A Challenge

This kind of feels like I'm writing another bullshit blog entry about the wife and kids and how incredibly interesting it is that we've all decided to switch to another brand of dishwashing powder.

I have to warn you that I've been up since 4:00 AM with a nauseous 2-year-old who is now sleeping quietly on the floor but will probably wake up and projectile vomit on me (again) before I finish these thoughts--so I'm going to furiously type until she does. I'm sitting on my kitchen table surrounded by last night's place mats and a wilting bowl of salad that somehow didn't get cleared off last night. The coffee pot is half-full (or is it half-empty? I can never decide and I choose not to commit), and there are crumbs from a chocolate-dipped biscotti that I rummaged out of our pantry this morning.

I've hit a lull. Wondering if it's the impending change of seasons or just a convergence of a lot of factors amplified by lack of sleep and over-caffeination.

-I have a pile of unfinished work that is urgent but not likely to get touched today, or tomorrow...

-I'm in semi-depression because I've finished a fantastic novel (Pride and Prejudice and I kind of miss the characters--almost like some of my friends died suddenly--I know, I'm weird that way when it comes to literature)

-I have a lot of personal projects that I would like to work on but I can't

-I have a lot of things to say, but nobody really wants to listen to it (I blame myself for being boring)

-I look at everything I've accomplished in the last 15 years, and feel like such a whiner--I never thought I would be where I am today, and I don't appreciate it enough

-I've been comparing my photography with truly artistic people, and I don't even compare...not that I care, but I was secretly hoping that I had raw, undiscovered genius on some level

I was reading The Godfather over the holidays, and I was struck by a universal truth that was illuminated by some of the characters. In particular, Amerigo Bonasera, the undertaker. He has built a very conservative lifestyle in America and doesn't embrace the organized crime organization headed by Vito Corleone. He tries to be humble, work hard, and assimilate into American society, shunning involvement or obligation to Vito Corleone.

But something happens--two guys beat up his daughter--and Bonasera goes straight in to the Godfather's office and asks him to kill these boys.

The metaphor, in my interpretation is that his invented world is conservative idealism, while Vito Corleone's violent, harsh life of crime represents the unfiltered reality of the way the world actually works. Bonasera's easy abandonment of one for the other in his time of hardship tells me a few things--

1) His success made him complacent. He became so engrossed in one philosophy that he ignored the existence of the other

2) Even while living in denial of its relevancy, he subconsciously kept his toe in the water of the "other world", so he could rejoin it in an emergency

3) He voted with his heart--essentially he knows the difference in effectiveness between the two worlds--Vito Corleone's world of crime appeals to him in the certainty of justice, though intellectually his reliance in society's treatment of the boys is the more responsible action that would better hold his imagined world together

There was a time in my life when I had to take a day off from work because we only had enough gas to get to work and back one time, and we had to wait for the next day because it was payday--we cashed our checks on the way home so we could fill up the car with gas and avoid eviction(I had a roommate at the time, who had been a buddy of mine since we were kids). The only food we had in the house was salt in a cardboard shaker, 1/3 jar of old strawberry jam, and half a bottle of ketchup. We split the jam for dinner, I think he used a plastic spork and I used a pencil to eat it with... I lost 40 lbs. in three months because I only ate one meal every two days. I bummed rides to work and school because I didn't have a car or even a bicycle. People started to bring me cans of food from their church food pantry.

Sometimes I felt like I was on the bottom rung of Maslow's hierarchy of needs--I was working hard just to put food in my mouth. One thing about that time, though, is that it was a time of great clarity. I wasn't worried about what the stock market was doing, or whether or not to carpet the upstairs only or the whole house, or which restaurant to visit (let alone self-actualizing goals like appreciation of my art efforts)--It was still a complicated world but my goal was simple: survival. Having a family complicates this a little: I was telling a friend earlier this week that I could go back to the (chuckle) low-maintenance life, but it would kill me to see my kids suffer, or to disappoint my wife with failure.

I read my list of things that I'm dissatisfied with, and realize that, compared to my miserable state of being 17 years ago, I'm living the high life. But, once you rise above subsistence living, there is a temptation to ignore the existence of vulnerability and dependency. I've gotten flashes of this at times, particularly when someone close to me has died suddenly--I've thought to myself: You know, life vanishes, sometimes without much warning, and I don't want to take things for granted. Cliches abound: Live your life as if this may be your last day...blah, blah, blah.

Another example of this, if you need one, occurred when the hurricanes hit New Orleans and threatened to hit Houston. Ask anyone that witnessed these events--the threat of lowering the common denominator to mere existence turned people into animals.

I need to toss out my lofty, materialistic goals and do a better job of living life day by day and enjoying the experience, savoring the battles without putting too much importance in the ultimate outcome. Without ignoring the realization of the ugly truth that life is unperfumed, violent, and fragile.