A Worthless Restraining Order and Taking Back Your Life

Excerpt from my book in progress, from a story about my step-father: 

"I wanted him out of our lives and I didn’t care what that meant.  I knew that I didn’t want any of us to be victims any more.   So, when I drove my sister home from a church meeting one night and saw him driving slowly by the house, something snapped and I whipped a u-turn in front of the house and took off after him.  Us in my little white Mustang and him in his beat up little pickup truck.  We flew down these country roads in the dark in some crazy pursuit.  The question was, what was I pursuing?  Was it him or was it something else?  I wondered what I would do if I caught him.  What would I say?  What would I do if got my hands on him?  But, I didn’t care.  I felt this great sense of elation!  I smiled—might have even laughed.  The hunter had become the hunted and I wanted him to feel fear.  I knew these old back roads pretty well, and I knew we were headed for gravel.  He went up this hill and to the left and sped down the white rock road with no signs of slowing.  I knew we were a few hundred yards from a tee in the road, and with the darkness and the gravel dust, I decided to slow down, hoping I would still be able to catch him.  We pulled up to the tee and I stopped.  I couldn't tell which direction he had gone, and I knew I hadn’t been that far behind him.  And then I saw him.  He had obviously not known about the tee in the road and had plowed straight through a fence out into the field.  I looked and saw his car about a hundred yards ahead with the driver’s door open and smoke coming up from the engine.  It took a minute to spot him.  He had run about a hundred yards past the car and was crouched beside a tree watching me.  It was a really powerful moment for me.  Here was this man that I had grown to fear and despise.  This coward of a man who, for some reason I don’t understand, preyed on those less powerful than him.  There he was crouched down like a cornered animal.  I remember thinking how pathetic he looked.  How weak and gutless and powerless and pathetic he was.  I actually felt sorry for him.  My heart was softened.  Not in a way that I would ever let him back in my life, but in a way that would allow me to let go.  My sister and I just sat there for a few moments, watching the lights glare back off of his glasses, like a possum's eyes at night.  She said something about how that was just sad.  I agreed.  I flashed my brights at him and honked my horn a couple of times, and then turned around and drove away.  It wasn’t worth it.  He wasn't worth it.  What was I going to do anyway?  What did I expect would make him different?  He at least knew that I would pursue and that I wasn’t going to sit idly by without fighting back, and that was enough for me at that moment, even if nothing else changed."

Missing Small Town Texas

Working on my book tonight and missing my little Texas hometown.  Missing train tracks running through the neighbor's yard and june bugs and populations signs with only three digits.  Missing longhorn cattle and loud bugs and fried everything.  I'm missing big green trees, hay bales in freshly cut fields and the sound of old guys sitting at the convenience store/diner booth playing dominoes and chatting about the local high school football game on Friday night.  "How's the team looking this year?"  I miss hearing those accents and phrases like "Well, I'm going to head on over to the Walmarts in a while...." or the inevitable daily chats about the weather.

One of my favorite song lyrics is from one of my favorite Southern boys, Don Williams.

"I can still hear the soft Southern winds in the live oak trees.
And those Williams boys, they still mean a lot to me--Hank and Tennessee
I guess we're all going to be what we're going to be
But what'll you do with good ole' boys like me"

I can just hear his smooth, mellow voice as I type those words.  Love this song so much.  It's about getting out and moving on, but also how you never do leave completely.  The places of your childhood--the smells and sounds and the feel of the air--they never leave.  And even if you don't want to necessarily move back, there's something about it that you can't shake from your soul.  And even if things happened that weren't good, that made those times less than happy on occasion, there is a flaxen thread that connects you always.  There is a longing to return, but not to the way it was.  The longing, I find, is to return to the childhood you wished it would have been.

Sorting Out My Story....

Do you remember that scene in the movie “Searching for Bobby Fischer” in which he is staring at the chess board trying to decide his next move, and he remembers his coach saying something about how he needs to see the ending and how he will get there before he makes his next move?  That’s how I feel about this book.  I keep writing down these bits and pieces of my story because I feel so compelled to write them.  But I can’t figure out why it needs to be written down.  I feel like I’m staring at a chess board and all the pieces are there, although perhaps scattered a little across the board and not perfectly lined up.  It isn’t random, because I put them there.  I just can’t figure out why I put them there and where they are supposed to wind up so that there is some kind of successful end result.  Sometimes I feel like the king and the goal is to protect myself and make sure I win.  But mostly I feel like little Bobby Fischer staring down at my life knowing that just a handful of correct moves will bring victory.  If only I could figure it out.  I love that scene in the movie.  I love the camera as it’s focused on his face trying to make sense of the pieces.  I love as it shifts from the pieces being in focus to his face as it clicks in his mind, and you see hope and adrenaline as he realizes how to win.  He lifts his head, his mind clear with the answer, solidifies his plan, and finishes the game.  Victory.  I’m hoping that moment of clarity will come.  And more importantly, I’m hoping when it does come, I will have the courage to finish.

I'm a Writer Because it's Cheap and Easy

I turned forty-one this year, forty-two is fast approaching and it’s been bothering me.  Actually, I’ve been annoyed since turning forty, and probably the frustration started creeping in slowly along about thirty-eight.  It’s not what you might think, though.  I’m not thrilled with the aging process, but a few grey hairs and some creases on my face are the least of my concerns.  I heard someone say once that everyone wants to live forever, but nobody wants to get old, and of course, those two things don’t live in harmony.  I do want to live a long life, and I don’t mind the physical changes as much as you might think.  It’s the lack of progress that really sticks in my craw.

I made one goal this year for the new year.  I wanted to be a finisher.  All my life I’ve dabbled here and there and started new project after new project.  I come up with all these fun, cool ideas and I get so excited to start, but somewhere not too far into it, I fizzle.  I realize how much work it will really take, and I lose the spark, or the drive, or the confidence, or all three.  I get overwhelmed at what it might take to accomplish that goal, and I throw in the towel.  Or maybe I don’t throw it in—maybe what I really do is fold it up and set it aside because I’ve convinced myself that I will be returning to finish that project some day.  Yeah, right.  I think that’s part of my frustration, too—I’m not honest with myself.  I don’t finish things and I’m not even honest with myself about why.  I think I’m lazy, too.  I look at what it will take to finish what I’ve started (because I do dream big) and I sigh and tell myself that nobody is going to pay attention to me or like what I’ve created, and so instead of pushing forward, I get lazy and move on to something I think is easier.  I don’t finish things, I’m not honest with myself and I’m lazy.  Yeah, that about sums it up.

It’s part of the reason I wanted to write.  I thought, hey it’s cheap, it’s easy and I can do it in my spare time with nothing but my computer and my creativity, because of all the flaws I do recognize about myself, I also think I am funny and creative and a decent writer.  I can make people laugh.  I’ve been told on more than one occasion that I have a way of wording things that is engaging.  So why not write?

I’ll tell you why.  Because it’s not easy.

I am an artist, although I don’t think I am an artist in the true sense of the word.  I’m not the kind of artist that is overly pained and gathering inspiration for a new modern sculpture from a bag of snow peas or a pile of trash that looks like Jesus.  I don’t sketch every day.  I haven’t really even had a real art class.  I have a theatre degree and have worked as a scenic artist and designer here and there, but nothing major.  Don’t bother Googling me, as you will not find much.  I’m small potatoes.  But I love art and I am very visual and hands on, and am happiest when I’m creating something new.
But back to the writing.  I have wanted to write for a very long time, but never thought I had anything to say.  The same is true of my art.  I love to create things, but more practical things.  Functional art.  I like functional things that are made in a cool way.  I’ve wanted to create art for a very long time, too, but again, I never felt I had something to say in my art.  I feel like being an artist means you are expressing something, and I just couldn’t do that.  I never thought I had enough story to share, or certainly not enough meaning behind that story to make it interesting to anyone besides me.  For some reason, turning forty changed that.

I’ve been caught up in reflection these last few years.  I’ve become even more nostalgic than I was, and I’m a pretty sentimental person, so that’s saying a lot.  I’ve been sorting through my frustrations with my lack of progress, and trying to understand why it is that I don’t finish things.  Why don’t I have the confidence and the determination to just push forward.  I read an old Chinese proverb recently that said “I dreamed a thousand new paths…I woke and walked my old one.”  It sunk deep in my soul, and I decided that it was time.

I do have something to say, but honestly, as I begin this book, I don’t know what that message is.  All I know is that it is bubbling to the surface in the form of thousands of memories that haunt my mind.  They are relentless.  They are loud and they wake me in the middle of the night with pushy, unrelenting pokes and jabs and, occasionally, a more gentle shake so they can remind me of something I’ve never forgotten.  I don’t know what they each mean to my story, but I do recognize that if they are this determined to be heard, then they must be trying to tell me something.  So, I decided to write them down as they came to me, and when I had more time, I would gather up all the pieces to this great puzzle and put them together to see the final picture.  I’m curious as to what it will be.  I hope it’s something  beautiful.

(I wrote this two years ago, and have made a lot of progress on what I call "the book".  I'm in the piecing it together phase, and filling in the gaps, since I just wrote down these memories as they happened, not in any order and not connected...yet.)

Jack in the Box

Memories are a little like a jack-in-the-box.  It’s colorful and full of something familiar yet unexpected.  So, you wind it up out of curiosity and let the music play, and suddenly something pops up, and it either makes you laugh and say “oh yeah, I remember that!”, or it scares you to death, so you shove it back in and close the lid.  But that curiosity is just too much, so you start winding again, and sometimes you wind a little more slowly hoping to be able to anticipate the surprise.  But, it only makes the music weirder and the anxiety greater, and the surprise either that much more funny or that much more horrendous.  So you shove it back in, slam the lid, and sometimes let it sit on a shelf for months or years, but eventually, it will draw you back in.

The only thing is that I’ve always related a little more to the Land of Misfits from the Rudolph movie and I think mine is actually a Charlie-in-the-box instead.  It looks the same as a jack-in-the-box, it winds up the same way, the music is the same, but when those experiences pop out, they’re just a little off.

I was reviewing some things I had written privately some time ago about some of these events that happened when I was younger, and I started to realize that this is going to be tougher than I thought.  How do you write openly and honestly about events that shaped your life in one way or another without hurting others that were involved in some degree?  Even without mentioning names and being more general with circumstances, it’s hard to know what will be appropriate to share, especially since many close to you will recognize to whom you are referring.  As I look through the things I want to share, I think perhaps I need to have a conversation or two before I get too deep into some of these more painful memories.  And I need to make a decision myself if I’m ready for everyone to know these things or if I need to shove that little Charlie back into his box and shelve him a little longer.  I don’t think I can, though.  Those things were designed to pop out, and at least if you’re the one turning the crank, you have the opportunity to stand by to make sure that the people who might initially be a little afraid get an explanation and a back story to help them understand that it’s just a little metal box with a crank attached to a spring covered in fabric and a painted wooden head—nothing to be afraid of.  Of course, you have to believe that yourself first.

I've been writing these thoughts and memories down for years, and as I get ready to finally piece them all together into some semblance of a book, I hope I can do it justice.  I hope I can capture how these things have shaped me.  I hope it means something.  And I hope I can move forward, because life can be so beautiful.