Foggy Night Epiphanies

Twice in recent nights, I have bought a coffee or a latte, a scone or a doughnut, and sat on a bench by Lloyd Lake, watching the water, the lowering fog precipitating into water droplets, and the street lamps just turning on.

It is close to major roads, but very still. It's the sort of place to take stock of things, to question your assumptions, to take a breath between work and going home for the night to write.

Everyone needs a place like this, especially because it is almost literally across the road from my house, so when I get hungry or get tired of thinking and want a beer, I don't have to be particularly patient.

I've been thinking about the assumption I've made that I've always been doing my very best to treat everyone as well as could be desired. I don't know if I have. I considered making a mental checklist of all the actions that might make me feel secretly guilty, but as my Dad said, checklists are too simplistic for dealing with people. Relationships with people are ambiguous, even when you have--or are pretty sure you have--the best of intentions.

I think the conclusion that I reached is that a checklist, either mental or written, is not a cure-all, but it might provide a basis for self-evaluation, which is always a good thing, if done honestly. Of course, as Han Solo pointed out to Obi-Wan and Luke regarding the avoidance of Imperial entanglements, "Well, that's the trick, isn't it?"

Han also told Princess Leia, "You like me because I'm a scoundrel." So he clearly knew what he was talking about.

Perhaps the real trick is having some place like Lloyd Lake, or at least that sort of routine, where you can step away from everything for a minute or two and take the time to think, rather than just being swept along in a flood of choices and decisions.

Narrating a World Into Being

Tonight I finished American Gods by Neil Gaiman, another novel in the recent string of novels I've polished off, a sudden resurgence of reading productivity of late that has swallowed up a bit of Star Wars brain candy, You Suck! by Christopher Moore, Kafka On The Shore by Haruki Murakami, and The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night Time by Mark Haddon. Something has rekindled the love of narrative in me, which might have had something to do with the five hour flight either side of the trip to Hawaii, which allowed me to put large dents in Kafka and American Gods.

There is something doubly creative about a good work of fiction, which is why, in my opinion, the novel is always going to be better than a movie adaptation; the reader engaged with the novel creates in his own head the world invoked by the narrative. It feels substantial.

It is here that one can find a parallel between reading a novel and following a sports season. And this leads me to a dilemma: I have lost the main protagonist for the upcoming English Premiership season, as Newcastle United were relegated.

Why were they my favorite? For the simple reason that they were Alan Shearer's hometown and final club. Why was Alan Shearer the key to my allegiance? I'm not sure, but when I first saw televised Premiership football, I saw Shearer playing for Blackburn Rovers, and he made an impression on me, much like a totem from the Pacific Northwest might if it showed up unexpectedly in your living room one day.

There's no real rhyme or reason to it: I have no geographical affiliation with Newcastle, other than passing by the city on the train from London to Edinburgh on our family vacation in 2008, and geographical affiliation is really the most sensible basis for sports fan allegiance--if there can be said to be anything sensible about sports fanaticism. And even the path of the talisman, that of Alan Shearer, if he had ended up playing for a different team, Chelsea or Manchester United, I might have cheered for them; more on this question in a separate blog, as I won't torture the non-sports-fanatics with a breakdown of my quest for a new favorite team.

But here's the best metaphor I can find: the football season with Newcastle not playing in the Premiership will be like reading a Sherlock Holmes story without Sherlock Holmes in it: sure, stuff might happen, but it just won't feel the same. It feels wrong.

Bear in mind that as I have no real stake in the matter, my British friends who actually cheer for various football teams have good reason to consider me an impostor, but oh well.

The point is, for a narrative to work as best as it might, you need a filter, a viewpoint that pervades the entire work and that appeals to the reader. For instance, following one sports team establishes a stake in the results of what unfolds on the playing field; this is why I enjoy writing about the baseball games I'm attending this year.

Establishing this filter is key to writing fiction successfully, I suspect, and it may be why I have such a problem writing fiction. So, an experiment. I have an actual blog on which I post many of the same entries I post on LiveJournal; I think I ought to narrow the focus of my blog, or separate the blog into multiple blogs to handle the different subjects that appeal to me: pop culture, sports, reading, etc. The more precise the voice in each blog, the better the chance of developing a readership, perhaps, or learning how to tell a coherent story.

On the other hand, I could be completely wrong about everything ever.

Hmm.

When The Game Is Over

Last night, Nick Adenhart, a 22-year old rookie pitcher for the Angels, pitched six scoreless innings in Anaheim with his father watching, succeeding at a game that requires motivation and practice in addition to talent. His career on the grand stage, for money that could help him take care of his family for doing something he loves, was blossoming.

Oakland rallied to win in the late innings, but that would not diminish how proud his father must have felt.

In the early hours of Thursday, a driver ran a stoplight and broad-sided a sports car in which Adenhart was riding. Adenhart and two of his friends died; a fourth remains in critical condition.

What words could possibly express what his parents must have felt on getting that phone call?

There is nothing to say that can do justice to this tragedy.

Life changes so abruptly, predicated on such small details as which street they chose, when they turned the car on, when the game ended and how long Adenhart took to leave the ballpark.

And another example: tonight in the Giants game against the Milwaukee Brewers, the Giants absolutely dominated the Brewers, winning 7-1. But in the top of the ninth, a line drive off the bat of Milwaukee's Mike Cameron caught pitcher Joe Martinez in the head. Martinez is resting comfortably in a hospital tonight, alert and apparently stable. But the subtlest change in the ball's trajectory or how Martinez reacted or where his stride took him, and the results of that line drive could have been much worse.

Are these tragedies or near-tragedies that afflict athletes and other celebrities any more heartbreaking than any of the thousands of other heartbreaks across the world every day? Of course not, but they are a stark and very visible reminder of the fragility of life and the importance of savoring the moments of happiness, companionship, love, joy, beauty, etc.

Tonight I walked home from work in a light drizzle that gave way to a typically-San Franciscan air, not raining but definitely damp. The umbrella I carried was almost yanked out of my hand a couple of times by bites of wind. Work had been long, but I felt light and refreshed by the air; I went into the comforting chaos of Green Apple Books, spent money, walked home, bought a hot drink and cookies.

Inconsequential details compared to the pain suffered by Nick Adenhart's friends, family, and teammates today, but real nonetheless.

What We Live For . . .

is not an endless torrent of calls, one caller with a thousand names and twenty-odd requests, hours of doing the same thing that might help the members, but doesn't feel like it is building anything permanent. It doesn't feel productive; it doesn't feel creative.

I'm caught in this state of mind where I am feeling less than productive, not in the sense of not getting work done, but in a more general sense. It's hard to pinpoint the root cause of this dissatisfaction. I believe in the principles of credit unions, but right now, even knowing how important money is to this society, and therefore knowing that what I do helps the members, that doesn't feel like enough. I think I'm really starting to feel the first cracks in the illusion of immortality, not just in the sense of growing old or not, but in the sense of life staying constant, with the same people populating the same roles and functions that orbit my perception of the universe.

My life is a good one, with many fulfilling and rich aspects: a girlfriend I've been dating 66% longer than my last (and okay, first) girlfriend; good friends who live near, some who are moving nearer; family; the city of San Francisco, the ocean, wildflowers on Mount Diablo, the redwood grove in Golden Gate Park. Nevertheless, I need to do something; I'm just not sure what 'doing something' means.

Up to now, of course, I have defined 'doing something' as writing, which may or may not hold true for the rest of my life, but it is a good foundation.

Writing. I would love to say that I write profound stuff that takes the blank page of the reader's soul, crumples it up, then flattens it back out as best one can, leaving the page almost the same as before, but with interesting crinkles of nuance and feeling. Or something much less pompous of an image.

I've been trying for some time to write short stories on a set schedule, but it does not appear to be happening. I apply pressure where it isn't needed. So for now, I'm going to start simply, a resolution to write 250 words a day. No further guidelines, no demands for brilliance.

We'll see where that goes. In the meantime, I've finished my writing requirement for today. Time to listen to the rest of the Giants game on the radio.