Shock of Recognition

I am always up before Carol.

By the time she comes downstairs I am gently settled in the recliner, cup of coffee to my right, Maka in my lap, book in my hands. Sometimes for hours on weekends before she arises.

When Carol gets to the bottom of the stairs I always say good morning. Often, after that, I am compelled to say something brilliant, as is my way.

This morning I said "I would applaud, but I have a book in my hands." An electric shock ran through me as I immediately recognized the meaningfulness of that comment. If I were a songwriter I would have immediately begun writing a song with that as the theme. If I were a poet, a poem. That's how creativity often works.

"I have a book in my hands" gets to the very essence of who I am. I am a whiskey swilling, blues loving, barfly used-to-be-wannabe, football worshiping, insanity leaning motherfucker. No doubt. I am deeply sensitive, emotional, and endlessly loving.

But if you break me down to my soul, if you look into my heart, I am all about books. More specifically, words. I like to write, I love to read. I love to lose myself in books.

I worship words.

"I Have a Book in My Hands" would be appropriate on my tombstone. It's perfect. You could bury me with a book in my hands. I choose those words over "Please Forget You Knew My Name", my previous choice.

Catch is you ain't gonna bury me. As much as that image fascinates me, the dead underground lying in the shadow of a tombstone, I prefer that you toast me like a marshmallow. I haven't decided yet where I want my ashes scattered. Maybe you will make that decision for me. I trust your judgement.

"I Have a Book in My Hands". It will be the name of the biopic Hollywood will one day make about me.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. Who exactly am I. Life has really buried me under  a mountain of deception; all the deceptions I have to manage every day just to survive. I lost myself. I really don't know who I am. So I function as a ghost, a shell of a human being, stepping out on stage every day to put on the act. Call me Pacino.

Then I return home bewildered. Stunned that I am 66 and not retired. Maybe never retired. Stunned that I am working menial jobs. Two menial jobs. Stunned that I still answer to other people.

I slip into my recliner and hope to find myself. I never do. Even there I kid myself. But Maka and whiskey soften the blow.

I am reading a biography of Paul Simon. He wrote a song called "Mother and Child Reunion". Know where he got the inspiration for the song? A Chinese restaurant. Specifically, the menu. It had a dish on it called mother and child reunion. Amusingly enough it was a chicken and egg dish.

Of course there was a helluva lot more that went into the writing of the song, all kinds of influences and experiences and memories, but the phrase got into his brain and escaped through creativity.

Creative people get struck by lightening. Words, phrases, images that juice up the creative process. It gets filed away in the brain. It stews. Other words, phrases and images get connected to the original. Eventually you have something. Something very cool.

I am a creative person. Fiercely creative. Even if there is little or no evidence to support that assertion.

Words and phrases are forever burrowing into my diseased brain. I love the feeling. I will stop whatever I am doing when I hear words that impress me. Someone talking. TV. Wherever it comes from. It floors me.

When I come across stuff like that as I read, I often stop and write them down. It means that much to me. I especially love the feeling when I come up with creative phrases on my own. It is the best feeling in the world to me. It's just that I don't do anything with them. They languish unused but hopeful in the dark corners of my mind, repressed by boredom and despair as I lurch through life like a blind man in a minefield.

"I have a book in my hands". No big deal for you. I understand. They are just words. But when I said it I felt like I was saying "This is who I am". I felt like I was explaining myself to god. Books have provided more peace for me than any other recreational thing I have ever done. And I have been doing it longer than anything else I have ever done.

I don't ever remember not wanting to read. I will never stop reading.

"I Have a Book In My Hands". Inscribe it on the urn.