rather than sitting inside is that I’ve slenderized—four pounds off the waist. Virtue is its own reward!

Daily writing prompt
What movies or TV series have you watched more than 5 times?
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Screamer

“I ain’t afraid of no ghost!” Hmm, well, no howling, ethereal walker through walls anyway. I don’t get those. But the screaming young man in the basement of a building I used to live in? Yeah. He was always there, silently screaming at me. The first time I met him was quite the experience—just wide-mouthed, silent screaming, eyes behind glasses, expressing great anger. No one else noticed him, so he might have been angry that people ignored him. An extrovert by nature, it must have been hard on him only to be seen by me. I was more interested in working on my model railroad than solving his issues – it must have made him madder.
Did he appear only at night? No, he was daylight, nighttime, anytime specter.
But come to think of it, my old grey cat. Clancy saw him also. Clancy, AKA – the Grey Menace, was unused to anything not being scared of him. He took violent displeasure in meeting the screamer. The screamer screamed at Clancy, and Clancy yowled back. Eventually, I had to yell at both of them to shut up. This caused my wife to shout down the stairs for all of us to shut up because the baby was screaming.

It was much more peaceful at the next place we lived. Just neighbors screaming at each other.

Daily writing prompt
Are you superstitious?
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Domestic

I tried it once—pacing around on only two legs. I can’t understand why they do it. Except when we domesticated them, they had to have those “hands” free to open the cans of food. Otherwise, they are good and obedient servants but not too bright. They just have to learn not to pick me up and nuzzle my belly. I am not a baby kitten anymore!
The other day, my sister, Sabrina, tried to train them to change the stuff in the litter box for softer stuff. That last bag they got is full of grit, and we want the lovely soft cedar again so soft on the paws and smells good. The mother chased Sabrina with the broom after she dumped the grit on the floor. The nerve! We are royalty! I certainly wouldn’t want to be human, they can be so rude!
The father told her that the grandchildren would be coming over soon. That’s good. With the new litter of humans, we can correct the training errors.
It’s so hard to train domestic servants!

Daily writing prompt
Which animal would you compare yourself to and why?
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It Hasn’t Been Boring

One of the difficulties of a varied and “interesting” life is that you may not become a millionaire by the time you retire. There are many detours in the workplace, some intentional and some unintended. Luckily, I am okay with my lifestyle, and my workplace is not too strenuous most of the time. This is good because I am not ready to surrender my work life and tap deep pockets of gelt to golf daily. Yech…me golf? No way.

So here I am in my late seventies, still working, saving for eventual retirement. And I am pondering the question many older people ask – am I preparing correctly for the future? To a degree, it’s a rhetorical question with no honest answer. 

I’ve seen people crowing about how massive their portfolio is one day and close to being wiped out the next due to a significant healthcare crisis. On the other hand, I’ve seen people living on little but feeling adequately provided for. This conundrum suggests that outside factors play a significant role in what happens in retirement. We only have some of the answers.

I’ve known people who have played it safe in life with the intent of living large in retirement. I feel a bit sorry for them because taking an occasional stroll on the wild side is part of living a rich life. You can’t vicariously learn everything you need to know by reading posts on the internet, reading self-help books, or watching adventure movies. 

There is a limit to the beneficial effects of playing it safe all the time. One couple I know saved for a retirement of continuous cruises, only to be bored after three or four. Cruises like to keep their clientele safe and secure. You don’t notice them advertising life on the sharp edges, unguided tours through the rough sections of town, or the like. Constant lifelong security is not a good preparation for a retirement full of challenges and surprises.

So here I sit, reflecting on a varied life. And not too eager to spend time at the Senior Center. At the same time, I am not keen to return to all-night carousing and dancing at the Blue Anchor Tavern; evenings watching TV are still not my style. So, in writing a note to my centenarian self, if I should last that long, I’d say, think about Dylan Thomas’s poem Do not Go Gentle Into That Good Night:

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at the close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

We aren’t going to live forever, but that’s not a reason to be passive. Do as much as you can, think, reflect, and enjoy. Tie as many knots in the devil’s tail as you still can. Remember that request you made as a young man when asked what you wanted from life? You responded that you weren’t too particular as long as it wasn’t boring. You got to live in some interesting times – it hasn’t been boring – you didn’t surrender, you didn’t give up!

Daily writing prompt
Write a letter to your 100-year-old self.
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False Spring

Spring is not here yet. But it’s been unseasonably warm where I live, so I am well advanced in yard and garden cleanup. I have never been this far ahead of the season in preparing for spring. I’m doing things in early March that I usually can only get to at the end of the month.
Yesterday, I even put the metal hoops covered with greenhouse plastic on the raised beds. These miniature greenhouses allow the soil and air to warm inside the tent-like structure. I can get kale, broccoli, snow peas, and other plants in the garden weeks earlier than my local frost-free dates using these season extenders.

Early planting with season extenders has a drawback. The gardener’s dreams of a lush green paradise expand into a superb fantasy. These require expensive trips to garden centers to hunt for the perfect additions to the garden landscape. Fantasy images of what the garden will look like with a dozen unique flowering baskets hung around the garden bench overcome dismay at the prices. I am mainly a sucker for the native plant offerings. Keep me from that section of the garden center! I’ll spend every penny I have.
An employee of one of the garden centers I frequent once told me that gardeners are like spring’s first black flies and mosquitos. When they first emerge, they act confused for a day before realizing their purpose in life. In early spring, the first gardeners start showing up at the garden center looking dazed, disoriented, and confused. They wander the aisles, picking up random plants, looking at pots, and asking silly questions. Eventually, they realize that their purpose is to spend money.

I’m old enough and experienced enough to understand that this early March spring madness is a deception. Many from away maintain that spring in New England is nothing but a deception. But after winter, I’ll take the tease, embrace it, and drift off to the garden center to aimlessly wander the aisles, spend money I shouldn’t, and begin to dream of warm days in my garden.

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Eagle Eyes

I carved professionally from 1969 to 1975, stopped for grad school and a career in anthropology, and resumed my craft as a carver in 1992. It’s a long time to remember every little detail of how you carved a particular style of clamshell end on a quarterboard. But there is an answer for that failure of memory.
My shops, porch, and rooms have become littered with my carving – small and large. It’s not because I am an egotist ( well, just a bit). I needed the models and samples for when I did boat shows and for when I taught. I also need the samples as reminders.
You can forget details of how you did something twenty years ago. Carve a dolphin, a lizard, or any other animal, and after you finish, the details will be bright. But don’t carve another for twenty years, and you scratch your head and ask, “How did I do that?”
The eagle head blank sitting on my workbench is a good case. It’s been about twelve years since I did a large eagle, and I am looking at the eyes on my models and samples for clues of how I’ve cut the eyes before.
On occasion, this has led me to new and different ways of doing things. When I finished, I realized my hands went down an alternate path to carving the neck or detailing the feathers.
When I was starting out, I had a mentor in Baltimore. Warburton specialized in carving saints, elaborate chasing and engraving, and much more. His studio/shop was down by the harbor in an industrial area. The workshop was on the main floor, but a mezzanine above was crowded with samples, prototypes, and models. He claimed that art was not a process of unanimous acclamation. You played with your media, and you played with technique. Otherwise, it wasn’t a creative process; you may as well have been a factory turning out duplicates.
Since then, I’ve worked in boat shops littered with molds and patterns, seen the casts Rodin used to create his work, and noticed the remains of patterns from old shipscarvers’ shops.

So, I’ll examine the eagle eyes and carve it before I do anything else. I don’t know where I picked up the habit, but I carve the eye first so the “birdie” can watch the rest of the carving. By the time I finish, my memory of how to carve eagle eyes will be all bright and up to date. Maybe this time, I’ll actually take out the journal and scribe in some notes for the next time. Naw.

Daily writing prompt
What is the last thing you learned?
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Who are you?

Who are you? Where are you from? These questions seem innocuous on the surface. But sometimes, they can be code for questions about race, ethnicity, and national origin. The sort of inquiry that can land you in a hotspot in a job interview.

What are they fishing for? That is the question you ask yourself. You fear that they are trying to find some way to put you into a convenient box that they’ll label Hispanic, Anglo, Black, Asian, or whatever. The more check marks they can add to your profile, the more uncomfortable people who ask these sorts of questions become. “Oh my God, he’s Jewish, Brazilian, and Japanese! And he’s from New York!

I only found out years later that I did not get a favored job because I was considered not Latino enough. My many qualifications mattered little against my lack of accent. Stupid, huh? On the other hand, having a Spanish surname has had people making all sorts of assumptions about my race, ethnicity, and home culture.

One individual had issues with the Latino part of my heritage. Then he found out about my Hungarian grandmother, who had the same surname as his and was from the same locale in the old Austrio-Hungarian Empire. Oh, lord! A possible cousin?

Of course, many of us view a multiplex background an attractive feature—maybe because we are ourselves multiplex. Call it a built-in extravagant feature; a richness of background.

But beware. Many people can’t get beyond the superficial.

There are people who can’t deal with complexity and want things simple and unmixed. Not all of these people are crude enough to use ethnic slurs. It’s more subtle, and they are the ones who ask – Who are you? Where are you from?

Daily writing prompt
What is one question you hate to be asked? Explain.
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resilient

Resiliency in our work life and careers is a characteristic best learned in youth. Picking yourself up after a full-face flop may not build character, but it teaches you how to get going again after failure. There is a great reason why I say this – failure hurts so much more when you first experience it as an adult. It’s worse for the driven – the cocky grad student, the executive who never fails, the athlete who glides from win to win – life is a succession of success – until it isn’t. Suddenly, you must learn skills many learned early – how to nurse yourself back to emotional health, absorb the lessons of failure, and start over. 

My professional life has been a continual, unimpeded tale of victory. OK. I lie. I’ve been knocked down, dragged around, and kicked in the face. Events disrupted the thread of my life so often that some original goals are no longer recognizable. It’s important to realize that we sometimes must shift directions and goals after failure. And after success. Stubbornness can be a valuable trait or a sign of stupidity. It’s a tough call occasionally. But a complete and successful life is not necessarily winding up at the destination we picked at age seventeen.

In my case, that would mean I’d still be looking for my next gig as a folksinger. It’s a nice place to be from—but not where I want to end up. 

Failure and success are part of the cycle of a complete life. It’s not so much that we have or lack one or the other, but that we learn the lessons of both.

Daily writing prompt
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?
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