Banjos and Sertraline

So much has changed in such a brief amount of time.  I should have guessed; the big occurrences in my life always seem to turn with the leaves in the last part of the year.  Amy got a decent job, I got a job I can hang with, I've lost a nice amount of weight and I am officially on Zoloft.  All of this transpired in the last month, most of it in the last two weeks.  I am relieved.  I am trying to enjoy the feeling of relief as it is. 

My thoughts now are to what to do with my time.  My job is about 45 hours a week, M-F, and I get home at about 6:00 each night.  Amy’s chef job is naturally at night, which means we are back to having no days off together at all.  I was spoiled having her around every evening for the last six months.  It was nice. Now, it’s me an a dog and the TV.  The kids are around usually, but they are teens in their rooms most of the time.  They are in their own worlds.  It stings, but I am getting used to it.

So, how to occupy my time?  It may appear that this is a no-brainer of a problem; I mean, who can’t just do what they want when they have time to themselves?  Well, me.  I've never been very good at this.  When my kids were younger, I had excuses.  I had to be with them, for them, about them.  Now, it had changed.  But who the hell am I?

Enter the pills.  I feel the anxiety slipping.  I don’t freak out when the questions come.  There are points where there are no questions at all.  They have given me a little peace of mind.  I can relax.  It’s difficult to express in words.  I feel present; in the moment.  I’m not so concerned all of the time.  The energy I used to worry so much is not being used.  I just need to find something or some things to do with my time.

Since I turned 40, I can put my old job behind me and I’m medicated I want to do new things with my time.  I don’t know if I need to express myself the way I used to.  I still want to podcast.  I’m hoping to record again next week, but the writing bug may relent.  I think I might be okay with that.  I like using it when I want to; instead of one more reach for a life preserver.  I never really wrote much that wasn't some sort of opinion piece.  I liked my books.  Maybe one day.

I want to do new things and maybe meet some people.  I want to do something with my hands or something active.  I've never really gone down that road before.  I don’t know.  I kinda still want to play the banjo.  Or at least pick on a guitar.  I want to impress myself with an achievement.  Or just learn new things.  Or, or, or…

Fun.  It’s what’s been missing for 20 years.  I want to find it again and hold on. When me and the Mrs. can enjoy it together it will be better, but in the meantime, I want some.  I just have to find out what I enjoy.  The good news is, I’m not freaking out about it, thanks to the medication.  I’ll find it.

We still have restaurant plans.  That could be the answer.  That may take enough of my time so there won’t be questions.  But that’s not today or in the next week.  Until that time, what will I do?

Hmmmmm…..

What I Did On My Summer Vacation, 2067

I swear, I had a dream about this last night and I had to write about it.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation, 2067

By: Louis O’Dowd Garcia-Wellington

Grade 11

Instead of going to the space station for Gravity Camp like all my friends, I had to work.  At first, I was bitter and resentful toward my parents, who are always trying to teach me self-reliance any way they can.  Then, they told me I would have to work the Time Travel Visitors Week at Disney World.  They pay is pretty good, there are a lot of pretty girls that work there and the entire job also counts as a history credit.

About eight years ago, after scientists at Stanford perfected time travel, Americans went crazy for it.  The rules were simple; visit anywhere for a day and you could only watch and enjoy.  No interference or passing on of lottery numbers. Nothing that would affect the fabric of time.  Travelers were monitored, and after a few hiccups (as you know, the Statue of liberty is still nude) we went back and forth in time in droves.

Like with most miraculous achievements in technology, we got bored.  Travels dwindled.  Americans looked ahead again to the first flying car, which has still not been invented.

A year ago, one of the original researchers at Stanford went on an undocumented trip.  He told no one about his experiment.  He came back an older man only moments after he first disappeared.  He told his story to his colleagues; he had been traveling through time confronting historical figures.

As this was outlawed, his colleagues were furious.  They demanded a reason.  They demanded to know what he was up to.  The researcher told them he informed these pivotal people in history about the future.  He shared as many details about the modern world as he could.  He also asked them if they would like to travel back to 2066 or so and see the world he came from.  Almost all of them said yes. 

But the strange part about all of this?  When asked where they wanted to go, they all answered: “Disney World”.

Which brings me to my job.  

July 10 -16 , 2067.  Time Travel Visitor’s Week.  A few thousand park attendants at the Magic Kingdom, closed to the public, a few hundred photographers and cameramen, and people from all walks of life and time periods meandering around the happiest place on Earth wondering where the bathrooms were.

I was a guide.  I’ve been to Disney a few times, and I know the nooks and crannies of the park pretty well.  The gateway was set up at the front of the park, just under the train station.  Sunday morning, we awaited the researchers. They would escort each person through the time portal smack dab into the smell of popcorn, roasted peanuts, and the view of a giant fake castle.

First though the gateway?  Teddy Roosevelt. He was definitely from his Rough Riders period; the tailored uniform was a giveaway. I was a little underwhelmed.  Not because of his significance, but that he himself seemed underwhelmed.  However, after about thirty seconds of scanning the welcoming committee (and their Disney info iPads), he shrieked with joy.  A cute blonde girl from Georgia took him up to the train.  After that, they were pouring through the gate.  Presidents, authors, scientists, musicians…it was insane.  For some reason, Da Vinci stepped out, paused, and stepped right back through the gate.  We never saw him again.

I got Medger Evers, Henry VIII and Abigail Adams on my first day.  (John Adams also wasn’t into it.) It really wasn’t much of a job, to be truthful.  Once they got a hang of everything, it was like a surreal family reunion.  These people usually admired each other, and while standing in line to get on the Jungle Cruise, you’d have a quartet of writers chatting about God-knows-what and holding up the line.  Hemingway just jumped into the water, he almost broke his neck.

I saw Pierre and Marie Curie eating turkey legs in Frontierland.  I saw Gene Krupa and Jimi Hendrix at ‘It’s A Small World’.  All of the musicians broke off into little groups.  They usually weren’t big on the rides; they just wandered around eating ice cream and caramel corn.  Van Gogh just laughed at everything.  The idea of a fake mountain with a fake train running through it was the craziest thing he could imagine.

They closed the Hall of Presidents after George Washington complained.  The story was that he wasn’t a fan of the portraits.  The line for the Raceway bumper cars was packed all day.  Somehow cars with lawnmower engines were more impressive than anything else. 

Here’s what made it worth it.  This is the sight you wish you could see, and I actually saw it.  Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln on the Tea Cups.  You know, the cups that spin around and make you sick?  These guys were giggling like nine-year-olds.  They went three times in a row.  Thomas Jefferson wanted in, but Lincoln’s legs were too long.

MLK eating cotton candy.  Lincoln in line with Winston Churchill and Picasso at the Haunted Mansion.  Stupid.  Insane.  Wonderful.

After seven straight days of madness there was only  one unpleasant incident.  (If it ever comes up, don’t invite both of the Wright Brothers anywhere.  Just one or the other.)  I was paid well, and I got a few numbers.  Two girls from Georgia, one from California, and some detailed help from Albert Einstein on my AP Physics summer assignment.

That’s all I did. 

What My English Teachers Gave Me

Eons ago, in a misty, neon-drenched time called the late 1980’s, I was a mullet-headed teenager in a high school classroom.  I wore the same jeans every day, my high-tops had holes in their soles and all I cared about was goofing off.  In my morning English class, as a daily classroom assignment, we had to write from a prompt on the blackboard.  I was tentative at first; the prompts were a little hackneyed and junior-high, and I better things to do like ignoring adults and letting my grades slip.  After a week of toying with the chore, which needed to be done the first thing in the morning, I took to it like a puppy to your favorite sock.

Within a month, my journal entries were longer and more detailed.  I titled them and kept table of contents.  I wrote essays and jokes and stopped caring about the prompts.  I made my own prompts.  I read some journaling to friends.  I got attention.  I think I got a girlfriend from that attention.  Writing was everything.  I knew I wasn’t that good; I didn’t have the discipline and I certainly was not well–read in high school.  But writing kept the ideas stirring.  I was in love with the process.  It was all by hand in those days.  Just me and a pencil.  After the school year was over I have to buy my own notebook and keep going.  I soon learned that choosing a pencil was a ridiculous idea; most of my old stuff is nearly faded away.  I switched to a Papermate black pen.  (Papermate’s require less force than Bic’s and I hold my pen like a lefty).  After I got my perfect pen/paper combo, I wrote every week for the next ten years. 

Before I graduated, I had two more English teachers take notice of my scribbles.  First I was singled out as exceptionally organized in my class essays, and then they complimented my maturing style.  That’s all I needed.  Combine that with my first reading of The Catcher In the Rye, a book my young brain was convinced it could write, and writing became an integral and deeply inseparable part of me.  My ego and my innate need to ‘get it out on paper’ were off to the races.

I’ve never been published.  Almost no one has ever read me.  Outside of college, there has been no editing or review.  I write this today because even though it hasn’t earned me a dime and probably never will, I don’t think I will ever stop writing.  I can’t.  It’s my other brain, my other arm.  I can’t function properly without sorting it out on paper or a keyboard.  

I filled ten notebooks before I moved to computers.  I have no idea how many words that might be.  I don’t know how to how much time and patience and frustration and overall silliness that translates.   I know the finished books, half-finished books, the script, the poetry, and the whatever sits in my journals in the last nine years is just over half a million words. (Thanks, Word Count.)  Maybe that means nothing at all.  Maybe no one will ever read it.  Truth be told, they could all use some polish.  It used to hurt a little.  But you know what I did?  I wrote about that, too.

My English teachers introduced me to a method of staying attached to the world around me.  It’s as if another sense is involved; one that interprets sensory input and records it while still reliving it.  It is my brain at work and on vacation.  Books were coal for this fire. Reading taught me how to relax and breathe.  I sipped information and art rather than shotgunning it through a face-hole.  When I’m done with a book, I have a new array of themes and ideas and vocabulary.  I don’t need to learn the lesson.  The journey to the end was the point of it all.

I can think clearly because I write.  I organize my thoughts on the fly; I outline as I wash dishes or walk my dog.  The most amazing thing writing has given me?  Therapy.  When emotions are crooked and broken and when you truly feel on the cusp of stupidity or insanity, writing always gives a perspective.  For free.  Your subconscious is allowed to come forward and tell you if you are okay, if you are whining, or if you just need to shut up and watch cartoons for a while. Another human is a nice substitute, but every person has their limit of how much of your crap they can take.  Writing has no restrictions.  You can keep going as long as you need to.

Now I have a stack of notebooks and a My Documents file full of stuff.  I can look back if I feel the need.  I don’t just remember the events in my life; I can remember how I felt at the time. The minute details; the bills that were due, the temporary worries, the bits of joy and appreciation of my children are all there.  You don’t need these things, but when you are in the process of working things out, it’s helpful to have shadows from the past who figured out how to press on.  I love reading an old story and not remembering even writing the thing.  Who is this character?  Why would I set a plot in Chicago?  Who is this female character based on? Where’d the talking goat come from?

It all came from me at some point.  I was just working out some things.

I would not have had this in my life without someone telling me to write it all down.  It’s that simple. They’re called English teachers and professors, but they are your reading and writing coaches.  They give you a few basic tools to learn how to listen and think. If used correctly, these tools are powerful and wonderful.  They become necessary.  They become a part of you.