The Days of Change and Promise.
Scintilla Bonus Prompt: What is it that you’re sure you’ll never forget about being this age?
We all have epochs and eras in our lives. Despite the fact that on some fundamental level I have felt the same at every age, (weird, I know) I am no exception to this tendency. And I am in the early stages of a new section of my life. Not because of my age, which I think is mostly just a number. Rather because of the activities, plans, and perceptions I have formed over the last three years or so. (When you’re an adult, I think any given collection of three or four years falls into the same “age” in my book.)
I’ll always remember this time of my life because of several paradigm shifts.
There is the shift in the way I relate to people. Always and forever introverted and quiet, in the last few years I’ve learned to no longer allow that to be a disadvantage. To instead engage the world and the people in it in ways that gel the best with my natural temperaments while still leaving room for improvement of my weaknesses.
A shift has also occurred in the last three years or so in how I pursue my career. For while there will always be a temptation to compare my progress to that of my colleagues, I have at least carved out a place where it is not only acceptable but logical to proceed both at my own pace and according to my own road map, when it comes to my own definition of success. To be sure, there are certain rules to be followed, but in so following I can (and will) be more of an individual on a journey, as opposed to a guy tying to assimilate into someone else’s career system.
Finally, during this age, there was a tangible, though indescribable shift in the nature of my writing. I have always written, and I have always been, if I may say so, better at it than most of my contemporaries at any given time. Yet it was during this general section of my life that I not only made a specific dedication to deepen my craft, but when I sensed a particular change in the potency of my writing.
I don’t know if it would be detectable yet to an outsider reading my writing over the same period, but internally about three years ago it felt as though I had achieved a certain experience level in composing prose which catapalted me to the next step in an endless staircase of improvement all writers should climb. A “power-up” to use video game parlance. In many ways, that was the catalyst for all of the other shifts I have mentioned in this post.
There are other reasons why I will never forget being this particular age. Yet I chose to write about these three because it is these three shifts that will make this time in my life unforgettable, when the day comes to asses these days of change and promise.
Temper, Temper
Scintilla Bonus Weekend Prompt: Talk about a time when you lost your temper.
I suppose I can at times, have a bit of a temper. And when I lose it, it is often not a pretty site. I am very much in disagreement with those who say the simple act of losing one’s temper or raising one’s voice is a sign of immaturity, but nonetheless I do so far less often than I used to.
And let’s face it, there are scary ways people lose their temper and then there are funny ways. I’ll concentrate on a funny way I lost mine. A funny and quiet way. (Assuming that yelling is not a pre-requisite for losing one’s temper.) This is even on tape.
I am a big home movie person. Though as the family gets older, (and frankly more boring and lazy) there seems less and less of a reason to film holidays and family events, for a good chunk of years I recorded just about any family event. Once in a great while I would even be in the shot myself, when I convinced someone else to take over the actual filming duties for a while.
Our camcorder, for whatever reason, had the letters EIS appear within the viewfinder no matter what. They never showed up on the end product of course, and since I was satisfied with that, I was never worried about getting rid of the cryptic lettering.
Basically, they meant nothing for my purposes.
In the ten or so years of events that were regularly documented with this camcorder, mom took the video helm at least once in most of them. And for about seven seperate years, there would be a moment in just about every single home movie wherein mom would ask, (while still recording):
“Ty, what’s this EIS on the screen mean?”
The first four times, I explained to her, gently, that it meant nothing. It could be ignored. The next four times she asked the question, I reminded her that she had already previously asked, and then told her again that EIS meant nothing for our purposes. After about the tenth time, I admit to being a little hot under the collar about it. Was it difficult to grasp this concept? At least one (thankfully unrecorded) disagreement resulted from this repeated question.
Finally, in a Christmas home movie from 2006 or so, the following exchange went down. My sister and I decorating the tree. Mom behind the camera.
Mom: What’s this ‘EIS’ in the viewfinder mean, Ty?
Ty: (Visible deep breath and exhale. Pause.) Nothin’. (Second deep breath.)
Cut to Ty hanging his ornament, lips tightly pursed, head shaking. Two or three silent beats. Cut to Christmas tree. Ty’s voice, off camera.
Ty: Mom, you ask me that in every single video we own. (Sardonic laughter.) I just can’t…
Mom: Well…
To read a transcript it doesn’t seem like much. In fact, to watch the video may not reveal much more, unless you are particularly tuned into me and my mannerisms. But I guarantee you that if ever there were a definition of a slow burn, it was going on in my head at that moment.
It took every ounce of my fortitude to simply say “nothin” initially, and I had every intention of that being all that I said on the matter. But second after stunned second ticked away, each one bringing more and more to the forefront of my consciousness how many times a year I had answered the very same question. Over, and over, and over, I thought to myself. It’s the same answer as in the last 45 movies. But don’t say anything. It won’t change anything, just leave it alone. Let it be. Be pissed in your room later.
And then…bam. Controlled as my comment was, and as many of my muscles of calmness I strained to be quiet in my responses, I was, without a doubt, pissed that I was answering this question again, and I had just about no choice but to acknowledge this exasperation to the world at that point. It was inevitable.
Now everytime we watch that video, we like to pause it right at the moment you can see my processing the “avert meltdown” face. And everyone, mom included, has a good laugh about it. Possibly because, after all the ribbing she took in the wake of that video and my response on same, she never again asked me what EIS meant.
So I guess, in that case, losing my temper, even a little, had a positive outcome. It feels good to never answer that question again, even all these years later.
4 Simple Pleasures.
Scintilla Day 8: What are your simplest pleasures? Go beyond description and into showing the experience of each indulgence.
1) Eating out. I don’t even mean it has to be someplace fancy, though that has pleasures all its own as well. But the very act of leaving home to sit down somewhere else while other people prepare your food for you, (something I don’t generally like doing, because I am no good at it) is a simple pleasure.
Even if it’s just grabbing a fast food chicken sandwich while taking a break from a road trip, eating in a restaurant is such a relief to me on so many levels. The previously mentioned not having to cook myself. The breaking of the oftentimes claustrophobic nature of being a freelance writer working from home. The comfort of reminding myself that other people exist nearby without having to actually engage them. The occasional pretty server.
And of course heightened taste of food that is usually not that good for me.
2) Camping. Make no mistake; I don’t mean the most rugged type. I’m not a “tent in the middle of the woods” type of camper. But a simple RV or pop-up, or a tiny rented cabin at a campground? I am all about it.
The way things have to almost by force slow down. The earlier mornings, that despite the intrusion of modern conveniences somehow seem cleaner and softer than mornings we are at home.
The constant smell of fires and food during the day, and at night seeing dozens of tiny sparkling flecks that are the campfires of other distant campers you can’t even see. Tossing random twigs and leaves into your own fire and watching them burn into nothing. Hearing disembodied voices of nearby campers doing the same sort of things in the darkness around their own fires.
Seeing people you don’t even know walking around in clothes they probably wouldn’t be caught dead in outside of a campground. Kids never taking the swimming suits off, because of how much time they spend in the pool. The video arcades, stacked wall to wall with outdated games, and somehow always frigid even in summer due to overzealous air conditioning units. Grilled foods. Real breakfasts. A temporary connection to our primordial kin who had to camp. (Minus electricity and running water of course.)
3) Long walks. The knowledge that you’re doing your heart and other muscles in your body good. Clearing your mind of extraneous thoughts, and opening it to more useful, inspired, creative ones. Observing the aspects of your route-the houses, the people sitting on porches, birds nesting, sometimes even deer stopping to watch you as you stop to watch them. (Who will move first??) Sun on your face. Breeze through your hair. Possibilities.
This simple pleasure is sometimes enhanced when someone is with you. Sharing with one another. Understanding. Getting closer. (Sometimes without having to say anything.)
4) Old stories. You get with a group of people. You know what will come up eventually. The tired old stories of your group. You know what happens in them. You know how they end. In fact, everybody there knows how they end, either because they have heard the stories thousands of times, or because they themselves are part of the story. And yet, it is inevitable; the story gets told. As do countless others of similar pedigree. And everyone laughs again, almost as much as they did the last 40 times they’ve heard it. Because these stories are the fabric of our friendships, and the bonding agent of our lives. And…they’re free.
Charles Elwood Unglebower
Scintilla Day 7: Talk about a time when you saw your mother or father as a person independent of his or her identity as your parent.
Most people in childhood see their parents as super human. But for me it was different and in a sense much worse. Because when I was a child, my father, Charles Unglebower, attained not an unfair superhuman status within my mind. He became a stunning myth. Dad did this by dying when I was 7 years old, and with him this moment is about seeing him outside of that myth, and not merely outside of being my father.
The hole left by his death is one that will never be filled, of course. That wound, that gaping vortex never far from the center of my consciousness has weakened over the years, but denying its impact upon my life even today would be a lie.
Naturally long ago I came to the intellectual understanding that my father was not just my father, but a man in his own right. A person with likes, dislikes, goals and annoyances. Yet years of picnics and awkward family gatherings with older siblings, uncles, family “friends” into who’s lives I had never been properly merged brought volumes of stories about my own father that I could not relate to in the slightest. Not because they portrayed my father as a man outside of being a parent. But because they portrayed an entity that outshone him as a man.
You see my father was for most of his adult life, 6’1 and about 190 pounds. A temper that rivaled my own in a time when grabbing someone by the scruff of the neck at the bar when enough was enough more often than not resulted in restored peace instead of someone pulling a piece. Many a neighborhood blowhard, bully and instigator would at once get quiet and behave himself once old “Snook” Unglebower walked in. (Rhymes with “look”.)
It was these type of stories that dominated my childhood and young adulthood. As well as stories of when my father had gone too far. (Some of which my mother vehemently denies, especially a few from some of my older siblings.)
For a while it was all I knew of my father. Fleeting memories, mixed with a child’s perspective quite contrary to the stories I had heard. As a result, despite my intellectual understanding of the contrary, my father felt less like a man and more like a frightening thunder-god to whom I owed something. A being with whom I had nothing in common, being a 5’7 intellectual to whom few people pay initial attention. A guy that eschews violence whenever he can.
Years of talking with my mother and struggling with these inner views at long last began to moderate the picture of Charles Unglebower. Who yes, was a hot-head, but was also extremely fair. Helpful to those in need. Loving to his family and respectful of all who gave him no reason to be otherwise. The other parts of of my father, after a bit of a long slog, began to emerge at last some time ago.
Yet that still isn’t the moment I saw my father as independent from his identity as my parent. I needed permission from something more than my intellect to seal this deal. That permission came about five years ago, in a dream.
My father’s appearance in my dreams has always been sporadic. And until about five years ago when he did show up, he was unresponsive. Seen from a distance. Surrounded by clouds, or fog, and protected by unknown powers that prevented me from approaching. Forbidding me from touching the man that stood before me. And deeply embedded within my thoughts during such dreams was the notion that under no circumstance was I allowed to acknowledge that who I was seeing was my father.
But five years ago I dreamed I was casually walking down a street in a nearby town. On the other side of the street was a kid on a tricycle, and a man standing in front of him. The kid peddled down the street, the man calling after him to be careful, or something like that. This man turned in my direction as the kid rolled into his driveway. It was Dad.
He and I continued to walk down our respective sides of the street, occasionally engaged in small talk as we went. All the while I knew who this was, and felt I should “not bring it up”, but just accept it. Yet as we reached our respective corners of the street, I decided to cross. I approached the man, and I think I said something like “I know.” My father smiled, and extended his hand, and I shook it. I had never touched my father in a dream before, and I began to wake up, possibly from the sheer power of the moment.
He called out a question to me, and I knew I was waking, but that the question would be important. So I repeated it to make sure I had it. He confirmed it, and vanished as I opened my eyes.
The question was cryptic and to this day I honestly don’t know what it meant. (Nor will I share it here.) But whether or not the question was the point, I have ever since that day seen my father as a person. A man that was my father of course, but a man. Flawed, but noble at times. Doing his best. With something to offer me other than the Olympian image of him painted by others and their stories of fights and towering home runs in the local church league. A real person with whom I could shake hands, and look in the eye. Snook.
The irony of my father feeling more like a real, regular man to me as a result of a dream is not lost on me. But knowing me, I can’t think of a better way to get the message across.
Faith and Mount Kilimanjaro.
Scintilla Project, Day 6: Talk about an experience with faith. Your own, or someone else’s.
Mount Kilimanjaro. I will never climb it. It is a near certainty I will never even see it from a distance. The best it will ever be for me is pictures and movies of various quality. I meet people who have climbed it once in a while.
I am aware, however, that Mount Kilimanjaro exists. I can, for all intents and purposes, guarantee that Mount Kilimanjaro is at this very moment looming over the landscape in Tanzania. This, despite the fact that it is roughly 8,000 miles away from where I am sitting. Roughly 8,000 miles from anywhere I have ever been in my entire life, actually.
Sure, sometimes in an existential moment, I’ll ponder the notion that I can’t guarantee anything that I cannot see at any given moment. But for the most part, I know it’s there. I’ll never witness its beauty, never be made stronger by scaling it, never share stories with brethren who have also scaled it. Unlike Toto, I shall in all likelihood never bless the rains down in Africa.
A picture. A movie. A story. A silly song from the 1980’s. That is all I’m ever going to experience of Mount Kilimanjaro. Though of course, in this life, anything is possible. And sometimes, even the pictures and stories are moving enough.
Those stories, images, movies and legends of Mount Kilimanjaro are sometimes inspiring. Exciting. Thought provoking and profound. Many are horrifying. Sickening. Tragic and sad. So many right and noble reasons to go to Mount Kilimanjaro. And so many wrong, misguided ones.
My own experience with faith? Mount Kilimanjaro.
Ty Unglebower 