| Genetics vs Environment I've always believed that it's our surroundings and experiences that are responsible for the type of person we become rather than a genetic predisposition towards any certain behavior or personality trait. We are the sum total of our experiences. Whenever I try to figure out who or what I am the experiences I've had pass through my mind in random order. I relive the events of my life in a chaotic, disconnected way a bit like poor, hapless Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse Five. I don't choose the thoughts that come when I'm thinking about my life, they just flow from one to the next. These are some random thoughts I had today while working on my novel. I was trying to work on a background for my protagonist, based on myself, and I began to think about my life. I began to jot these down. Now that my mental masturbation has reached a fever pitch and has caused this web site to begin growing beyond my control, I'd thought I'd post these thoughts. Maybe it's a bio, maybe not. Maybe it's like a jigsaw puzzle with some pieces missing. Maybe it will give a picture when taken as a whole. I Am A Product Of My Environment I was born in The Sixties. I was impressionable in The Seventies I grew up in the Eighties I matured in The Ninties. Who am I? I grew up under Ronald Reagan, a castaway orphan of Reaganomics. I am an agnostic who went to a Catholic school and I think those two facts are linked. My mother was a Beatnick anf my Father was a Green Beret who wanted to be a mercenary. I still have no clear picture of how they ever got together. I was a soldier, but not a very good one. I am a veteran of a foreign war, but not a very big war. I've done nearly every illegal drug except heroin and cocaine. In high school I took many, many hallucinogens. I have been arrested three times by the police. The worst thing I've never been caught for. When I find out I've read some highbrow book that a friend hasn't I feel a momentary burst of snobbishness well up. It isn't always easy to quash it. I really do like long walks on the beach. It's even better if it is raining. When I was eight years old, my father took me to a battleship that serves as a museum. On board were a group of visiting Japanese merchant seamen, ironic because the ship had fought in the Pacific during WWII. Two of them approached my Dad and I. They spoke almost no English yet their amazement with my red hair was apparent. Lacking the necessary words, they expressed themselves to my Dad with what English they could muster. They pointed at me and said "Boy with fire". Dad taught them how to say "red hair". In gratitude, the older sailor made an origami swan for me from the tinfoil in his cigarette packet. I have nearly died three times in my life thus far; once by water, once by fire and once by angry German Shepard. I dropped out of high school in my sophomore year and only went back the next year under threat of homelessness. I had to repeat the 10th grade. I wasn't fond of education and I was a bit of a discipline problem. Today I'd be given extra help and diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder. Back then it was just called being a punk. I've slept with fourteen women in my life thus far...and received miscellaneous favors from a few others as well as two prostitutes...and one of the scariest things I've ever had to make myself do is take an HIV test. It's like waiting for a bomb to go off. The saying that God watches over drunkards and fools must ring true...for I came up negative. I've also never fathered a child. I've been in love with three women in my life. I was engaged to one of them. Two of them are now married and have children. I lived with a woman for three years and I'm positive I never loved her. I like to pretend I'm enigmatic. I think Iggy Pop kicks ass. I also think it may have been better had Kurt Cobain called Courtney into the bedroom and made it a murder/suicide. One of the pieces of my Weltanschuuang...my philosophy of life, is to reach the end of it with as few regrets as is possible. It doesn't always work out. One particular evening comes to mind: One time when I was home from the Army, on leave from my base in Texas, I went with my parents to a huge family gathering for my aunt and uncle's fiftieth wedding aniversary. At Dad's insistence I wore my Class A dress uniform. After making the rounds of relatives I ran into my cousin Stephanie, a special person in our family, always in the family news. She had been battling Leukemia for most of her fifteen years. She had recenlty had a relapse and had been undergoing chemotherapy treatments, yet again causing her hair to fall out. This was a cycle oft repeated; relapse, treatment, remission. On this particular night, though, she was in high spirits...she almost always was, even when the chemo seemed worse than the disease. We had't seen each other in two years so we talked for a while off to the side. I felt so bad for her but managed to keep it hidden. She was a very pretty girl, more so every time I saw her. This night she wore a beautiful pink dress and a matching head wrap to cover her hair loss. She even joked about the wrap calling it her "turban" and herself a "Swami". We caught up on things...she had me explain all the ribbons and patches on my uniform...I asked her about school...then we had to go back to our respective tables, the slurred speeches by family members were beginning. During the next part of the evening we kept catching each other's attention as we sat at our tables eating dinner. I'd look at my uncle James to my right, a notorious bore, and roll my eyes, making Stephanie laugh...then she would look at her father, who always seemed to have a pinched look on his face, and do a perfect mockery of it...funny enogh to make me put my face in my hands, shoulders shaking with laughter. This continued for a while. Then came Johnny. My cousin Johnny, notorious for a nearly unquenchable thirst for the booze, joined me at my table. He proceeded to buy me drinks (this was cool because I was just 20 and not legal in Massachusetts) and beg for tales of soldiery and how I was keeping Texas safe from our country's enemies, preserving democracy in the Lone Star State. Well, the temptations of free booze and the chance to tell some lies proved too much for me; I swiftly, and with much vigor, became drunk. So did Johnny, a behemoth on the drinking scene. Then it happened. Searing pain, a flowing wetness. All my medical training told me I had just been shot in the groin. After a panicky two seconds, and a leonine bellow of pure pain, I realized Johnny had just managed to knock my uncle's fresh cup of coffee into my crotch. As soon as I was sure my smouldering genitals were not in need of a trip to the burn ward, I went to the men's room to try and salvage my dress uniform. The pants were going to be a bitch to clean. I reurned to the table drunk and sullen...and stayed that way until my family left the function hall for home. The booze and my rotten mood caused me to forget all about Stephanie and the fun we had been having. Two nights later I went back to Texas. The cycle of the girl's disease did not repeat this time. Stephanie got worse and died five weeks after the night of the family party. I had plenty of leave time left so I got an emergency three day pass to go to the funeral. It was a devastating affair. Stephanie had always become well again...now it was a shock. It was also closed casket with just her picture on top. The Leukemia had taken quite a toll on her in the final weeks. I felt miserable, like I had blown her off at the party when I should have been spending time with her. I said my prayers, paid my respects, sat by myself and kept quiet. To this day I cannot remember who it was that came up to me next; an aunt? A female cousin? I have no memory of the face, only the gender. But someone did and, while meaning well, nearly crushed me with guilt. I was told that Stephanie had talked about me all that night, how good it was to see me. She had wanted to ask me to dance once the deejay had started to play, but she had been too nervous to ask and had been hoping I would ask her. But there I was, drunk and pissed off and ignoring everyone. I didn't reply to this news and the unkown female left. I just sat rubbing my hands through my crewcut. I eventually made my way to the downstairs men's room to splash cold water on my face. After I did that, I stared at myself in the mirror while I cringed against a knotting stomach. Then I vomited in the sink. This is quite posibly my biggest regret...one of them anyway. And sometimes when I think about it the words "self loathing" don't quite seem strong enough. My writing has resumed...after much delay I'm writing again with vigor. But it's not stories so much I'm working on as letters...expressions of recessed emotions and hidden tales. I've fallen in love with a woman. She's opening up doorways I've closed. I've opened up to her in an incredibly short span of time and I've been writing to her to express myself as never before...to show my gratitude for saving me from self delusion and the cold, cold feeling of total lonliness. I've finally found her...the woman who can provide what I need without judgement or demands in return. I've found my Confessor and my Muse. My Confessor. Born a Catholic I have an innate desire to tell my wrongs and perceived wrongs...to assuage my soul through release. I don't seek forgiveness...I may seek redemption...but I need someone to tell all my hidden truths to. And now I have...ans she has inspired me through my confessions....so she is my Muse as well. As my Muse...what I write from these days forward...I write to her....I write for her. Until I met this woman I was positive I'd never find these qualities. I was at the point of giving up after a series of tragic endings...tragic for me, that is. I'd closed off myself to the handful of women I'd met recently...determined not to give too much of myself...or even get close. It was an unusual feeling for me...brought on by the harsh betrayal of a pretender. This is what it felt like: I'm standing alone in a darkened room, no light. I'm not quite sure how I got there. There is no depth perception and no guideposts. I'm in the center and I know that if I take a step in any direction I will fall and keep falling. There is something in my hand, something not quite cold...organic...like something that has recently died. I cannot stand the feel of it but I don't want to let it go...it's the only clue as to why I might be where I am. The darkness is unfamiliar and overwhelming. The very lack of anything tangible in the environment of the room takes on frightening and disorienting dimesions. It is like an erotic sensory deprivation game taken to scary extremes. The dead thing in my hand refuses to give up any answers. It's too much for me to take...I want to surrender. I feel that if I discard the dead thing I'll have my answers and can escape this dark place. I raise my arm...I hesitate...somethng doesn't feel right. I quash those feelings and release my grip...it falls away from me...falls and keeps falling into the dark. Just at the moment it slips from my slack fingers I know what it is I've been holding...it is my heart. BUT.... That last bit did not happen. The woman, my Muse and Confessor, did not allow it to happen...the door to the room has opened and I'm in the light. I can see where it is I need to go. I've held onto my heart...her presence has breathed life back into it. And now I'm handing it over to her care and stewardship. And I know she will take possession of it. I am not prone to believing in absolutes...I live in the gray shade...but I believe this woman to be Absolute Perfection. That term needs no explantion from me. One question remains...one that may have no answer. How do I possibly thank someone who has made all my life's accomplishments thus far, and any I might make, seem so worthwhile? On Saints, Angels, God-like Creatures and the Hand of Fate Things shift. Nature seeks a balance. People seek balance. But the pull of physics...the ebb and flow of emotions and events often fight the serenity of balance. Things shift. From balanced to one side or the other. To most this is unacceptable, so decisions are made, contingencies executed and courses of action followed. And balance is restored....but all too often at the expense of something. Sometimes something precious. Something shifted. I ascribed saint like qualities to my muse. But I was wrong...not through her fault but my own. I held her to too high a standard perhaps. I made her a savior and a saint when she was all too human. But how can one not do this when viewing such a god-like creature? Veteran's Day Today is Veteran's Day and I did the same thing I do every year. I put on my old cammie fatigue shirt, pin my medals to it and stand quietly at the back of the crowd as I watch the local parade pass by. I never march. Then I go home and ponder my life. It's been nearly ten years since my war. Ten years. We were just boys. I was 22. My best friends were 20, 21 and 23. Sometimes I can't remember what it was like to be that young. It wasn't Vietnam. Some say we broke the nation from the grip of the Vietnam Syndrome by winning such a quick and total victory. I don't have flashbacks in the traditional sense but I sometimes have bad dreams. And the occasional noise or smell will bring me back unexpectedly and unconrollably. Burning rubber: reminds me of hundreds of burnt out tanks. The smell of roasted pork is too much like the greasy smell of burning human flesh and I can't eat it. My most common dream is this: It is dark. I am trying to run through deep sand and my movements are slow and sluggish. Someone is calling for help and I can't see him. Neither can I get to him. I'm sinking in the sand. The war was a defining event in my life. I know the exact moment that I found the key to my life. A wounded soldier I was trying to treat died right in front of me. He was too far gone to help by the time I and the other medics arrived. He was literally blown apart by an anti-tank rocket. Both of his legs were gone from mid thigh down and his abdomen, groin and chest had been opened up by shrapnel. All I could do was hold his hand and give human comfort until his chest fell from his hitching breath and did not rise again. After he died I just looked at him for a while. And that was when I had my epiphany. Looking at his shredded body...he had been alive and vibrant not long before. He had died before my eyes...passed to another plane. The transience of the flesh hit home just then. We all die, no one knows when. We have to live as best we can, at all times. I knew at that moment that I could take anything, forgive any trespass, take any risk. The cliche of life being too short is not strong enough. This is what I also use to assuage the guilt I still feel over not being able to save that sodier's life. After the war I looked into who he was, call it morbid curiosity. He was 20 years old and from Texas. Mexican-American. He had a wife and a baby girl who had been born while he was deployed and that he never saw. I've written several letters to his family but never mailed them. The Pen Is Heavier Than The Sword I am afraid to write. I am afraid not to write. |