A Cast of Several and A Set Piece

Here is who I've encountered just in the last week or so:

or who is flying.

A Ninja with an upside-down head...

A wookie with flaming hands and feet and a wild-ass mustache.

Masked Mayans.

A goggled butterfly mid-metamorphosis.

A silly fighting Irishman, and...

...his fire juggling partner.

A platycrocimander.

A creepy bird "pet" with udders.

A creepier duck in a fez eating a snake.

A wizard cat in a leopardskin leotard with an electric weapon.

A candle-headed owl amidst flying jewels.

An ethereal floating bunny.

This.

A flaming hippie in suspenders.

This, uh, warrior in a big hat.

The Masonic-like lodge where they all live.

And this frightening little creature who is going to slay them all as they sleep.

Bio Poem

I thought I'd let the boys speak for themselves today.

That's what they called it, a "bio poem" and they both wrote one for the Parent Information Night (henceforth called PIN) at the elementary school they attend.  Honestly, we almost missed them, but we saw a dad taking a picture of the wall and figured it out.  Marci had the wherewithal to grab her phone and snap a couple pics.

Zachary (which he is beginning to prefer over Zack, it turns out) is:  Loyal, Leader, Athletic, Religious He is all that, precisely.  He feels Gloomy when Alone, Scared when something new is going on and Angly (angry) when Bossed around.  He does need his cats his stuffed bear and to remember to feed the cats.  Honestly, I didn't know he fears being alone the dark and hights (heights, but, really, who can spell that?)

He does love him some tacos, but, that's a post for another day.

Nick's says he's Funny, eager, athletic, restless and wiled (wild).  If only I knew myself so well.  He is those things, especially wiled.  He loves his suffit (stuffed) buffilo (buffalo) Buffy.  He fears storms, being alone, and being hit with a baceball (baseball) and truly he feels curious because I'm always thinking.

Poignant?  I think so.

Revealing?  Very much so.

Essential?  Yep.

Adorable nonsense?  As good as it gets.

Sacred?  Your call...


From Marci's "... things you don't expect to hear from the backseat ..."

N: "I went to get my shoes and socks and accidentally started to take off my clothes."

Z: "Hey! That's MY job."

(at least he knows he is the absent-minded professor)


It really is a Zack thing.  I mean Zachary... 

Connectedness

I ordered some new shoes for the boys today from L.L.Bean.  I am frankly tired of the boys wearing out cheap shoes from Target and the like and I feel certain these will last, but, that's not what I'm talking about today.

I could have ordered the shoes online, and, I nearly did but I find it frustrating and time-consuming to order over the innerwebs.  I know, I'm alone on that and, truth is, I often order guitar strings and parts and the like online.  Again, beside the point.

I spoke with Penny and we had a wonderful conversation and she quickly ascertained that I had twins.  Her twins were twenty-three.  She asked the boys age and laughed when I said "eight-and-a-half (because the halfs still count)" and she remembered that that was a "wonderful age."  We chatted a bit, I told her it's always nice to hear about grown-up twins, it's assuring sometimes.  We finished the transaction and she had to move on to another call I'm sure.  We said our goodbyes and thank-yous and just as I was about to end the call she said:

"Enjoy those twins, Mr. Peebles."

"Yes, yes I will," I managed, hiding an unexpected catch in my throat, that slight, little sob and dampening of the eyes I'd like to think we all get when confronted with the tender beauty that is Humanity.

We connected.  She made a difference to me, deep me, not consumer me or selfish me, but me, essential, human me.  I'd like to think I, somehow participating in a karmic feat of synchronicity, brought a moment of peace or beauty or remembrance or even grace to her soul as well.

Connectedness  (which it turns out is a word) is another lesson that can't be taught.  I can't tell you it will happen to you someday, boys.  I can't give you a heads up when I see it coming, it'll just happen.  A best friend, a teacher, a sad stranger on a train, a twin brother, a wife, a parent, a phone operator, a bus driver, a Kiwi writer, little boys with beautifully big eyes.  Anyone, and, if you let it, it can happen everyday.  Connectedness is timeless in construct, sweetly fleeting at times, deep and eternal at other times.  I believe it is intrinsically a grace from God.

Maybe it is God...

I feel sorry for Nick and Zack sometimes, sorry for what I perceive as their lost opportunities for meaningful connections.

They'll never know the connection an adolescent boy can feel talking to a girl through an avocado phone, a kinked curly-cue cord, a rotary dial, four prongs in the wall, miles of humming copper wire, four more prongs, a princess phone, a girl's voice, her hand holding the handset, her lips so close; connection.

They'll never stand out in a cold wind with a good friend, in a beloved back alley or a pine enclosed mountain meadow, and share the last match to light the last cigarette, sharing the sulfur smell, nearly cheek-to-stubbled-cheek, rough, cupped hands mirroring each other against the purposed wind; connection.

They'll never hold a love or "Dear John" letter, taking in the handwriting on the envelope, the postmark; never hear the tearing open or take in the faint, perhaps imagined scent, the pause of anticipation, or know the physical blows or caresses of the blue ink and loopy letters or watch a tear roll down them, of joy or anger or sadness; connection.

They'll never know the quiet connection of a doctor's or hospital waiting room, before devices disconnected us, when you wondered and worried and hoped and prayed and wept and smiled together with a few others as they wondered and worried and hoped and prayed and wept and smiled; connection.

There are more nostalgic scenes I could paint for them, but I'll stop here.  As I said before, I can't make their connections for them and, most likely, they will find connections in ways and places I could never myself imagine.

This is not meant to be a lament.  I hope it can be a lesson, another lesson I can't can't teach, a lesson I know you will learn.  It's sort of like that moment we have all had but no one talks about.  You know.  You've done it, I've done it, it's gonna happen.  Listen boys, just try to be cool when you do walk through a screen door or into a sliding glass door.  It's gonna happen.  Own it.


Oh, uh, well... you're still here.  No, you are right, that wasn't a very good ending, was it?

I can't really think of a good ending for this piece, and, knowing you are a forgiving lot, I should just end it here...

I won't, though.

This photo is one that rotates through my screen-saver thingee.  Whenever I see it, I can imagine that hug repeated through a lifetime's worth of joy and sadness, love and anger, repeated over and over, always in stripey shirts.

Connected:

No, that wasn't very good either.

How about these snow-covered twin Maple trees in our backyard?  At times I feel so moved by these dear trees, three times my age, watching me, watching over us, that I feel they have a collective soul which reaches out for mine.

Connected:

Well that's just new-agey and weird, Bill.

I know, two arbitrary, abstract expressionist string paintings from second grade presented upside down:

Nailed it!


From Marci's "... things you don't expect to hear from the backseat ..."
(ok, the kitchen table, but bear with)

"When the first bite falls apart, you know it is a good taco."

Truth, righteous little dude, truth... 


Thank you for coming around and sitting a spell, I feel like we connected.

Shel Game

Whenever we go for a bike ride in the neighborhood, after we've been to the basketball court or the playground, just as we head up the slight incline of the street, Woodwind, which leads us home, we stop here, for some water and a rest:

It's shady and cool, and usually a breeze at least whispers a little.  In truth, it's a lovely little spot.  But, I have never been exactly sure why we always stop there.  What started us doing this?  I asked Nick because he is the one who always wants to stop.

"You know, Dad, from those books we used to read when we were little."


I've spoken before on that moment where you suddenly understand something that a second before you didn't even know was waiting for you to understand it.  Yes?

Here are the books he meant, those three in the middle, the three we read everyday at lunch before they went to preschool, Good Lord, years ago.  They loved the silliness and playfulness and sometimes seriousness that leaped off the pages and into their fresh, happy minds:

Three by Shel Silverstein.  Falling Up, A Light in the Attic and Where the Sidewalk Ends.  Three truly masterful, seminal collections of poetry from a poet to whom you need no introduction.

Here is a favorite of the boys:

Where the Sidewalk Ends
from the book "Where the Sidewalk Ends" (1974)

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
and before the street begins,
and there the grass grows soft and white,
and there the sun burns crimson bright,
and there the moon-bird rests from his flight
to cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
and the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
we shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow
and watch where the chalk-white arrows go
to the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
and we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
for the children, they mark, and the children, they know,
the place where the sidewalk ends.

Here is another image of the place we always stop:

"... and there the moon-bird rests from his flight to cool in the peppermint wind."

Now you know everything that hit me in that instant of joyous epiphany.  We stopped there "for the children, they mark, and the children, they know, the place where the sidewalk ends."  He remembered, he celebrated, he knew why we stopped there.


Actually, that is not all there is to this story.  When I was in acting school, perhaps my third year, I was teamed up with a group of actors and a director in what the school called "lab shows."  We put together a traveling presentation for schools that we mostly improvised with some scripted words.

The words of Shel Silverstein...

We worked on a lot of different ways to present the poem above but they all seemed too trite, too untrue, too pedestrian, if you will.  The director finally left it up to me.  I usually just walked into whatever was the brightest spot in the performance space and simply recited the poem.  It was probably some of my most connected moments of all my times on stage.  I knew what he was saying.

So did Nick...


Thanks for taking a little walk with me today.  I appreciate it.

Time and Bacon

I've only got an hour to do this today.  I had two hours about four hours ago but now because I was adding a minute and that really got stretched out and...

I'll begin again.

A few weeks ago I put my guitars away in hopes that it would inspire me to do the many other things I needed to do - painting, fixing - stuff, you know.  My open guitar case usually sits on the workbench, by the tools and the paint and the rollers and saws and, guitars and tools are generally mutually exclusive.  So I closed 'em up for a while.

Just recently, actually when the were still put away, I got my old Alvarez out and couldn't play and sing but for about ten minutes, my fingers fatigued and my voice creaked.  So I decided to just add a minute every time I played and it's been a struggle.  I was up to fourteen today...  I played for an hour and a half, reconnecting to old Dylan songs and folk ballads and some of my own tunes.  Guy Clark lyrics and John Denver melodies made my fingers stronger and voice more able.

At first I was worried because I felt I didn't have the time, and then I decided I'd make the time, and then I forgot about the time altogether.

There are lessons we must teach our children.  Teaching them the value and management of time is important.  Teaching the relativity of time is awkward though, not e=mc² awkward, but the 'time sure flies...' stuff and the 'why is five minutes so long waiting for the doctor, and so short at the pool' awkward.  And the 'Didn't we just have sliders?   No, that was a week ago,' oddness of time is something we all must figure out.  "The days so slow; the years so fast."  That is a bittersweet lesson for all of us.

However, what do I tell them?  Hurry up we gotta be there and do this, time isn't gonna wait, boys, move it.   Slow down, smell the roses, think it through, I'll wait.  Those are, well, contradictory aren't they.

I guess the time management stuff is necessary, encouraged by society and groups and teachers and such.  But what of the opposite?  Who says, slow down, don't hurry, listen, taste, see, think?  I imagine a time when one of my boys might want to learn to play guitar or bass or drums and, honestly, I don't see how they'd have the time to do it.

Time has to shaped and cajoled and squeezed and seized and respected and...

Listen boys, you're going to have to figure it out on your own.


Marci and I recently decided the boys were getting a bit too much screen time (yeah, I hate that phrase too but, it's necessary).  Mind you, they play kid games on the computer and Wii console and the vast majority of TV they watch is PBS.  Their favorite show is Fetch with Ruff Ruffman, for God's sake.  But, I didn't like the look on their faces in front of the collective screens they see every day.

They complained a little.

I sharpened their pencils and got new Crayons and markers and fresh glue sticks and scissors in their "craft-boxes" and stocked their paper.

And the time flew by...

Zack imagined a bridge and drew this:

Nick made a nifty bookmark:

And the table ended up looking like this:

Seems to me like they're wasting their time... or does it?  I told a fellow library volunteer one day that I wrote a blog, a "daddy blog" I think I called it.  She asked if it was like an advice blog.  I laughed.  She didn't know why.  I am in no position to give advice.  I will say that  a well-stocked craft-box, no screens, a lot of imagination and some time can lead to happy kids.


What about the "bacon?"

Right, I did say bacon in the title, didn't I?  Well, I am short on time but, here's the short of it.

As I realized that I had played guitar and sung for well over an hour because I had given into it, let it happen, I thought that it seemed like an important lesson to impart to the fledgling humans we have in our care.  It is, but, like I said before, it's something you can have explained to you but, you just have to learn it on your own.

Sort of like me trying to tell them to never, ever, fry bacon nude.


From Marci's "... things you don't expect to hear from the backseat ..."

"You could do that ... but then you'd be in jail.

*pause* 

And I'd be at Skyline."


Goodness, that is a slam...


(Well now, see there, just over an hour - uh, plus the hour and a half editing and adding pictures and taking pictures and finding out how to make the "squared" symbol and in general rewriting the whole damn thing.  But, I do think somehow, this day snuck in some bonus time for me, but that's a lesson for another day.)

Thanks for stopping by and sitting a spell, I appreciate it.


((Never.  Ever.))

Near Requiem For Innocence

Evil burns in this world, fact.  I am afraid of evil, fact.  I shelter my sons from evil.

Hate abounds in this world, true.  Hate makes me question faith, very true.  I shelter my sons from hate.

There is a relentless spotlight on terror in this world.  Terror makes me pity us, you, me.  I shield my sons from terror's spotlight.

Love abides in us, all of us.  I have seen and known great love.  I shower my sons with love.


What more of today's tragedy can we make?  Volumes?  Of course.  Silence?  Yes, to listen to our pain.  Remembrance?  Yes, every tear and shattered hope.  Love?  Yes, it is our collective default state of being.  I believe that.


So today, I will think of love.  And with that on my heart I will consider the day that I have to really sit down with a child, and, of my own volition and with intent, I will break his heart.

I will have to explain why, as a joke we sometimes say, "oh, the huge manatee."  And why sometimes I shudder when he says it.

I will have to explain Holocaust, and A-bomb and H-bomb (I suppose the F-bomb as well).  I will be forced to explain Manifest Destiny, a Civil War of battles brother against brother.

Slavery.  I will have to explain that, God help me...

I will have to look a bright-eyed boy in those crystal pure hazel or blue eyes and tell him that presidents and great men are murdered, because of their very greatness; that American Pie is about the assassination of a beautiful soul; that "I have a dream" is not just a catchphrase for a cheap joke on a cheaper cartoon network, but the defining words of a hallowed martyr.

I will have to help him understand The Wars, and war itself; bloody, real, putrid, violent, evil, carnage-strewn war.  My Lord, two, two, of them.  And, the hundreds of others...

I will explain the gassing of children, the hatred between cultures, the lingering stench of racism, sexism and homophobia.  And it will horrify me.

I will have to explain to a schoolboy, to innocence itself, that evil can stroll in with a gun and shatter limbs and skulls and futures and dreams in a place just like his own sacred place.  How, I weep, how?

I will someday, perhaps today, when one asks me at dinner, "Dad, what does nine-eleven mean?" have to explain the death and tragedy and courage and heroism of planes flying into skyscrapers, government buildings and lonely green fields.

I will have to explain terror.  And... that terrifies me.


So, should I put it off?  Should I wait?  Should I try to hold back the sad collective hurt, the sob of deep understanding that comes knowing evil is real, necessary even?

I have to tell them.  I must.

But I'm not going to today.  Not this September Eleventh, not today.


Today, under the seat of my truck, tucked up in a little rip, I found this:

 On the back of this:

It's Marci and me.  Oh, and it's you and your loved ones.

It's all of us, and a four-year-old loved us then.

I want him to love us a little longer, okay?

 
Thanks for stopping by.

"Haunted Hous"

The boys played Super Mario World yesterday for too long.  I pulled the plug.  Well, actually, I was trying to change a busted light fixture in the basement and, in attempting to find the right breaker, I turned off their game.

What's interesting is that after an initial bit of complaining they went on to do other things.  They have only had a Wii a couple of years, if that, and I think they understand, somewhere deep down, that it is not really very satisfying.  Oh it's fun and exciting and challenging but it doesn't really beat, say, washing a truck on a hot September Sunday:

Or compiling stats for your favorite Pokemon team making up a new game planning out your monthly budget doing something which involves a grid:

Or maybe a little math:

(I know it's messy, but, I had to open a calculator to do it myself):

Or even spending an afternoon making what was, arguably, the lamest...

...ever.

I'll set the scene.  The boys are in the guest room, initially they went in there because they got too hot on the porch after the car-wash fiasco and a Gatorade, which as everyone knows must be consumed on the porch.  Before long, a squirrel-like frenzy begins.  There is giggling, drawing, taping, giggling, hushed conferring, oh, and a lot of string.  (There are times when you just don't ask.)  This goes on for perhaps an hour or two, dinner is served and we are invited to their "haunted house" after supper.  Cool, sounds like fun, uh, I mean, that sounds scary...

So, after a somewhat rushed dinner, we duly, entered the haunted house.  First Marci and then myself.  Photos honestly can't do justice to the wonderful oddness we encountered (we tried to capture it on Mom's phone but, hey, it was dark, what part of haunted house don't you get?) but I took some anyway.

There was this spooky cat with a flashlight stuck up its illuminating it creepily, which you can't tell from the photo.

There was an obvious concealed trip line that connected a dead Furbee to a string of Mardi Gras beads.  The Furbee fell, which was indeed scary because, well, Furbees are freaky alive or dead, and rattled the beads against the blanket holder in which was concealed a small child honking ominously on a flat harmonica.











There was a fan blowing scary paper streamers shaped like hands reaching out for you (well, not so much) behind which was concealed yet another small boy shining a laser all about and giggling creepily:

However the piece de risistance - at least in their minds - was this carefully rendered poster of "Mr Bloodhead" which hung ominously on the closet door:

I cannot begin to explain WHAT THE HELL THIS IS!  However, they spent about thirty excited minutes bringing it to gory fruition.  I can tell you that the football shaped thing at the top is his mouth, those two red spots are his creepy eyes, there is a sword through his neck, a few open wounds and anything red is blood.  Yeah, lovely, I know...

In my opinion, the scariest thing in the whole room was, for some reason, this tipped over chair.  From what I gather from listening through the closed door from their delightful conversation, there was a lot of decision-making as to where this chair would eventually end up and its final impact on the whole set:

I think they nailed it.


Finally, let me remove my tongue from my cheek and tell you a thing or two.  I have been accused of making fun of the boys, especially when I do stuff like this.  However, I hope you, gentle reader, can read between the lines and understand the tenderness with which I approach this stuff.  Obviously, to shed light on it, to share it here in this public space, shows that I think it is worthy, funny, sweet, memorable, and, most of all terribly important.

Marci said it best when, after it was all over, after the pictures were taken, after our expressions and screams were dissected and reenacted, after it was cleaned up and we were sitting down to a snack before bed, she said:  "I love the way you guys worked together to make it."

Yeah, that sums it up.  We are so fortunate to have twins who, although, as I've said before, they would never admit it, are very good friends.  They laugh together, they share the same sensibilities, laugh at the same stuff and, honestly, truly, love each other.

For that, and so much more, I am very thankful.

Just one more thing, if you look closely at a couple of the pictures you will see scattered about several colorful fake flower leis.  I'd never thought of it before, but, somehow, in that beautiful, creepy, imagination-filled, lovingly rendered haunted house, they were pretty scary.

Thanks for coming around and sharing a memory with me.  It's important.  It's essential.  It's nonsense that simply must not be forgotten.


from Marci's  "... things you don't expect to hear form the backseat ..."

"Those guys are missing something ... I know what it is ... death."

(thank you video games)


So, I think I'll turn the power off more often...