Howard at Rest

Howard has no rant in him, nor does he feel his poverty today. Perhaps because he is free of the yoke of his municipal duty. 

 He woke this morning late, at 9, to the scent of lilac, the cooing of doves, the warm sun shine, and the big blue Colorado sky.  

His mother and his wife have seen fit to outfit a temporary space for him to write and read and reflect, which is all his soul really wants to do.  Howard finds the compulsive need to ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING to be a sort of insult to his spirit, which is more inclined to peace and rest than it is to imposing his will upon the world.   Perhaps he overstated that.

Mainly, it is Sunday, and he has chosen to take the biblical admonition to keep the sabbath as a day of rest, peace, and non-doing, as well as a time to reflect upon the deeper matters of existence, such as: since I am heading toward inevitable oblivion, what should I do with this thing I call my life?

Howard is not sure, and this is nothing new.  This question seems to perplex him more deeply than all the others.  Howard tends to see the material world, or better,  the worldview that the modern American Empire is selling to be a tawdry mess filled with endless commercials for products nobody needs, to be sold in huge stores that nobody really likes to see or be in, and the vast, sad, destitute Faux Chateaus in which all and sundry are wringing their hands over the economy. Howard overgeneralizes here and says this poorly but what he really feels is "What though, is the real economy but soil, water, sunshine, and the shelter of love?"  

This is what Howard sees, and what he knows in his heart is true.  But he is, of course, subject to the whims of the great empire in which he is both subject and servant, and he knows that he must chart a course that "renders unto Ceasar that which is Ceasar's and to God that which is God's."  And this is the crux of the matter.  That there is something to be rendered up to Ceasar.  And that there is something to be rendered up to God.

Howard doesn't mean to be so churchy but that is the way he feels today.  And he can see that what Ceasar demands of him is a certain mortgage on his soul.  And he sees that life can be and has been lived more simply and fully than he is able to live it now.  And that there is a means to end this current difficulty in his life within the matrix of society.  But that the means is not financial, or based in the fulfillment of his desires, or even in is work, although he finds that hard to believe right now.  It is, radically, an acceptance of the fullness of life AS IT IS, but with a radical change of the heart.  As the Tao Te Ching says, "Accept the world as it is, and the tao shall become luminous in you."  And Howard can believe that, can feel that, when he is at his leisure, and the weather is fine, and the birds sing in harmony, and his soul is full of love.  But Howard cannot imagine this if he were a Jew lost in Dachau.  For there is great evil in the world, and how can one accept that, if one suffers underneath it?

But today, Poor Howard is somehow free from such disturbances of heart and soul.  He lives somehow in a bliss, in the shower of the love that surronds him, in the benevolence of the natural day.  And he feels that he understands now what Jesus really meant in the Sermon on the Mount, and he shares with with his readers, because it is radical and profound.

"do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

  Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? 

  "So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more cloth you, O you of little faith? 

   "Therefore do not worry, saying, "What shall we eat?' or "What shall we drink?' or "What shall we wear?' But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Selah

The Sleep of the Just

Poor Howard's day was unkind.  The natural day, in all of its early summer splendor was beautiful, but Howard was not destined to share in the glory of the day.  No, today, Howard was given the municipal trash run.  And t the end of it, Howard was dispatched to "Bum Park," as it is called by his colleagues. And God laughed.

One never notices that the city keeps itself clean until the trash runneth over.  And today, Howard was the man that cleaned the fullest trash can that ever lived. It was filled to overflowing with the memorial day weekend refuse from a team of city bums, filled to the brim with 40 oz. bottles, wrapped elegantly with the brown paper bag they were brought in.   And that was the nicest contents of the can.

The day grew grimmer after the trash run was finally over, but Howard will tell that story in the morning.  His day took the wind from his sails and gave him a sucker punch in the gut of his ego.  And now he is tired, and he must turn in.  Tomorrow is another day, a new day, and Howard hopes for better, but is prepared for whatever may come.

A Road To Nowhere

Poor Howard pondered over what to title this rant, but could find nothing pithy.  Also, his editor re-read the previous day's blog entry and must confess he wished he had restrained Howard's public sniveling.  He felt that Howard's usual self-absorption and indulgence had gone too far and he regrets allowing it to happen.  He feels that the the phrase "THE TROUBADOR HE SEES" was over-used and in the end, not effective, except as a sort of infantile mewling whine.  He has advised Howard to look outside of himself today, and to try writing with more grace. And so Howard intends to explore the theme of Grace.

Poor Howard's day began at 5:00 a.m.  It seemed a cruel hour, as his body was not refreshed, but his municipal duty had to be fulfilled.  There were fences to repair, public toilets to foam, rattlesnakes to avoid, and weak Folger's coffee to be drunk.  The City of Fort Collins needed him.  

Yes, Howard faced another work day, and though Howard attempted to be grateful for his lot in life, for his employment,  he did not feel gratitude; he felt more of a mysterious stomach pain and a general reluctance to even eat breakfast. There was an ache in his soul which he could not quell and he resisted the day in his body and in his mind, envisioned quitting, tasted it, knew it, and it was...wrong.  No. He mustn't quit.  But he would not ride his bike today.  No.  The day before, after along hot day in the dry dusty  sun, he had found the ride home intolerable.  His seat was uncomfortable and exerted a cruel metallic force against the soft tissue in the area of his perineum.  He felt the seat was a threat to his prostate, and he felt he deserved a ride home, for he had done a man's work that day.  No, this morning, he would get a ride.

Howard's lovely wife awoke early.  She came upstairs from their shared basement lair and kissed him sweetly.  His little son beamed at him with his two little nubbin teeth and his big blue eyes.  His heart swelled a bit, and for a moment, he forgot his suffering.  

Howard can't recall how he got to work, whether his wife or his mother drove him.  He must have been lost in his thoughts of a week-old incident which left him dumbfounded.  He could not understand human behavior, his or anyone else's.  He is not at liberty to comment upon the incident, but he felt he had been wronged and misunderstood, and made into a whipping boy for something he had not done, and he felt the sting of the thing and it gnawed at him and he wanted to be heard, and understood, and he needed satisfaction but he would not get that now. Now, he must go to work.

____________________________________________________________________

Howard regrets that he will not be able to finish his tale of grace today.  He is tired and he does need his rest.  But he will say this, his intended story concerned an absurd work meeting, a surly menopausal shop manager, a religious studies student who could not operate a pick-up truck, a Home Depot trip that involved an expired credit card and a machine that kept demanding "please wait for attendant, please wait for attendant, please wait for attendant." There was also a Lesbian cowgirl, a thunderstorm, an archaelogical site filled with giant bison bones from 10,000 BC, a small, white fuzzy gopher, a speeding pronghorn antelope and a job that took all day to hardly begin...

Howard hopes that his audience can use their imaginations to create their own story from these characters and situations.  

This Photo Has Nothing To Do With This Rant

It is 10:11.  Poor Howard sits alone in the bed his father sleeps in when he comes back from his highway runs.  The room is quiet, and somehow better than his desk, and yet he wonders why he sits here, in this town, in this bed, at this hour, writing about it.

His intention today was to get somewhere.  Howard's destination was to finish his website (puke) and present himself gloriously to the world (here I am - Buy Me!) as a competent professional in his field, (which will be left out to protect his privacy. hah.) The problem is, Po' doesn't want to make television shows, even good ones.  But he must make more money.  Yes. More money.  And the avenues he has chosen in the past year, oysterman, lawn care guy,  low budget copywriter and low-paid municipal servant, well, these are not working.  Po's wife is not impressed.  And neither is Howard himself.  

And yet Howard seems to have come to a pretty pass.  And he has been here before.  The pass is familiar, the path well-trodden, the obstacles the same.  And though Howard has traveled many, many revolutions around the sun since he fist came to this pass, he knows now that he must traverse it, and do so boldly, or die here, metaphorically.  What is Howard yammering about?

Well, art mainly.  Howard wants nothing more than to wake in the morning, greet his yerba mate gourd, kiss his wife and son, and go out to his studio to play and sing to the world.  He sees himself, this troubador, Howard SEES THE TROUBADOR, but he can't somehow become the TROUBADOR HE SEES.  And somehow, the TROUBADOR HE SEES is confounded by the obstacle of filthy mammon.  Money. Green. Bread. Scratch. Dough. Etc, Etc.   And Howard has been here, in this god-forsaken pass one too many times.  

Oh yes, he has read "The Power of Intention" and "Do what you love and the money will follow"

and seen the goldarned BIG GENIE in "The Secret."  Yes, he has visualized himself as the TROUBADOR,  he has made little pictures of the house he will have when he is the TROUBADOR, and he has prayed for help to become the TROUBADOR, and he knows he actually is the......... But always, just when conditions seem ripe, a big fat bill comes knocking on the door and says, "HEY HOWARD!  PAY ME!  I'M HUNGRY HOWARD!"  

It's funny, in a very sad way, how this happens.  Howard wonders if it is sometimes simply a wall that must be broken down, a psychological disease that must be healed, a childhood wound on the psyche which must be overcome.  Howard doesn't know.  He feels it unfair.  It chides him and angers him and galls him and embitters him and then he says, "now stop it Howard, breathe, be grateful, give thanks, accept your life as it is, and so forth."  Yes.  Howard talks to himself in soothing tones very often, to calm the other voices which compete for the stage in his head.  He does, and then he looks around him and realizes he is not in a war zone and says, okay, chill out Howard.  You are pretty lucky.  But this doesn't last long.

Howard's computer is running down. It is 10:39. Tomorrow he will go to his municipal job and do his best to mend fences, avoid rattlesnakes, dig holes and wear his Carharts.  He will survive to fight another day.  He will keep alive THE TROUBADOR HE SEES.  He will sing, in his soul, what song he can, and look up at the blue colorado sky when he is not looking down at the red earth and he will wonder at the magnificence and absurdity of it all.  Selah.

Poor Howard is Spent

The day began in a promising manner.  Poor Howard awoke at 7:30.  But upon reflection, at 10:30 in the evening, he finds the day didn't live up to its early promise.  Perhaps it was the fault of the rain.  He could almost sense the palpable ennui of those whose memorial day festivites had been rained out.  He drove by Horsetooth Reservoir, and saw only one speedboat, sadly sitting in the rain-drenched basin.  But perhaps this is fitting, for it is a sad day, and rain is more suitable for reflection on the lost soldiers of many wars.

He won't go on long today.  He has no rant in him.  The child sleeps, the wife readies herself for bed, and the whir of the hard drive makes him sleepy.  

He recalls one incident worth recounting.  Although his day was given over to tiresome work searches and one more resume re-write, he did force his little family to go to the park, even though the sky was dribbling.  He took his Giant Blue Yoga Ball out there, and brought his son's little plastic lawnmower.  He cajoled and dragged his poor bedeviled wife into the mini-van.  They all emptied into the great empty lawn and kicked the big blue ball at each other.  The infant son stood watching, manning his plastic lawnmower, somehow deeply amazed at the sight of his parents away from their respective computers and playing in the rain.  That made him happy.

The Force of Sloth

Poor Howard regrets that another day has gone down without becoming a full master of himself. He intends to redeem himself a bit with this rant. His shame is mild, and he will survive to fight sloth another day, but he notices a sort of dull heavy feeling in the chest, and a voice inside telling him to work harder tomorrow.  

He began the day with the best of intentions, but he was torn between working and enjoying the Lord's Day with his family.  He awoke at 7:40, a respectable hour, but began the day on the computer, which always scrambles his brains.  He often wonders why he must check his Facebook account.  Is it Vanity? A need for approval? Or merely a bad habit akin to potato chips or other greasy food addictions.  Perhaps it is all three.  But he resolves to make amends for his foolish habit, or perhaps relinquish his account altogether.  This would do the trick and close the door to temptation, but that would be an almost violent act, and he is growing too old for such rash and impetuous stunts. 

On occasion he feels it is merely the truth of a modern epidemic of isolation which urges him to visit this vast cafeteria of his past life, which is what Facebook is.   Poor Howard finds it strange that he can peep into the personal lives of people whom he can't even remember, except in name alone.  But Poor Howard tires of his Facebook rant, and will revisit it another day, to probe more deeply into the mysterious power this addiction holds over his soul.

What peeves Poor Howard most of all is the vast chasm that lies between who he wishes to be, and whom he actually is.  He can see the ideal form of his better self standing tall and proud upon the far cliff, but he senses that he may never reach the great heights that his alter ego has scaled.  But this is too abstract.

What he means to say, is that he wishes he had not switched on the television to find the classic film Star Wars showing on MTV.  He never watches MTV.  He is far too old for such nonsense, but he felt a twinge of desire for news while he cooked his sad little ham sandwich and so he switched on the television, and there, instead of news, was C3PO and R2D2 and Darth Vader and the whole menagerie of fantastic characters. He was instantly transported into a galaxy far, far away, while his ham sandwich fried in the skillet. And so he lost two hours of his precious life to scenes he had seen again and again. Caught in some old time space continuum, He was both entertained and disgusted with his activity, a feeling he often encounters when the television snatches hold of his attention like that.  He longs for more control over the technologies which plague him in his environment but finds that he has the willpower of a willow, whatever that might be. 

When he lived alone, in his old, sinful but quasi-monastic existence, he did not own a television. But now, while living in the suburban comforts of his mother's home, he finds that there is a television in every room.  If it were his choice, he would have sold all four of them, and used the remaining money to have a great big reunion of his friends or perhaps take a trip to California, but the televisions are not his to sell, and so he must learn to resist them.  But his resolve in this matter is weak, and so he prays that tomorrow finds him stronger, or finds the televisions shattered into a million little bits.