Just Write

Midnight approaches and I am accompanied by the dog and Ray Charles singing “Come Back Baby.”

Tomorrow morning I will check back in with family and friends who are being pounded by Sandy and hope they remain safe and dry.

It is surreal to be here in LA where the temperatures are in pushing towards ranges most often associated with Summer while elsewhere people are bundled up in winter clothing.

Women Rule Social Media

One of the guys I play ball with just found out I am a blogger. He thinks it is funny to ask if I am a mommy blogger and wonders if I know that women rule social media.

I smile and tell him that I am not the guy who got a vasectomy. His grin disappears and he walks away.

It is common knowledge that his wife forced him to get clipped and I am tired of his antics. I don’t need to engage in pissing contests and have little to no interest in the silly verbal sparring he wants to engage in.

Not to mention I am well aware of my cranky state and know trouble is coming. Most of the time I am a happy curmudgeon, but not tonight.

My knees and back hurt and I am concerned that the miles of wear and tear are catching up with me.

I Am Not Old

The comment about mileage isn’t a euphemism for a hard life of drugs and drinking. It is an acknowledgement of how I played sports.

I have spent decades playing hard. Haven’t had the talent to keep up with some of the guys but I made up for it in will and desire. I did the dirty work and spent time doing stuff that many didn’t want to do.

That is why some of the guys let me play with them. They were far more talented and normally wouldn’t pick me, but I made them want to because I played hard.

I keep repeating that because it is how I cope with not being able to play as I once did. It is not easy to accept and that is why I bring it up often, but sooner or later I’ll let go of the part that fights and adjust.

Rolling With The Changes

I am still rolling with the changes because it is how things go and there are no other options.

The blog is having issues. I noticed last night that when I tried to create a new post I couldn’t add pictures and the HTML editor was gone. It appears Jetpack is having issues. When I deactivate it the problems seem to disappear.

That irks me. It is one of my favorite plugins. Have to do more checking.

Ray Charles and Dad Bloggers

Ray has moved on to “You Don’t Know Me”, “It Should Have Been Me” and a dozen other songs I never tire of listening to.

Been a fan of Ray’s for more than 25 years but some of my most prominent memories come from my first apartment, a turntable and a bottle of Scotch.

I’d come home from work, turn on Ray and grab a drink. It was me, Ray and Johnny Walker standing on the balcony watching the sunset. Most nights I wouldn’t have more than that one drink, but every now and then there were…more.

Occasionally I’d wake up in the big stuffed chair I inherited from my grandparents and wonder why hangovers hurt so damn much.

Somewhere in the midst of all this came a girl who listened to Ray with me and would lie in bed listening to me talk about dreams for the future.

I remember listening to her talk about the future she wanted felt like this very wise, very old man.

Now I look back and laugh at the very young, very naive man I was.

Who I Was, Who I Am, Who I Will Become

Ray was there back in the days I refer to as who I was and he is here now in the time I call who I am. It is safe to say he’ll still be hanging out with me when I who I will become show up.

I feel like I have lived a thousand lives. Don’t know if everyone feels this way or if it is the province of writers, just that I feel this way.

Maybe it is because people have told me that if we had met at a different time or different place we might have done things together. Maybe it is because I see stories in my head and hear their whispers in my mind.

There is much joy in this journey and confidence that I am on my way to where I am going. Can’t ask for more than that and a request for health and wealth for my family and friends.

And that my friends is Just Write.

Most of you aren’t aware that I maintain about five different blogs, truth is there might be one or two more that I am not thinking about.

There are only a few that I talk about here. Random Thoughts and Words Left Unwritten get some play and occasionally I’ll point out the second Random Thoughts too.

The first Random Thoughts is where this all began. It is special to me because it is my first cyber home and I haven’t let go of it because it has sentimental value and because sometimes I go back there because it offers a place to do different sorts of writing than here.

Words Left Unwritten is where I focus on my fiction and I love that place too because it is where I have worked on turning possibility into opportunity. Many of the stories I write there have received quite a bit of attention and it is where I work on pushing myself to reach that next rung on the ladder.

The second Random Thoughts was my second serious attempt to move from Blogger to WordPress. It wasn’t self hosted, but it was where I began to figure out how WP works and where I mulled over whether it made sense to make the move.

“I believe we have two lives: the one we learn with, and the one we live with after that.” Iris Gaines From The Natural

The headline should be changed to sometimes Bloggers Are Insecure because that is more accurate. It reflects the truth or maybe it reflects my truth.

Sometimes when I don’t receive many shares or comments I suffer from Blog Envy and Tweet Esteem issues. Most of the time I don’t care because I love what I am doing too much not to do it.

This place you are visiting, it is my refuge and my salvation. There is so much joy in the journey I can’t properly express what it means to me.

I can tell you about how I became a writer, stopped and then started again. I can tell you about how blogging has helped put me back on track to what I am supposed to do with my life.

I am a writer.

This is what I am supposed to do. These words you read are magic and are taking me too places I only imagined.

Thirty years ago I wanted nothing more than to be an outfielder for the Dodgers. I was good. I led the league in home runs. No one had a better arm than I did. I threw out a boy at home plate.

I still remember scooping up the ball in center field and firing it home. It was perfect. He slid right into the tag.

Eighteen years ago I stood under a moonlit sky in the middle of Jerusalem and made my decision to leave the states and move. I walked with a group of twenty somethings like myself and talked about what life would be.

I flirted with girls from South Africa, England and Scotland. Israeli girls teased me about my accent and I laughed.

My dreams of playing centerfield were long since gone and I had other thoughts on my mind. I knew that I was on the verge of something big, something amazing and I wanted it.

Life happened and I went a different direction. Sometimes I have wondered whether the choices I made were right, smart and or proper.

I have wondered if I could do anything would I step back in time and try the road not taken. Most of the time I don’t think about that anymore. I don’t ask if things happen for a reason because it doesn’t really matter.

Life Is Challenging, But Good

It doesn’t matter because what is done is done and I have that fierce grizzly bear love that parents have for children. My children are simply awesome and I am grateful to have them in my life.

There is no doubt that life has presented its share of challenges and that there have been many moments where I have wondered what would happen next.

Frustration and uncertainty have reared their heads and I have asked if I am the source of challenges, but this is where blogging steps back in.

Blogging has provided a simple venue in which I have been able to ask and answer these questions. It is where I have wandered down aisles and pathways that have made it clear to me that this is special.

I don’t have all of the answers I have been looking for, but I have found more than a few. I feel a bit like Indiana Jones and though I am sitting at a keyboard it doesn’t mean I don’t wear the hell out of a fedora or am any less capable of using this bull whip.

Can’t tell you what chapter I am on, but I know there is a lot left in this story and I hope you continue to share it with me.

Ojai, Texas, Israel and Los Angeles are on my mind because these are the places of burning importance to me.

These are the places that helped me become who I was, who I am and I am going to become.

My friend Sandi put something up on Facebook about being a 5/5 on the feistiness scale and I responded by saying I am an 8 or a 9. Don’t  know if that is good or bad, but I am who I am.

iTunes is set to shuffle and Sting’s song A Thousand Years has just come on. Is this a message or just coincidence. Beats me and I am too tired to try to figure it out.

Still staring at the picture of the sign from the Dead Sea.  There are so many stories I could tell you about the lives I have lived and the paths I have walked. Some of them are more interesting than others and some are probably just dull and devoid of meaning to most.

Twenty-Seven years ago I began making plans for a future that didn’t materialize. I was going to live ten thousand miles from home. I was going to become a soldier and raise my family in a different land from that I knew but one that always feels like home.

And then life happened. There was a shift and a change. I took a different path and became a different person. Can’t say better or worse, just different.

How Did You Become Who You Are?

Do you ever think about it. Do you ever wonder about what could have happened if you had made different choices. By now it should be obvious that I have done and still do this.

It is a part of me. I am filled with wanderlust and a desire to seek…things. It may not seem like it, but there are large periods of time in which I am settled and not interested in stoking the flames, but things happen and the shift comes.

Part of me doesn’t like the sound of it, makes me sound manic and or imbalanced. Don’t like that because I am…not.

Feisty. Sometimes impulsive and willing to dance in the flames, but I know what I am doing.

Tonight Facebook shared a face from my past. A woman I knew from my time in Ojai was shown to me. The AI on Facebook suggested that perhaps we knew each other and I laughed. We know each other, or at least we did.

There was a time when I thought perhaps we might get married. There was a time when we shared a brief scare and I wondered what it might mean to be a father at 19. It didn’t happen and I am grateful. Many years have passed and though I look back and smile I know she wasn’t for me.

In The Days of My Youth

iTunes is still speaking to me. Good Times, Bad Times by Led Zeppelin has just come on. Can’t help but smile listening to that and then I have to listen to Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You.

“Babe, baby, baby, I wanna leave you
I ain’t jokin’ woman – I’ve got to ramble
Oh, yeah, baby, baby, I will be there
I’ve really got to ramble
I can hear it callin’ me the way it used to do
I can hear it callin’ me back home”

My thoughts are back in Israel and I am remembering how it all started in Ojai.

We were evacuated from a forest fire. The entire lot of us leaving in the dead of night. Almost 30 years later I can still see the flames lighting up the sky and hear the howl of the siren.

Years later the rumble of the earth will wake me and as I listen to a hundred car alarms I’ll remember the sound of the siren and ash falling from the sky.

Time will pass and I’ll walk down a street in Jerusalem past the scene of a terrorist attack. It will have taken place days earlier, but I’ll stare at holes in the wall and remember the sounds of the siren and the rumble of the earth.

These Words I Write

You can blame Jim Murray for these words I write. He was one of the finest sportswriters ever and his writing made me fall in love with words.

There are others who I regard fondly and remember with joy, but Jim Murray is among the very few regrets of my life. I would have loved to have met him and to have talked about writing.

It would have been great to hear some of his stories. I am sorry it never happened. With some luck I may still yet have the chance to do so with Vin Scully.

How did you became who you are is a question I have asked many times. I still ask it and not just of myself.

I think if I did a better job of asking others to share their tale with me I would find myself in an entirely different place than I am now.

How did you become who you are?