Writer's Corner...sorta

One of the many ideas I had for doing the blog is to force myself to return actively to wiritng--an endeavor I believe is a part of my destiny in life I've simply neglected for too many years.

Let's say on every other Sunday, I will post some of my writing for the world to read. And remember, positive feedback will only boost my ego which, in turn, will compel me to write more for my adoring fans! : )

So for this Sunday, how about I post some poetry? It's been awhile since I've written any poetry. I write poetry when I'm sad as hell or euphorically happy. I would post what I consider the best and most accurate depiction of my heart's emotional path throughout my life. The poem is called The Loner's Words and it died with my macintosh many years ago. The only part I remember verbatim are the first two lines:

Perhaps I take the wrong first step
My heart is the brave one

Wish I never lost that one. I liked that one a lot.

Anyway, there's a decent stand-in for the greatest poem I feel I've ever written to date. Relax, it's only four lines at a point in my life when I felt this was my unchanging truth.

Four Lines

I have fought my battles without hands.
The heart has been a warrior and slain hero.
In the war of life and love,
It has not been the victor.

So there's the humble start to what will become an important part to my blog. More to come for sure...and I'll likely break my own every other sunday schedule to post more frequently.

The Story of Me and My Dad (Part 1)

I've started this blog essentially by throwing people into my world with current snapshots of my immediate past situations and my current progressions. I'm sure this has given people an image of me, but if my blog is to be all about me, I have to flesh out the components of myself that comprise who I am.

There are many avenues to take with this (and I plan to do periodically for edification and entertainment), but I figure starting with the relationship between my father and I is a good place to begin to reveal more of myself in true context, so here we go...

I cannot tell you the first memories I had of my dad really, but from childhood, my father and I have had a relationship to one another that clearly reflects a friendship between willful human beings in addition to our familial connection. This bond has proven over time to be one of great importance for both of us, and one that has endured its fair share of tribulation into adulthood.

One of those tribulations was my father's battle with alcohol. Before I came on the scene, my parents partied and drank as social adults do, but while my mother seemed to have a firm control on her intake, my father lost his ability to control his drinking and alcohol slowly began to control him. By the time I was born in 1976, my father was an alcoholic well into his downward spiral. Roughly around 6 or 7 years old, my mom decided my dad had to move out of the house because his problem became too big for us to deal with any longer. Nevertheless, my mother wasn't cold and she allowed me to be with my father (provided he came to get me sober) and this is where my father and I got close.

With an alcohol problem, my dad pieced jobs together to make a living, so he didn't have a great deal of money. But that didn't stand in the way of me wanting to be with my father. Oftentimes, my father would pick me up and guiltily apologize for not having enough money to entertain me or buy me toys, and I would tell him that all we had to do was go to the park, watch TV, or ride on the subway because I got a kick out of sitting with my knees in the seat as I watched the trains 'race' in the tunnels. As long as I was with my father it was okay--even when he got drunk shortly after picking me up.

(BTW, the subway experience is a major reason why I still have a unusually high fondness and knowledge of New York City Subways)

It took a while for my father to rebuild his life onto a steady path, so that meant he lived in a number of places before he got his own. With roommates in a makeshift boarding house...on a friend's living room floor...the Y on 135th Street in Harlem. Regardless, wherever my father was, on the weekends, so was I. That's the extent of a child's innocent interpretation and real love. To this day and for the rest of his life, my father will always remember with heartfelt emotion "his buddy" hanging tough with him during those times with few complaints.

Eventually, Melvin Sr., with the help of AA, regained control of himself over alcohol. When things started to get better for him, we got into a habit of going to the movies (or renting movies) almost every weekend--another beginning of one of my life-long passions. After our usual weekend movie outings (which also included my father giving heavily into my own video game addiction at the old arcade Playland or any place with some video game machines in it), I would accompany him to AA meetings; eating cookies and drinking tea while strangers opened their souls to other strangers in a similiar boat in the hope of finding another reason to stay sober.

I was there for my father during times when others turned their backs on him, writing him off as a loser. I believe that this a huge reason my father has sacrificed so much for me over the years. I am convinced his efforts have, and continue to, exceed the duties of a father to his son. Long ago, it entered the place where people do extraordinary things for others because they respect what was done for them at some point.

Then I became a teenager.

To be continued...

Even Buddhists get angry.

Okay...so the well-known part of being a buddhist is the dedication buddhists give to the idea of being peaceful beings trying to spread peace. Given the internal turmoil I have allowed to eat at me over the years, trying to more at peace with the ways of life has been a mighty fine and well-timed decision on my part...

But today at work, I simply got fed up with several situations I view as utter BS on the part of other people being paid to do a job.

I'll be the first to admit that I have traditionally been a lazy dude in my dealings on my own time, but a light bulb has always turned on when I am being compensated for my effort (meaning, when I have a freakin' job). I foolishly assume that this is a general principle held among the working public to varying degrees. However, truth is, people can fall in love with laziness and choke off their own thinking with fear of reprisal in a workplace. In my opinion, this leads to a lack of cooperation and ineffectiveness.

I really dislike this in a work environment. In fact, it burns me to virtually no end because I pride myself on thinking ahead more often than not, and going the extra mile to see a task through while I'm on the clock. Why can't others embrace this concept for the time they are working? It would make life so much simpler and less stressful. The lack of this energy and will in co-workers just disappoints me.

In the hours since I've left the office, I have calmed down a great deal, chanted in front of my Gohonzon, and started to do what an adult should do: Consider ways to bring about the ideal action in the real. And on a higher, personal level, be able to accept the realities of what's before me without allowing it to alter my spirit of effort or knowledge of something better.

I'll see how this plays out tomorrow on the job.

End of vent/revelation.

Reading is Fundamental

I’ve gotten back into reading this year, which also means getting great value out of my library card once again. I just finished Blonde Faith by Walter Mosley. It was the second book from Mosley I’ve read so far this year (third overall) and like the other one, it was a real good read. His characters are so alive in the place he puts them-mentally, physically and spiritually, you begin to feel a part of yourself being revealed as you turn the pages. A few major reasons I enjoy Walter Mosley’s writing is his ability to create black characters (especially the male characters) that are intelligent and exposed to more than ‘the hood’, but are still genuinely intertwined into the fabric of the neighborhood. And after reading these last two novels, I’ve also grown to appreciate the emotional honesty Mosley charges his protagonists with. It’s raw emotion, human frailty and real-life redemption wrapped into one.

Not all novels have that power nor do all authors have that skill.

Reading Mosley is a latent decision I made well after my father suggested him to me years ago in an attempt to integrate more black authors onto my reading list. As I have done with several things my father (and life in general) has offered me, I delayed action out of lack of interest, willful exclusion and honestly, out of spite.

I guess I just laid the groundwork for a near-future entry on the blog here, didn't I?

As it turns out, it took me seeing Laurence Fishburne star in Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned to trigger my memory that my father purchased that book for me as a gift that I hadn’t read up to that point. The movie was good, but the book was better as I’m sure my father already knew.

I have some catching up to do and a mini-goal for the rest of the year: Read all of Walter Mosley's books from the Easy Rawlins series (at least).