Lost and Found

Have you seen the things I've lost? Just asking. Thirty-four years ago, I lost my high school senior ring when my house was burglarized. I know you and I have never met, and I know the burglary was a long time ago, but that ring must be somewhere, right? Maybe it ended up in your possession by way of a garage sale, a visit to an antique store, a find on the street, or some other way unfathomable to me right now.

I am also looking for Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser. I know I lent those three books to different people, though I cannot remember who, and at different times, though I can't remember when. Actually, I have a good suspicion of who borrowed the Csikszentmihalyi book, but I dare not ask him out of embarrassment because he has gifted me so many books over the years. Sometimes I will bring up this matter in a conversation with him, saying something like, "I'm still trying to find that Csikszentmihalyi book but can't for the life of me find it." I get no response from him, which makes me wonder if he has lied to me about many other things throughout our long friendship. I still want to look up things in those books, but I refuse to buy another copy in the hope that someone, maybe you, might return them. One point I should make about the Rukeyser book. My wife insists that I never owned it, that it was just a wish list book. But how can she know all of the thousand or so books I have owned? Plus, I recall like it was yesterday thumbing through Rukeyser's poems, feeling alternately helplessness,  numbness, hopefulness. How could I have not owned that book? For this and other reasons, I have stopped lending people books. They never return them unless I ask for them, and I cannot bring myself to ask. 

Now you might be thinking if I cannot bring myself to ask people I know to return the things I've lent them, then how could I possibly ask you, a total stranger, to return something in the improbable event that they ended up in your possession? I would say you've got an excellent point, I would thank you for raising it, and I would reflect on that fine piece of logic, as I also ponder all I have lost. But, believe me: even though I have no proper answer for you, I will still ask if you have them. And who are you not to answer?

I Am Forever

I can see nearly forever from here, but not quite. Everyone I know is beside me. Everyone I ever met but do not see any more is behind me. Everyone I have never met but will is before me, but even if I look ahead, I cannot see them. 

I look beside myself. Those beside me see what I am seeing, some beyond my range, some before my range. Some of them I agree with about what I see. Some I disagree with but understand why they see what they see, and they understand why I see what I see. Some I disagree with but understand why they see what they see but do not understand why I see what I see. Some I disagree with and will never understand why they see what they see, but they will understand why I see what I see. Some I disagree with and will never understand why they see what they see, and they will never understand why I see what I see. 

I look behind myself. Very few of those behind me ever met can still see me. Those few who can still see me see someone different than what I now am. Those many who can no longer see me still carry me with them without knowing it, so they are different than they would have been if they had never met me. I too carry them with me and I am different than I would have been if I had never met them.

Although I cannot look before myself, I try. I imagine that some of them will pass by in an instant and move behind me for good. Some will stand beside me for a while and then move behind me for good as well. Some will stand beside me and stay with me until I move behind them for good. Those will expand the range of what I can see. 

There are also those who may seem to be before me but will never stand beside me or move behind me. But the more I think about those, the more I see that they never were and can neither be nor will be. 

Then there are those who can no longer be beside, before, or behind me. Those I still see, sometimes  more clearly than those still standing beside me, even though I have changed because of those beside me.

Finally, there are others too, but I have no way of placing them beside, behind, or before me. Because of all those beside, behind, and before me, and maybe those someplace else, I am forever.

It's an East Coast-West Coast Thing

If you are looking for a quintessential distinction between the east and west coasts, read the text in the image on the left. I found it earlier this month in the Rockridge Public Library in Oakland, California. The content appears on what the Immigrant Legal Resource Center calls a red card, with one side printed in English and the other in Spanish. I started seeing signs in restaurants and other businesses around town proclaiming "ICE IS NOT WELCOMED HERE" or "NO ICE ACCESS IN THIS OFFICE," admonishments to United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to keep out without a judicial warrant. Upon my return to the New York metropolitan area, I found no such signs in local libraries, area restaurants that employ workers from south of the US border, or anywhere, for that matter.

Then I thought about how the Bay area has been collecting compost for years, but New Jersey does not. Nor does New York State, except for New York City. Also, you are more likely to see "Black Lives Matter" signs in California than in New York.

What can you surmise from these observations? That California is home to more Latinos? (It is. Latinos represent 40 percent of the state's population, as opposed to half that percentage in New York.) That California is more socially liberal? (Some indicators say so, such as the liberal values of Hollywood and Silicon Valley compared to Wall Street.) That California is ecologically aware than New York? (Not so. New York has reduced fossil fuel emissions and manages energy more efficiently.) That California is more confrontational toward the federal government? (That's a toss up, as both ends of the country proactively legislate against the federal government on issues such as immigration, education, justice, and environment.) That California's priorities are simply different? (Yes. California has more farm workers, hence its quest to protect them; the financial sector driving New York looks more toward efficiencies and profit.)  Say what you want, but you've got to admit: California and New York, liberal though both be, are vastly different.

A Note on Kafka's "Before the Law"

Few stories keep me thinking long after I've read them like Franz Kafka's short story "Before the Law." This 639-word vignette has said more to me over the past half-century than have most 639-page books I read. Some people see Kafka's mini masterpiece as a parable about the intractable, onerous nature of our legal system as we flounder though life. But on each of the few dozen occasions I have read it throughout my adulthood, I have been reminded of the power of free will and personal choice. 

I won't summarize such a short story but urge you to read it if you have not and to reread it if you have. Whenever I have made a life-changing decision, such as getting married, bringing a child into the world, buying a house, pursuing a doctorate, or starting a new career, I tell myself that the message of "Before the Law" is that fear in the face of action is inevitable, that I must act in spite of my fear of the unknown, that living with the consequences of inaction is far more painfully enduring than acting decisively. In other words, I do not want to wait my entire life for gaining entry into "the law," as does the man from the country in the story. That's a lot of message! See what I mean for yourself: read "Before the Law," an amazingly haunting yet existentially challenging tale. We can talk about this work of art all day.

REVIEW: You or I?: Jon Fosse's "I Am the Wind"

Two men, The One and The Other, are all alone on an empty stage. We assume they are on a small boat. They possess no usual names, do not share their history, and do not discuss their past. We see them eat and drink and talk, or at least attempt to talk, and we soon realize they are deeply rooted to each other. The One, who is an expert sailor, wants to push out to sea just as an ominous storm emerges; The Other, who is less experienced at sea but remains on the boat against his suspicions, implores The One to remain ashore. Clearly, The One's suicide is imminent, but we are bereft of a reason or the outcome for The Other. We are also uncertain about the characters' relationship to one another because their use of language is so limited and their attempt at communication so futile. We may even wonder whether these two men are actually one person or many.

I Am the Wind, an hourlong play by Jon Fosse, has been staged throughout Europe and in New York to mixed reviews. Regardless of how viewers or readers feel about this story, they will experience the power of silence and the senselessness of language. Fosse concedes in his 2023 Nobel Prize lecture, aptly titled "A Silent Language," that suicide is pervasive in his work, but he also concludes that writing can save lives. This play, more like a meditation, may well be the author's attempt to understand how we seek one another, relate to each other, and, in spite of ourselves, become one another. 

On Rereading a Beloved Story

I recently reread Franz Kafka's novella "The Metamorphosis" after more than a half century. I read it for the first time as a college student. At that time, I was just a beginner, learning about the vast world of literature. I saw the story as a tale of ostracism and isolation, which resonated with a 20-year-old loner feeling, well, ostracized and isolated. 

A lot of life experience has passed over these past five decades. Now I see "The Metamorphosis" as an allegory of the transactional basis of familial relationships and the relative nature of moral obligations. Gregor Samsa, the man who in the first sentence of the story becomes a gigantic insect or horrible vermin, depending on whose translation you read, has what seems to be a simple relationship with society and his family. He works as a traveling salesman and lives with his parents and younger sister. Gregor is the breadwinner, as his father, a failed businessman, and mother are too incapacitated to work, and his sister is too young to earn income.

A family lie escaped me the first time I read the story. Months into Gregor's transformation, all three family members find employment to continue the lifestyle that Gregor afforded them. Thus, Gregor had little need to support his family, even though his salary was greater than theirs collectively. 

During this reading, I was struck by how Gregor became not only someone to hide from the rest of the world but a thing of deliberate neglect. As a 20-year-old, I was so absorbed in Gregor's problems that I did not consider how his family members began deserting him in his small bedroom. His endearing sister Grete, who quickly became his caretaker once he suffered his metamorphosis, gradually abandoned him. as did their parents, hastening his demise. Gregor could not speak like a human. He climbed the walls and ceiling of his bedroom. He was in the eyes of his family no longer Gregor, no longer human. Once people are convinced that someone else is even a shred less than human, there's no limit to the harm they can inflict on them.

I can say much more about my new insights into failed communication, societal expectations, and self-abnegation, all additional themes of "The Metamorphosis"; however, enough said to encourage you to read a beloved book from your youth. See what it means to you today. 

Travel Tips for Serious Communicators, Part 6: Why Go?

In this concluding post on travel tips for serious communicators, I refer to previous posts in WORDS ON THE LINE throughout the past 13 years. I have often returned here to the benefits of traveling for writers.

In 2012, I wrote about getting bitten by the writing bug by traveling. I mentioned my penchant for visiting writers' houses, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's in Cambridge, Massachusetts; William Shakespeare's in Stratford-upon-Avon, England; Nikos Kazantzakis's in Myrtia, Crete; John Keats's in Rome, Italy; and Carl Sandburg's in Flat Rock, North Carolina. I have since visited Ernest Hemingway's in Key West, Florida; Eugene O'Neill's in Danville, California; August Wilson's in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; August Strindberg's in Stockholm, Sweden; and Henrik Ibsen's in Oslo Norway. You can get a lot of inspiration and ideas in these places.

In 2017, I mentioned that travel is something writers do. Travel could mean just heading out to a different part of your immediate environment with a conscious effort to experience differences, to observe.

In 2024, I described the value of travel for the workplace writer, explaining that these tips apply not only to so-called creative writers, but to business and technical writers as well.

Earlier this year, I noted the tools of the traveling writer. Find the ways and means to facilitate your writing and do it.

So these posts are the who, what, when, where, and how of travel, and this post is the why. Safe and meaningful travels to you.