The Long Honest Road Home

This was back in the '90's, probably something like '94, and my wife and I had just bought a late-model used car, and one afternoon I took it out for a drive, an actual drive, which is to say, I had no destination in mind, but just thought I'd drive out into the country to enjoy the scenery and pass the time.

It turned out to be a gorgeous October day in Southern Wisconsin. The leaves were in their red-gold Autumn glory, and the mid-afternoon sun exuded that mellow Fall light you just can't get enough of, once you get a taste for it: honey on the sweet-tooth of your mind. The highway was smooth and straight. The farms I passed were neat and trim: rectangular fields and winsome barns. I slipped a CD into the car stereo. Beautiful music poured forth. Where in God's name was I? Heaven?

There is no doubt in my mind that even a generation from now, my experience of that afternoon will seem as far away to most people as the Columbia exhibition of 1893 is to us today: an image out of paradise, a thing to behold in photographs and sigh, a beautiful bygone thrill. But agree with me on that point or not, it's the autobiographical reality I want to reflect on here. Because a week or two after this drive I wrote to a friend about the experience, which apparently was tinged with an disquieting sense of prophecy. I wrote:

I was suddenly overwhelmed with a sort of imposed certainty of blessing. Almost as if it was a doom of mine never to truly suffer. I would, I thought, have bright and well-adjusted children, a life-long love in my wife, a comfortable suburban home, sufficient income....I would be published, win some prizes, and be asked to speak at writers' conventions....

Doesn't sound so bad, does it? But so then, why did I never take another drive in the country, ever again?

I can tell you why. The drive and the thoughts that came with it left me feeling empty and disappointed: Is this all there is going to be to my life? Fluent success? Effortless well-being? Trouble-free transference-to-me of suburban plenty? A life more-or-less equal in effort to this car ride--where all I have to do is turn this wheel a few degrees this way or that, and press a little on the gas and this beautiful afternoon is all mine for the taking?

It's a consistent topic of conversation here at Sunnyside, why it is that so many people seem so interested these days in watching films and in reading books that are set in post-apocalyptic futures. And we Sunnysiders have concluded that it comes from the culture being bored, bored sick and silly. We ache for a quest. We want to prove ourselves worthy of something more than the commute and a job in retail or whatever else it is that isn't really working for us in terms of character development and soul. That's all. That's it. And when we don't find those opportunities in what we call real life, we turn to living them vicariously. Thus the post-apocalyptic books and shows.  

But there is a better way than b-rate movies and books to become true adventurers and valiant warriors. The quest to do so is outlined here at 9-Volt Nomad. Our dragons are Mindlessness and Consumption. Our steeds are bicycles. Our battlegrounds are vegetable gardens; our weapons, mead-pots and potato ricers. And by the way we like to refer to nine volts here, because we aim to do with a very little bit of energy, what others might think you'd need a whole lot of energy to accomplish (9-volt nomads seek to dry their clothes in the sun for instance, which actually takes no earthly energy at all). Also we call ourselves nomads because we aspire always to be perceptually and imaginatively on the move, even if the place toward which we're journeying is always (paradoxically) exactly where we are. This is to say, our destination is simple satisfaction with the here and now, and on the lowest carbon budget possible.

So, now I'm forty-five years old instead of twenty-five, and here I am, not speaking for fees at any big writers' conventions but writing as best I can for a blog about 1800 square feet called Sunnyside. Though to be honest I doubt I'll ever fully arrive here. That's the adventure, always finding this place! Always aiming to deepen it as a venue of sensual adventure and of intellectual production and of communitarian insight and practical expertise! 

I note that since my arrival here at least one (very local) apocalypse has passed harmlessly; it was that prefabricated automotive lifestyle we Sunnysiders have left behind us, and from which we no longer expect to receive satisfaction. I note too that I certainly no longer worry about the good things in life coming too easily (as I did on that afternoon long ago in the car). This is because the quest I am on presents challenges at every turn. Today it's getting the tomato sauce canned and sealed. Tomorrow it's sharpening the hoe. And in the meantime there's the writing to do: another page of the novel to set down, another character to keep stoked with another shovelful of words. Or maybe some preliminary thought to dig like compost into the blog.

I want to say too that for me as an writer, the moral imperative to homestead as well as to write has meant setting aside the ambition to become this or that in anyone's eyes quickly and young, and focusing instead as purely as possible on the real basis for accomplishment in art, which is to say, on the inner vision of the heart as it beholds the spectacle of the world and on articulating that with beauty and passionate attention to the truth, period and regardless. In literature, as well as the practical living day, there is no substitute for the long honest road home. 

And I hope that the truth is what I have been writing here. 


HB 



 

When the House is Burning Down...

A change of pace here. From meditation to analysis. From the concrete and close-at-hand to the systemic and abstract. From the home economy of Sunny-side to the simulated fictions of Wall Street. A post on oil:

Amid the river of blather about energy independence, vast shale oil reserves, and all the accompanying malarkey, once in awhile you can sieve out the tiniest little nugget of the real-world, experienced truth. Here's one such nugget from Bloomberg in an article that's mostly about the Gulf spill:

Exxon, BP, Shell, Chevron Corp. and Total SA earned more than $1 trillion in total profit during the past decade, almost all of which has been spent in the search for new pools of oil and natural gas. Since 2004, the five companies have tripled capital spending and their combined output has fallen by 1.4 million barrels a day, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Let's just repeat, just to make sure we've got that: since 2004 big oil, at great expense, has been in an increasingly desperate search for new oil. Like a male porn star in search of a penis. Or a bent wheel in search of some pi. Pretty much all their profits have gone toward finding more oil. In fact, they've tripled their spending on exploration and drilling, and what have they gotten for it? Less oil!

Actually, that's old news. Actually the nightmare for them goes deeper than that. Check this out, if you don't mind glazing your eyes a bit.

Lots of boring true information here, which is to say, it's dynamite. Especially about three quarters of the way through to the end, where the good man points out that in the last year or two, the oil majors have been selling OFF leases and cutting BACK on exploration and drilling just to keep the cash flow up and investors satisfied. Now, how long can they keep that up?

Folks, at the risk of stating the obvious, the oil industry is in trouble. Big oil. Little oil. Heavy oil. Tight oil. Natural gas. There's no revolution here, only something like a relentlessly closing door of bonded steel. If you're invested in it in any way, get out. Sure the money, because of speculation, HAS BEEN good. Sure economists are still telling us we're in the middle of a energy revolution or even at the cusp of one. 

Trust a playwright who knows his tragedy: this bubble of the so-called energy revolution's gonna blow. And it's a big one. Probably God himself couldn't tease out the knot of who all's involved. It's property. It's equities. It's heavy equipment. It's honking big banks. It's Mom and Dad in Shalesville, PA. Heck it's even the Norwegians, who in a fairly recent fit of idiocy bought billions in Texas land holdings from Chesapeake, which, by the way, in spite of being the biggest shale energy producer in the US, and in spite of trying for something like 15 years, has never made a PENNY on sale of product. Though by god it has made a profit or two selling the pipe dream.

In a word, this bubble's big.

Again, trust a playwright. Playwrights have a nose for drama around the corner. 

My own feeling too, is that when this thing goes down, there isn't going to be a fix for it--not one that's relevant in our lifetimes anyway. We've done the bailout thing. The US is already something like 150 percent of GDP in debt, which is to say, up our eyeballs. Interest rates are already basically zero. Heck in Europe the rates are negative. How are we going to fix another serious recession? Where's the voltage for more stimulus?

Folks, there's no more fix to fix it with. 

If you're an investor, especially in equities, consider cash. Really. Sure the market could still go up, but the best gamblers know when to stop, especially when they smell the house is burning down. 

HB

The Busy Bee Has No Time For Sorrow

Isn't it interesting that we tend to think of time almost as a raw material, a resource, a fuel? We say we "spend" time. We speak of using it up. We even accuse ourselves of wasting it. This all seems to make sense. And yet...

What if it's more like a matrix or a space in which to store things? A treasure box to fill with treasure? A honeycomb in which we store the honey of memories and good deeds?

What difference would it make for us, if we adopted this metaphor of time as honeycomb? Well, maybe a big one.

I remember, back when my son was still really young, say three and four and five--dealing with this question of time a lot. Taking him to the playground. Listening to him talk and talk and talk. Dressing him. Feeding him. Bathing him. Washing and folding his clothes. Reading to him. Taking him for walks in the woods, his little hand in mine, his other one holding a leaf. All this took time, and a great deal of time. But what's more important than taking care of your little boy, who needs and loves you? What sweeter honey to fill the honey-comb of your life could there ever, ever be?

It's a hard thing to get away from thinking we have to measure time out oh-so-carefully. Buy as much life-activity with every second as possible. Hoard it. Keep it close. But it's worth adjusting our point of view. 

After all, when the honey comb is finally full, and the ultimate harvest has come, how do we want to be remembered? Surely we want people to say something like: "What a sweet life he lived, so full of affection and love; he never thought twice about helping." Or, "She always had time for me; in her presence I always felt like a gift."


HB

Hospitality: Travel in Disguise?

Hospitality is a subtle form of travel. It offers many of the best gifts of travel, without imposing the many costs that literal travel imposes on the living globe. And here are some of the gifts I mean; xhen a guest comes you get:

• The sudden immersion in variety.
• An uptick in the probability of surprise.
• Access to a set of stories not your own.
• Exposure to angles of perception not your own.
• A good excuse for eating and drinking.
• An opportunity, by means of comparison and contrast, to recognize the blessings in your life. 

All these are gifts of travel. They are also gifts incidental to the practice of hospitality. 

Now of course, there are limits to every metaphor and comparison, and limits certainly apply here. But so what? What matters is that when people get together as guest and host, something very powerful often happens. Something full of the opportunity for growth and change. Something again, quite a bit like the best kind of travel. 

Not so long ago, my wife and I hosted a family of five, the youngest of whom was a boy of four. Throughout their visit, the boy kept calling me into the sun-room, which serves as a writing and study space and is also full of plants. He asked me to show him my typewriter, and to explain to him my hourglass. Then it was on to my bamboo flutes. Would I, he asked, teach him to make a sound on these? I did my best. At one point he even inquired as to whether I kept any "disguises" in the room, a question to which, sadly perhaps, I could only answer no. What did he have in mind, though, I wondered: a superhero costume, a pirate get-up?

Then absolutely out of the blue, he said: "You are an awesome writer!" Nothing rational here. Just the purest of unsought gifts. A compliment given in absolute faith. And I'll take it. When a four-year-old child says you're awesome at something, why not just believe? 

All in all, it was a delightful evening with both the family and the boy. And here's a question: if, in lieu of this memorable evening with this inquisitive and charming little human being, I had been offered a fine meal at a restaurant on the Riviera, or an evening under the stars in the Australian desert, or an adventurous afternoon with camel traders in the Sahara, dancers included, would I have traded it in? 

I think not. The boy, I think, was travel enough. His curious spirit was like a beautiful place I had stumbled upon, and our evening's friendship was my visit to his mind. 



HB