Fearless by default

Day Six Thousand Three Hundred and Thirty Eight . . . With Each Sunrise.

2025-05-09T01:06:00.008-04:00

Today is my Birthday. I'm 55 years old.

I was born at 11:40 PM on Saturday, May 9th, 1970. It would have been Mother's Day if I had waited another twenty minutes. But patience has never been my thing.

I remember a family story where my aunt brought pink flowers to the hospital because she was 100% certain I would be a girl. Surprise!

Here's me on the day they brought me home. The story goes that as soon as the feather came off, I peed straight into the air and all over my aunt's fur throw. TMI, I know. Oh well. Now it's your story too. :)

I grew up to be a curious kid--a nice way of saying "big, pain in the ass," and got myself into low-level trouble regularly. If I had taken better care of all the original-pressing Beatles albums I bought with money my mom never noticed gone from her wallet, I'd have a small fortune. But I was young and antsy and impulsive and some might say a bit devious. I remember one time I took a fresh, 1978 ten-dollar bill down to the China Royal and sat at a four-person booth by myself and ordered a #6 (pork fried rice, chicken fingers, and chow mein). I sat there while the staff watched this wayward child smother the entire contents in duck sauce, feasting in my Space Invaders tee, cutoff shorts, and Pro Keds like some sort of child star. If only.

But despite my penchant for childhood excess, I loved my family, and I loved my friends, because these connections that we make through our lives become more important as we get older. I was taught to appreciate these things by my mom, one of the most generous, kind, loving, and intelligent people I have ever met. She had family and friends all around the world and kept these connections strong with letter-writing and phone calls--both of which seem to be on the outs these days. I have a couple of storage tubs filled with notebooks filled with first drafts of letters to friends and family. She would carefully put her thoughts in order in pencil, make her corrections in pen, and then choose just the right stationery (sometimes yellow with flowers and rabbits, sometimes blue with elephants and rainbows) for the recipient and let the ink flow from her Bic roller.

My mom had a saying she incorporated into her life: "With each sunrise, life begins anew."

In fact, she took one of her favorite sunrise-over-the-ocean photos (one of her favorite subjects) and wrote those words below it. She framed a few and sent one to me years ago. I still have it.

The quote is attributed to Jack Kornfield, an insight meditation teacher, and was in his 1994 book "Buddha's Little Instruction Book." This all makes sense in my timeline of things.

But Judy loved this sentiment above all the other Live, Love, Laugh-style Pier One Imports affirmation plaques. This wasn't a home accent. It was a creed she tried to live by.

She felt that each new day offers one an opportunity to enact change, if that is one's desire. Each downward pull of the Venetian blind cord affords one the option to take the things we learned from all the days before and try to not repeat that which was problematic, and dig into the things that worked.

Judy held these words close, not only with the aim that it would help her stay focused and forward-moving, but also with the hope that it would resonate with me--her "life's proudest accomplishment and greatest joy" (no pressure or anything).

She hoped that I would take the opportunity--or at least be aware of its existence--to one day attempt to steer the ship I was on through the storm of substance abuse and voraciousness and into clearer weather and calmer waters. And she never lost faith in me, no matter how bad things got. My mom knew in her heart that someday, somehow, I would find a way to see the joy in simply living. It took almost a year from when she died until I got sober, but it did finally come to pass. And since that day almost two decades ago, I've been able to help others see that there are more options to get through each new day than the one we know and trust. With each sunrise, your life can begin anew. Or, of course, it can go on as it has been. But as sure as that second hand keeps plugging along, the opportunity, the chance for change will always come around again. Isn't that amazing? I think so.

My wife brought me breakfast in bed today--a birthday tradition for both of us--and asked me if I was happy. Of course, the answer was yes, but I reminded her that more than happiness, my mom wished for me to find "contentment." This was a word I never fully understood, and it's a state that I still can only catch glimpses of. But at least I can have more than an inkling that it exists. And I'm no clinical psychologist, but I'm guessing that, as with many states of consciousness, it's something that ebbs and flows. So the mere fact that I have been able to sit in Contentment's chair and feel its fine Corinthian leather is a sign that I'm on the right track.

When Jodi's mom died last December, the world lost a great woman. And as Jodi said last week, "we lost a lot of things when we lost Jane." The woman had many quirks, and, like many people her age, had an interesting approach to social media. Her Facebook Birthday posts were the stuff of legend. I say that because to this day, I still don't know anyone who posts on their own page a "Happy Birthday _____" and doesn't tag the person in some way or another. I mean, the idea is to post on that person's timeline, of course. That's somewhere in the third or fourth chapter of the "So You Want to Start a Facebook Page" book.

She also called me "Sonny Boy," which is also a term of affection my mom used. So it always made me doubly happy to see or hear it.

Exhibit A:

But Jane did things her own way. She was unique--one of a kind--a real whammer of a person. But she also stayed connected to her friends and family, and those people were all part of her Facebook circle. Even still, if you didn't see what she wrote when she wrote it, it might get lost in the shuffle.

Life used to be a lot simpler, I guess. And the "shuffle" was somewhat more contained. Maybe we just have a wider perspective on life--we see more because that possibility is available, where it once was only a futuristic dream. I'm not sure, and I suppose it doesn't really matter, but here in 2025, we are all in a part of human existence that I can't imagine can compare to anything that came before it, both technologically and socially.

Today, as I opened my eyes and the panic and dread of the uncertainty of life unceremoniously filled the spaces where they know they don't belong, I thought of my mom's favorite phrase. I reminded myself that only I hold the key to how the rest of my day--let alone my life--will unfold. I did this and waited for Jodi's alarm to go off.

Not long after, I smiled as she brought the tray of birthday treats closer, taking it in with my eyes, making a wish in my head, and filling my lungs with just the right amount of air.

We enjoyed this special morning meal in bed, that's almost always reserved for the table not far away--the one where we talk about the rest of the day. Jodi went to work, I cleaned the house, and talked to one of my oldest and dearest friends. He sang me "Sto lat," the Polish version of "Happy Birthday."

Soon I'll get on my bike and head off to work for a while, where I'll teach a few six-year-olds what I can about this crazy language I am lucky enough to have grown up speaking. Little do they know I'm learning what I can from hearing what they say in a language I'm struggling with.

I wasn't planning on writing today. Hell, I haven't posted anything in a year and a half.

But I had an option, as I do every day, to share with whoever so chooses to read.

So, from the bottom of my 55-year-old heart, thank you for waking up today, thank you for being part of this life, and, as always, thank you for reading.

And on we go . . .

~FAJ

Day Five Thousand Four Hundred and Ninety Three . . . Food For Thought.

2024-01-11T21:17:00.107-05:00

Part One: Judy's World

I never understood radishes.

My mom loved them. And she'd munch the little red devils by the bowlful.

I can picture her slowly cutting the tops in a fancy manner with her trusty paring knife and soaking them in water. This magically made them look like little roses when they came out. Then tossing them in a white and green Corelle bowl with a paper towel underneath and then onto one of the many bright orange trays she "borrowed" from work. And finally, with a satisfied smile bringing them out into the TV room.

Those suckers were loud, too. I could be sitting in one of our big, green armchairs with the changeable upholstery on them across the room and still be able to hear the "crunch,” which also drew the attention of our dogs who were never quite satisfied until trying a cautious nibble. I'd look over and there she would be chewing away in her little heaven. She was always so happy when she was eating. When I think of my mom often the image I see in my head is of her chomping on something delicious with raised eyebrows--a quick glance my way as if to say "isn't this something?" If the eyes are the window to one’s soul, I think one’s mouth is the window to one’s heart.

Though there were just as many things she didn't like to eat.

Spaghetti, for instance. Yep, she claimed spaghetti (and noodles in general) reminded her of worms. For an earth science teacher, you'd think this would be a plus. But I guess I can understand it to a point. It wasn't the fact that it was pasta, mind you. Ziti, rigatoni, rotelli, those were all fair game. But spaghetti was out, no two ways about it. Rice, too, for that matter. Whenever we went for Chinese food (The China Royal, for those in the know) she would ask for "lettuce and tomato on the side" instead of rice. Some phrases are emblazoned in my brain. "Lettuce and tomato on the side" must have been said in my presence at least 100 times (we ate a lot of Chinese food). And for that matter, she didn't really like Chinese food, either. Her go-to at the China Diner as it was affectionately called, was a Spanish cod dish with a tomato sauce topping. I remember always feeling like it was so out of place amongst the crab rangoon, chicken fingers, chow mein, lo mein, and pork fried rice that would take up the bulk of our table's real estate. But that was how my mom rolled. There weren't too many gray areas where food was concerned. She either liked it or loathed it.

Later in life, when I worked at a restaurant called Amber Waves, I'd sometimes make their version of lo mein (with egg noodles) and, that, she somehow managed to eat. I guess she thought she was living on the edge. That, and her boy made it for her, and it was hard for her to say no to me.

But as much as I tried I could never understand the radish's appeal. That bitter sting on the tongue and the rough mouthfeel. To me, they seemed much more like a garnish, though truth be told I eat a lot of things these days that were considered garnishes when I was younger. Kale leaves, I'm looking in your direction.

For me, though, I'd much rather chomp on uncooked potatoes. And that's not me being facetious. I really liked raw potatoes--still do.

Mom made mashed potatoes quite often and one of her favorite ways to prepare them was paring them (she hardly ever used a peeler for round things). Then she'd cut them into small cubes and soak them cold water in our kitchen sink. Cut to a six-year-old me reaching my hand up and into the water hurriedly fishing around for the perfect piece to chomp on on my way back to the TV, water dripping from my hands all over the carpet.

For that matter, I also enjoy chomping on uncooked pasta. Or better yet, pasta that's just been dropped into boiling water. I think for a former fat kid it all makes perfect sense. Why wait for food to be "cooked" when it's right there in front of you waiting to go inside and make that brain (and heart) happy.

But getting back to mashed potatoes, I don't know too many people who whip their mashed potatoes with an electric mixer at home. Most people just use a masher. But that's how Judy J. did it, adding in a copious amount of butter and milk and the perfect salt-to-pepper ratio. She called them “smash-em-up potatoes,” as she had to have a cute name for most everything.

The next day--if there was any left--we'd have Judy's famous "rusty potatoes," which just meant she'd put them in a frying pan with even more butter, mix in some dried onion flakes, and cook them until they developed a golden crisp on the bottom. A few scrapes with the heavy-duty spatula and the process would be repeated, until these once smooth and fluffy as a cloud “smash-em-up potatoes” had some texture and character. These could be eaten on their own or as a side dish to a quick pork chop or her special "hamburg and gravy" dish that included a pound of ground beef, a couple of jars of mushroom gravy, and canned mushrooms. She'd also add in some canned peas for "color."

When I think back to the days of growing up in the 1970s and try to envision what veggies we consumed, it was mainly either canned peas or corn and not much more in between save for a boiled potato or onion. We put that electric can opener through its paces. Crack open a can of Green Giant into a Revere Ware copper-bottom pan, and add a pat of butter and salt and pepper. Heat on low for ten minutes and there you have it--healthy eating for all! I used to enjoy drinking the "pea juice" when the peas were gone. Basically water with butter, salt, and pepper. Yum!

And yeah, we ate a lot of beef. And you better believe my mom had her own version of a hamburger, aptly named the "Momburger." A few spices and (again) dried onion flakes were all it took to turn the average burger on its end. Growing up in Fall River we were never short of amazing bakeries, and the rolls for these burgers were simply perfect. They weren't buns, mind you. These were Portuguese rolls--thick yet fluffy and dusted with delicious, nutritious white flour. I can still remember how impossibly wide I had to open my mouth to try and fit one in--with ketchup, mustard, and hot American cheese dripping onto my chin down to my OshKosh B’gosh overalls. We'd pair these with dill pickle spears and either Wise potato chips or my mom's hand-cut french fries.

Part One-and-a-half: Eyes On The Fries:

When my mom made fries it was the most dangerous time in the kitchen. If she had a biohazard sign it would have been hung along with an orange cone or two whenever they were on the menu.

One of the hardest things to let go of was the famous, heavy-bottom french fry pot that spent its off time in the back of the fridge half filled with oil and draped with aluminum foil. She'd reuse the oil two or three times before it was tossed and I will posit that on each successive use, the fries tasted that much better.

I can hear the sharp, midrangey pop and crackle as the potato strips--the size of a Lincoln Log--were dropped into the slowly swirling oil. Most of my memories of this time are from when I was too short to see it from above.

This pic is our kitchen which I grabbed off the web (she sold the house decades ago). They're recent photos but the placement of the sink and stove is the same as I remember (though the fridge would be to the left of the person taking the pic).

But yeah, her fries were incredible. What she did with potatoes, in general, was astonishing. But growing up in the 40s and 50s with an English/Irish dad and a full-blooded Polish mom will do that to you, I suppose.

For Judy's fries, she used long Russet potatoes. So while one might call them "steak fries" they were more than this. Cooked just long enough so the ends were a bit crispy and the middles bendable but not soggy. Salty but not shockingly so. Most were long and wide but, of course, the edge pieces were thinner and ended up crisped. I've never shied away from hyperbole and now is certainly no time to change my ways. So to say they were like a beautiful song, each piece having a place among the others—verse, chorus, solo and outro—is not far from the truth. It was a delicate maneuver to create such harmony with a bag of potatoes, and while it didn't need to be a special occasion for her to make her fries, whenever she did that's exactly what it was.

Here's another pic of the kitchen, taken from where the seat was that nobody sat at because there was always too much stuff near the window.

It's really incredible for me to see these, because while there have been some improvements over the years (flooring, a paint job, the sink backboard) that is the same damn sink from 45 years ago that I stuck my grubby little paws in.

Like I was saying . . .

Here's a pic of me from more than fifty years ago, as I can't be more than two. You can see the sink behind me, and you can also see my future in front of me--once a Cake Guy always a Cake Guy.

It's the same ceramic sink my mom would empty a bag of steamers into (long-neck clams if you don't know) and then sprinkle some black pepper so they would "sneeze" out any ingested sand. I was once asked by a co-worker, "What does a clam sound like when it sneezes?" I laughed it off at the time, but I suppose the question was robust enough to stick with me for twenty years.

And the kitchen is the room we ate most of our meals in as well.

Sure, we had a dining room table for special events, but breakfast was always eaten in here--usually Cheerios and milk with a cup of orange juice and a Pyrex percolator bubbling away with the weakest coffee anyone had ever put in a cup for Judy and Lynda.

My mom would have the same breakfast I did, but out again would come the paring knife and I will forever be amazed at how she could slice a banana lengthwise, then slowly across from the outside in towards her thumb watching with wonder as the bite-size crescents dropped into the bowl clinging to any number of puffed wheat life rafts.

It took me years to open myself up to bananas. That was always a Judy thing, and I was happy to let her have it. But yeah, I get it now, though I leave the sugar in the sugar bowl.

And while I wasn't allowed artificially sweetened cereal growing up (Fruit Loops, Frosted Flakes, etc, all taste terrible to me) my mom wasn't shy with the real stuff, topping her otherwise healthy-ish breakfast choice with a teaspoon of crystalline glucose. We see cantaloupe here in Japan quite often. And that was another thing she liked to "accent." But yeah, no sugary cereal in the house. No sir-ee. :)

From time to time I come across a food here that reminds me of her cooking.

Just the other day we went to a buffet (we don't do this often, believe me) and they had--shockingly--a clam chowder that was very close to my mom's version. Super creamy and not too thick with a layer of butter floating on top that might have been enough to cook another meal with.

There's a tsukemen place (like ramen but the noodles are separate for dipping purposes) that makes a bowl of spicy pork soup that reminds me of my mom's meat sauce.

Now, if you remember what I said about Judy and noodles you'll know which part she'd ask to be subbed with "lettuce and tomato on the side, please."

But her meat sauce had ground beef (of course) chuck, two kinds of pork, green peppers, onions, plenty of garlic, three kinds of canned tomatoes, loads of salt and pepper, and just the right amount of red pepper flakes (I can see her handwriting on the recipe sheets she gave me with giant squiggles under the lines "NOT TOO MUCH").

She had a special three or four-gallon pot (Revere Ware, once again--the choice for any self-respecting Yankee of a certain generation or two) that she would fill to the brim. It took half a day to make and when it was cooking I think the whole neighborhood knew (and longed for an invite).

I'd enjoy this over a bowl of hot spaghetti. But Judy just ate it by the bowlful with a Portuguese roll (yes, the ones we used for Momburgers) torn up for dipping. The rest was portioned into freezer bags (or just plastic bags well before there was any differentiation). And as if we were in olden times and the hunters had taken down a wildebeest Judy's Famous Meat Sauce would be ceremoniously eaten throughout the following month or two. I think I learned a lot about enjoying what we have from the sad feeling I got seeing the last two bags in the back of the freezer and just knowing--nay, believing--there was more somewhere when there simply was not.

Part Two: My World

I haven't cried in a long time.

Not that one can portion that sort of stuff and say "I got that all out of my system," but I had a lot of sadness in my life around when I started this blog (2008/2009). And there were days when the tears just never stopped.

So I remember the feeling fairly well--the tingling, the energy shifting from my chest to my head and then out through my eyes, wiping my mouth on the back of my hand and then looking for a place to wash my face. There's that pain at the shoulders from how it makes your body tense, and then the aching neck that reminds you all day that you were, in case you had forgotten, sad enough to cry.

It's a feeling I had really pushed to the back of my memory. Because for better or worse after going through all that loss and renewal I began cheating myself out of real emotions. At the sign of any negativity, my go-to has been to focus on the positives and possibly create falsehoods if necessary to buffet whatever fallout may tumble down the mountain.

Some may call it, at best, being a Pollyanna, and at worst exhibiting toxic positivity. I don't want to look it up because, well, I would rather assume I know what it means and move on to stuff that's actually important. See? That's exactly what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I just lost a part of my life here in Kyoto.

I don't want to say too much, because it's really not a public matter, even though anyone walking around my neighborhood could see that something is different.

But the other day I went by one of my favorite pastry shops. They made things that everyone here makes--cream puffs, chocolate cakes, cheesecakes, cookies, and pastries--but they made them better and they made them differently. That last part doesn't always work in this town, and I had been wondering about their sales since I started going. There was rarely anyone else in the shop on my visits. But really, that can be said for a lot of places that are still in business here.

One of the specialties was marshmallows. Yep, craft marshmallows, sold in a small, clear, rectangular, plastic box. Sometimes they were raspberry flavored; other times they were yuzu (Japanese citrus) and Jodi loved them so much. They were seasonal, and the last time I went in they had sold the last container, but the woman who worked there found one spare in the back--perhaps one she was saving for herself--and gave it to me to share with Jodi. She was that sweet to me. And while her English was quite good, she'd always allow me to stumble through my elementary school Japanese and smile while repeating the thing I thought I was saying but the right way.

They made the best cream puff—or Shoo Kureemu—in Kyoto (a very popular item) with the perfect ratio of custard-to-shell. The shell was crispy but not brittle and each bite was a cause for celebration until the last (usually one that could have been two) and then the cleanup of powdered sugar from my clothes and surrounding area.

When I rode by the other day I noticed the lights were off. It was a Friday, a day they're usually open. But people take random days off here so my first reaction was, “Oh well, if they’re closed I’ll just come back tomorrow.”

I parked my bike and walked slowly toward the door to check. A hand-written sign hung in the window. I noticed their outdoor bulletin board was empty, with only a shadow from where their menu used to be. I pulled out my phone and opened my translator app, but as I awkwardly held it up to the handwritten sign my peripheral vision alerted me that the shelves inside were empty.

Maybe they were just moving, I thought. Maybe not too far. Maybe to a bigger spot. Perhaps business wasn't that bad after all and I just went on off-hours.

But the sign didn't say any of those things. It simply, politely thanked their customers for all the patronage and said they would be closing as of last month with no further information.

I had backup places, of course, but none of them had the cream puff I wanted. And so I rode back home and made some coffee and texted my wife with the news.

The pandemic had shuttered several places we cared for, but anyone who was still around, it seemed, was in it for the long haul. This is Japan, where perseverance through adversity is the unofficial national motto.

The next day I stopped in at the bread shop next door to the bakery to pick up a loaf. I asked the owner if she knew what had happened.

She lowered her voice and told me the owner had died.

He was younger than me.

What? How could this be?

He was always so sweet to me, albeit from behind the plexiglass window that provided a glimpse into his magical workshop of flour, sugar, butter, and milk, mixing up the next batch of goodies.

I was gutted, and at a loss for words even more so than usual.

But we chatted for a half minute more and I expressed my shock that he could have possibly be gone at such a young age. I fumbled for something to say—something to show I cared. But the best I could come up with was that they had the best cream puffs in town, to which she politely agreed I thanked her for the info, wishing I could have said more but thankful I’ve learned the ancient art of when to stop talking.

Then I went home and did what my mom would have done--what she taught me to do--I wrote out a small card thanking the couple for making me and my wife so happy with their food. I left out anything to do with condolences as this info was gotten second hand and people here are extremely private.

I rode to the shop, got off my bike--possibly for the last time--and approached the stairs. But this time, as I got closer, I saw some of the lights were on. I could have easily turned around and come back after hours when nobody was there, but something pulled me closer.

I peered in and saw his wife in the back. I tapped on the glass and waited as she hurriedly unlocked the door I had walked through so many times. But she didn’t welcome me in. Instead, she joined me on the stairs

It was at that moment we both knew--at least on the surface--and as I handed her the card I said, in Japanese, "I just wanted to thank you so much for all the joy you brought me and my wife with your food."

After a few stumbles back and forth we switched to English--the most we had ever spoken to each other.

She told me he had died after a more than year-long battle with cancer. She also confirmed that he was younger than I was and that while it was unexpected he did his best to fight it while keeping the shop open. She told me how these last few months they had only been open a few days a week so he could rest from the treatments, and it reminded me of my mom, and how she insisted on trying to maintain a semblance of normality through the most harrowing time in her life

I was beside myself. I didn't know what to do or say and as the tears slowly ran down my cheek she began to cry as well. I told her how I had lost my mother and most of my family to cancer and how dreadful a disease it was. I tried to refrain from saying things like "I know how it feels," because nobody wants to hear that, not when their pain is so fresh.

A deep feeling of confusion arose from trying to filter what I should say from what I shouldn't say and filtering that through the language barrier so I did what any full-blooded American would do, I leaned in and gave her a hug.

Normally, this behavior is frowned upon here, but it was the only thing I could think of and she obliged and we stood in an awkward tearful embrace over this man who I had only seen and waved to from afar.

I said I would let her go but she told me to wait. Then she went inside for a moment and came out with a small, brown plastic bag branded with their store's name.

"These are some of his last chocolates. I want you to have them. Enjoy them with your wife. Have them with a glass of wine or coffee and be happy."

I mean . . . yeah. This really happened. And as I'm typing this I'm in tears again.

I stood there with the box that she had taken from the freezer and cried some more. I knew this would most likely be the last time I saw her--at least in a situation where we could clearly recognize each other. I told her how I would miss her and her husband and the cream puffs they made, feeling slightly ashamed that one of the last things I could impart to her was how much I would miss a piece of food.

She smiled and told me that he was so proud of his work and that what I said--while unfortunate--would have made him so happy to know.

I thanked her again and wished her the best of luck in the future.

I stopped short of saying one of the many trite things people say in these situations like "Please let me know if there's anything I can do," because, really, what was there?

But I gave her my card and said that my music is there and I wrote much of it with love about people I care about--including my mother. I told her I hoped I would see her again.

I took one last swing at trying to connect and said, “So . . . what will you do now?” knowing full well that was about the dumbest question I could have come up with

“I will have to find a new job.”

I lowered my head and said, “I’m so, so sorry.”

She thanked me for all the times I came in and bought something and wished me the best of luck.

I turned and walked down the stairs and waved slowly. Then I got back on my bicycle and rode out the driveway and back home, the bag of chocolates securely fastened around my wrist..

When I got home I put the box in the freezer which is where they still are as of this post.

Part Three: Made With Love

When my mom died on January 11, 2007, she left a freezer full of her food.

Soups, chowders, and, of course, her meat sauce. This was all food, mind you, that she made while pancreatic cancer and the chemicals used to battle it consumed her.

There was a lot of it at first, and for many months it stayed put, neither me nor my aunt able to bring ourselves to defrost a "little piece of Judy." But we did eventually start eating it, enjoying it, and talking about her while we did. I know she would have been tickled pink to see it all transpire, as my aunt and I had for years been at odds, only recently really overcoming it due to my newfound sobriety.

But food has that innate ability to connect people--to remind us of places we visited, people we knew, events we celebrated, and even mundane everyday things like weekday breakfasts before trotting off to another day of elementary school, wondering what it must be like to get to eat colorful, sugary, crispy cereal.

So when the last bag of meat sauce finally made its way from the freezer to the fridge to defrost it was as sad a day as it was sweet. I remember staring at it in the little Revere Ware saucepan we brought back from her house and wondering if I could ever make it as good.

But I tried, and I got as close as anyone who wasn't her could get. Each generation, I'm sure, suffers that same uncertainty: "Did I make it as good as _____ did?"

But life is, if anything, an eternal uncertainty. And that's something that I think keeps it interesting. Because it leaves as much room for failure as success, and what tips it one way or the other is different for everyone and for everything.

So as I sit here writing this to remember my mother on the 17th anniversary of her passing, I'll wonder, once again, if today is the day to take those chocolates out of the freezer and enjoy them with Jodi.

I don't know if it is, and I don't know if it isn't. But I do know that once they're gone, they're gone.

As are we all.

Thanks for reading, and helping keep these memories alive.

And thank you, Mom, for everything else.

Your son, Frederick

For Judy: 5/14/41-1/11/07

Day Five Thousand Three Hundred and Fifty Three . . . Change Your Whole Room Around

2023-08-23T21:01:00.016-04:00

My downstairs neighbor must think we moved out.

Perhaps he's wondering where the loud couple who lived above him went (at least the husband)--or maybe he may be thinking his hearing is going.

But it's neither of those things. It just seems like I'm changing.

Today, as I was closing one of the cupboard doors in the kitchen I noticed something was different--I didn't let it slam shut. Instead, I closed it slowly and gently and the soft and low "boosh" sound it produced was almost comforting. The noise I previously made closing said door (somewhat akin to a mid-toned "bakk") is just one of many my mere existence on this earth in any room creates that would be considered louder in Japan than in my home country of the US, where--if my observations from our recent visit are consistent--anything goes. I added some felt pads to the inside of the doors, and while they do help in this instance, it's still my hand that is in charge of how much noise is made from almost any given motion.

My wife and I live on the top floor of a four-floor apartment building and are lucky enough to have high ceilings. Every now and then we hear a strange "click" sound out on the balcony that to this day (and after four years) we still can't figure out the source. But that's about the extent of the extraneous noise from the outside world. And now that I come to think of it, even going back past the homes we lived in since 2009, I haven't had upstairs neighbors since well before the turn of the millennium--and that's a long time ago. So it's safe to say I don't know what it's like to have another person's life-sounds forced upon us, literally. We occasionally hear our downstairs neighbor sneeze, and when we do I always am shocked at how thin the floors must be. Other than that he is very quiet, and that sometimes makes me nervous.

"You're not going to change me!"

These words I have said in varying shades of overblown dramatic contempt to my selfless, patient, brilliant, kind, compassionate, and beautiful wife since, oh I don't know, maybe the first six months of our fifteen years together. And every time I'm pretty sure I meant it. And every time I was saying the words I knew what I was really saying was "You're not going to make me a person more aware of my surroundings, Goddammit!"

This is a hard lesson to learn from a male, only child, raised by women.

Each time I am reminded of how loud the sound is coming from my potato farmer feet shuffling across the floor the more it speaks to how unfortunate it was that I was raised as a little king by my mother, God rest her soul. Though she did the best she could as a single mom in the 1970s, the word wasn't yet out on the street that if you tell your offspring he can do no wrong, he will believe you and will carry that kidney stone of regrettable parenting in him for a lifetime, fumbling with it in his pocket as the person most near and dear to him stands arms folded waiting for a response to the question of why you didn't hear that door slam . . . again.

Well, I didn't. And, of course, I did.

You see, I've changed so very much since I quit drinking in 2008, that it's hard to really keep track of what's different. Of course, along with all the plusses that come with that kind of lifestyle shift come the odd changes age brings--graying hair, extra hair, reading glasses, creaky bones, shifting facial features, and all the rest that I'm not going to get into here.

My hearing has gotten worse. I do use earplugs at concerts and stuff tissue in for some of my louder kids classes (I teach groups of 5-8-year-olds, and it does get loud). But simple things are harder to hear for me, and I feel awful for my wife who has to constantly repeat herself. This could possibly play a part in why I don't think I'm as noisy as I am. Maybe I just can't hear myself like she can. But then again, I'm always the closest person to me, so I guess that theory just got nosily shot out of the water.

About two decades ago a good friend of mine had a fling with a mutual friend. One night this friend drunkenly confided in me that one morning, as a joke, she had taken certain items in his bedroom and put them in places they didn't belong. She moved his golf balls from the closet and put them in his underwear drawer, balled up his T-shirts, stuffed them in his pillowcase, and mismatched all his shoes and sneakers.

"I changed his whole room around!" she chuckled as if this was the funniest thing that anyone had done to another person. Thinking back on it, it was pretty hilarious considering who it was done to. But the end result was simple and pure--someone was forced to look at their world differently not due to any major calamity, but from a completely harmless prank that was easily reversed. It made him think and it made him laugh, and, while ultimately this dalliance was short-lived, it provided a quote as famous in our little circle as any line from a movie. Following any life event one could be certain to hear, "That ordeal really changed your whole room around, eh?" Or if someone was stuck in an impasse and needed some life advice, "You really need to change your whole room around," would likely be among the suggestions.

We all knew what it meant, and we all knew it was right and true then as it is today.

Well, it's safe to say that when I met my wife she changed my whole room around.

Whether it was making sure to take our shoes off at the front door or placing glasses upside down so dust wouldn't settle inside, the changes came. There was the shift from curling my finger at her (admittedly it is probably something I wouldn't even do to a naughty dog now) to a softer whole-hand bending motion. Why nobody ever told me to close my mouth after filling it with popcorn as I chewed I will never understand, but my wife showed me the way and it simply blew my mind.

It's easy to forget these things all happened for a reason. And it's also easy to get mad when I'm shown new ways to do things that are just clearly better.

But the words "You're not going to change me" have become somewhat of a punch line in my head.

I say them as I'm making sure to put my slippers on as I walk to the bathroom at 5 a.m. to cut down on the squeaking.

I say them as I slowly open the bathroom door in an effort to prevent the air from rattling the sliders to the living room.

I say them as I slowly turn on the faucet in the kitchen sink.

I say them as I hold the door to the refrigerator until it is softly shut--same goes for the freezer.

I say them as I let my wife decompress from work before peppering her with honest questions about her day like a little puppy who just learned how to speak.

Hell, I even wrote a song about it.

It's amazing to me to say things like "You're not going to change me," even as I know full well that it's already happened.

Even when it's clear that there's no turning back.

Even as the sounds come out of my mouth like I'm practicing a new language.

Even as I look around the room and see that it's completely different from the way I went to sleep.

There's just no arguing with a better way.

Thanks for reading,

~FAJ

Day Five Thousand Two Hundred and Forty-Five . . . May Day.

2023-05-08T00:36:00.007-04:00

May always wrecks me.

This time of renewal and hope with flowers blooming, birds chirping, and days warming as spring gets into full swing. Yes, it is a beautiful time of year. Yes, I'd rather have this over the dark days of your average winter. But for several Mays now, as the month with the fewest letters creeps closer on life's immovable calendar, I have felt a sense of dread wash over me, and it's all I can do to shake it.

Writing has always helped me cope--taking over for the other things I used to use. In fact, this past December, I celebrated fifteen years of alcohol abstinence. Apologies to those who have read my words since I started making them public in 2008 and wondered what the hell had happened to me. Looking at my page, it seems like I have been, as they say, absent. But we don't always say what we need to in a timely manner, and I guess that's why I'm tapping away here in my bedroom on May 8th, 2023. But believe me when I say all is actually well, and I've never been happier.

That said . . .

I'm feeling the dread again. And it starts earlier and earlier each year.

Tomorrow is my birthday, May 9th. I'll be 53.

When my wife and I moved to Japan in 2019, I was excited to turn the big 5-0 without the threat of a party hanging overhead. I wanted no fanfare or funny business. Not that I don't like parties or--heaven forbid--attention. In fact, my incredible wife arranged for untold numbers of people in my orbit to send me birthday videos. She made a scavenger hunt out of it with clues to the big reveal hidden around the apartment. It was one of the best gifts ever.

And to say that I didn't want a party seems ludicrous now, knowing what transpired around the globe that spring and up to just recently. Nobody was having guests over in May 2020, let alone a birthday party. Here in Japan, the effects of Covid-19 still linger. People--myself included--still wear masks just about everywhere. It's nuts, but I go along with it. And hell, in the still chilly weather, it keeps my face warm. But I digress.

This dread, the malaise, the heightened nerves, and the awkward encounters all stem from one place.

I just hate getting old.

I'm lying down on my bed with a belly full of low-strength ibuprofen because the other day, I bent down and pulled a muscle in my left knee, and it hurts like hell and makes me yelp at the worst possible times. I can't describe it other than the feeling of someone pinching my knee with snub nose pliers. And my job entails sitting on the floor teaching kids English for 50 minutes at a stretch over four or five hours. Sometimes we do "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes." I think today I'll skip the "knees" portion. I wasn't doing anything strenuous at the time of the injury, just bending down to rest for a second after a nice walk.

Getting old, for me, also means an inordinate amount of food getting stuck between my teeth. I mean, seriously, WTF? I never really understood the whole idea of toothpicks. Seemed a bit savage since I was a kid. But now I keep an interdental brush in my bag because I don't want my tongue to end up raw from trying to extricate whatever brave salad survivors don't want to join their brethren in my belly.

Besides the tangible effects of time, I'm also acutely aware of the track record my family has with longevity.

My grandmother died at 68. My mom and uncle both died at 65, and my aunt had just turned 60 when she went. So yeah, I'm still on this side of the decade in question, but it's enough to keep me on edge.

My grandfather lived until he was 86, though he and my family spent several years dealing with dementia. I kind of removed myself from that by moving to Western Mass in 1991, a year before he passed. It's one of a few regrets I have, not being there for them when they needed it. Though my mom--selfless almost to a fault--was supportive of my move. I remember his funeral vaguely. My aunt and I weren't on speaking terms over what I had done while my mother was away over two summers (having friends over and using my house as a party pad, among other things). It was a sad period of my life that I'm thankful I was able to rectify--with the help of time, strangely enough.

Now, of course, I realize there are many factors that contribute to one's lifespan. And thank goodness I was shown the light fifteen years ago, or I'd dare say I wouldn't have made it to forty. I definitely wouldn't have met Jodi, or if I had, it wouldn't have lasted long. And if it had, I shudder to think what she would have had to go through dealing with my issues.

So now I lay here moping to myself about how it feels to get old. Nobody wants to hear it, let alone take the time to read about it.

So if you've made it this far, let me tell you about making peace with coat hangers.

Yep, that's right. My fight with coat hangers and all they've put me through has been resolved.

Let me explain.

I buy my coat hangers from a store called MUJI. They come in a few sizes--something I didn't realize until I was trying to hang up a tee shirt that I thought had shrunk in the dryer. Anyway, they're made of aluminum, which means they are extremely light, impervious to rust, and they make a godawful racket when you drop one, which I do quite often.

I used to blame the hangers for being so loud. When I tried to pull one off from a clump of them on the laundry rack and two or three fell, it used to drive me nuts. Why, why, why couldn't they just fall into place and sit comfortably on the rack until I needed them? I had been so good to the hangers keeping them from getting bent, scratched, or chipped. I kept the ones with the ridges separate from the regular ones to use for my wife's camisoles. I even figured out how to save the foam covers from dry cleaning and reuse them on the new hangers for dresses, sweaters, or blouses with wide necklines. In my head, I was running the best damn hanger sanctuary the world had seen. And I asked for nothing in return except for the hangers to keep their act together and behave when I needed to take one down and use it.

And yet there they were, just laughing at me when I'd pull one up, and three would fall on the ground. "Pingg," "crash," "smash."

One day, I realized something that was difficult for me to swallow: the problem was me.

Yep, seems there was nobody and nothing exerting force on these incredibly useful triangularly tied lengths of aluminum wire, but the hands on the ends of my arms. I was forced to admit, as well, that these hands were controlled by my head--an incredibly useful organ that seemed to be--up until this point--unable to square my ultimate responsibility for the effects of my body movements. They were just lengths of wire that I purchased. I took them home and unpacked them, and hung them in the closet myself. There are no hanger parties that I am aware of in which they yuck it up, telling stories of who got me the maddest and how I should have known better than to try and yank my tee shirts off them, and of course, that's why the collars get all stretched out.

But it's so easy to blame the damn hangers.

This is what I had to come to terms with. I had fallen into a thought trap wherein I was making it easy for myself to attribute power to inanimate objects. It wasn't my fault for being careless when I pulled the hanger off the rack. No, it was those damn hangers. I hate them so much!

But, of course, it was always me. And it is and always will be me--at least for the things I can control.

Like taking a breath before making a decision, especially when there are others involved. Or not being careless with hard-earned money, even if I think I deserve it. Or remembering to call, text, or write the people in my life that are important.

These are things I can control, along with the hangers.

I can't bring my mother back as much as I miss everything about her. Though I can celebrate her birthday on the 14th, which, incidentally, is Mother's Day this year. And I can talk about how much she meant to me with my mother-in-law, who I love dearly and who cares for me like a son.

I can't undo the worry I caused my mom over so many years of treating myself badly. But I can watch what I eat and try to exercise a little every day so my wife doesn't have to worry, and we can be bad on occasion when it counts.

I can't take back the things I said in the heat of the moment when my temper gets away from me. But I can try to remember to use the mindfulness tools I have at my disposal and not let my ego do the talking.

I can't control the time, day, and date, and put my birthday off until I'm ready to turn 53. But I can take solace that I can remain 52 for thirteen hours on the east coast after it turns midnight here in Kyoto.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that sometimes our minds are often too powerful for our own good. And as much as it's easy to feel like a bad day is a bunch of rancorous hangers enjoying a good laugh at our expense, sometimes we need to look deeper into how things got the way they did. The hangers are simply pieces of wire that just about everyone needs in their life, and more often than not, we have total control over them, which is nice.

So I'll raise a toast to you all tomorrow as I carefully pull a fresh tee shirt off its hanger to get ready to enjoy time with my wife on my birthday.

I guess things could be a lot worse.

Thanks for reading,

~FAJ

Day five thousand one hundred and twenty four . . . Predecessors To Hope.

2022-01-10T22:12:00.011-05:00

It's a shame I can't remember much.

As I get older and more of my friends start to lose loved ones, I often say the same thing. I tell them that my most profound regret is that I lacked a clear mind to appreciate and remember the time I spent with my mother at the end of her life. I tell them I hope there is a way they can be present in the moments that allow visitors. I try to express this in as few words as possible because my words are not what these people need to hear.

But I tell them anyway because I feel I have to. And because most people are kind and do what society expects of them, they say "thank you for your kindness" and go on with their process.

Today, in the part of the world where I live, it is January 11, 2022, meaning my mother has been gone from this earth for fifteen years.

I have no idea how this time has passed under my feet and through my hands. Time is so elusive to me--so bratty and selfish some days; hopeful, slaphappy, and aloof others, rigid, unyielding, acrimonious, and ultimately artificial, transparent, and mainly for show.

Humans created the clock and the calendar. The rest of life on planet earth just goes about its day, though I'm guessing it wouldn't use that word.

If you look around you, most people have agreed to it--whether because they have to or because it makes sense. Some people in far-off places probably use their own system to keep track of time. We hear about some of these areas now and then but only when comparing how the modern world exists, and, of course, the modern world is the one we want to live in, right? Maybe. Maybe not.

I live in Japan--fourteen hours ahead of where I come from for half of the year. It will only be thirteen hours when daylight saving time comes around again because Japan doesn't adhere to that antiquated tradition. But then again, neither does Arizona. Go figure.

So see, what does it all really mean, anyway?

But my mother. My poor, selfless mother. She did what she could with me, instilling a sense of self-worth and pride in hard work. She spent more than half of her life as a teacher in Fall River, Massachusetts, somewhere that was never quite famous for its feel-good headlines.

I remember saying to her and my aunt (also a teacher) that I would never be a teacher. My days would not be spent explaining to people much younger than myself how to do something I couldn't. I recoiled from the prospect of regurgitating facts and figures in hopes that kids with minds drunk with options like mine once was might have the wherewithal to pause and listen.

My path was going to be paved with gold records and fine, Corinthian leather. I was going to be a rock star . . . or at the very least, I was going to make my living in music and leave the "real work" to the rest of the world.

That was the plan for the first thirty-odd years anyway. Many of those were spent slugging it out on the road, playing hundreds of shows a year across the country and abroad. Hours upon hours of writing, recording, promoting, bullshitting, begging, and borrowing. It may not have been 9-5, but I can assure you it was "real work," and I know it shaved years off my life. Hopefully, there was already going to be a surplus.

It shows that one can make a to-do list, but it's really just your to-do list at the end of the day.

So I did a bunch of stuff, and now I'm 51, living in Asia. By the time my mom was 51 (in 1992), I had been living in Western Massachusetts for a year (at 22) and beginning the second phase of my life, just far enough away from my family so that a surprise visit wasn't really on the table, but far enough so they wouldn't be my one phone call.

She would live only fourteen more years and die at the age of 65, not having seen her son living without alcohol since his teenage years.

But I celebrated that many years of sobriety on December 27 on vacation from my job as--yes, you guessed it--a teacher.

Three days a week, I teach English to kids as young as three and adults older than myself. One day a week, I even teach guitar. And guess what else? I actually kind of like it. It's not slugging it out in the Fall River school system or even close to how hard my wife works Monday through Friday 8:30-4:30, but it's a real job, and I seem to be making an actual difference in people's lives.

See, nobody prepares you for the addictiveness of acceptance.

And really, acceptance is a byproduct of rejection--or at least that's how it would stand to reason in a healthy mind. But once I started to accept things instead of fighting them, life took on new meaning. And I don't mean accepting I had a problem with alcohol. That was life-or-death. No, I mean just realizing that these expectations are only in our heads. And if we can create them, then it stands to reason we can dismantle them. And once you realize that doing away with an expectation is as easy as blowing out a candle, it can become a great tool to keep one's sanity.

This isn't to say that there's no price to pay.

My wife dislikes the smell of a blown-out candle. I'll never understand this because blown-out candles always remind me of birthdays, and I love birthdays. But there is indeed an odor, and there is smoke. So yes, there can be regrets that come from dissolved expectations.

And this is precisely why one must take care when making them in the first place.

So yeah, as you can probably tell, I'm a little out of sorts today.

I wish I remembered more of what my mom said to me growing up. I regret not recording some of our random day-to-day conversations. I have some phone messages, which will have to do.

I wish I could feel how my head felt in her lap, my ear against her belly, staring at the ceiling.

I wish the dog would jump on top of us, fighting for attention and getting it.

I wish I could taste her food again--or even just watch that pat of butter melt into green peas on the stove--her stove--her happiness contraption.

I wish I could hear her voice sing to me again, soft and low.

I wish I could again feel how she hugged me--as if she was saving me from falling off a cliff.

I wish I had visited more.

I wish I had made her cry less--especially all the times I never knew about.

I wish I had been a better son when less was on the line.

I wish.

But I also accept.

I accept that these are wishes. And wishes are predecessors to hope.

As for hope. Hope, I will have, no matter what.

Please--somebody, anybody--remind me to read this if someday I seem to have forgotten I ever said it.

And if anyone out there who is reading this needs a reason to hope, reach out to me.

I'm here because I had it when I needed it most.

I love you, mom. But you always knew that.

Thank you for never giving up your hope in me.

My love always,

~Frederick

Day four thousand eight hundred and eighty two . . . Superlatives

2021-05-13T23:13:00.006-04:00

This is a picture from my mom's surprise 40th birthday party on May 14th 1981. I wrote about this party ten years ago to the day.

Today she would have been 80.

You see, on Wednesday, May 14 1941--seven months before America threw their hat in the ring and made the decision to join the second world war--my mother was born.

Judith Ann Johnson. Judith Ann. Yuuditta. Judy. Momma. Mumma. Mummy.

Mom.

Judy was born into a then-happy family. My grandfather and grandmother had only been married for a little over ten years and had already had a son--my Uncle Alex--so they were used to the whole child rearing thing. Judy was showered with love and laughter. Togetherness was the rule of the day. She was cherished and adored by her brother, and she loved to sing and dance and walk her poodle, Trixie, up and down Bedford St. regaling the neighbors with tales of kings, queens, princes, princesses, knights in shining armor and damsels in distress, or so the stories go.

It was my Aunt Lynda--born six years later--who got the "shitty end of the stick" as she used to say.

She was the child some couples have to help "save the marriage." I don't know the statistics on how often these work, but let's just say that Aunty would have admitted she belonged in the "not successful" category.

But Judy. Judy was the princess. Judy was the queen. Judy was the angel.

Judy was . . . the best.

I can attest to this because . . . well, because I can. And I can because I know who she was better than most people.

My mom had a lot of friends. Teacher friends, mostly, but people who she knew well-enough to talk to about many things.

She had a best friend named Adele--my "Aunt Del"--who recently just turned 80 herself. And these two were "thick as thieves" though even the thought of stealing so much as a paperclip, I'm sure, would be out of the question.

But my mom was a private person. Not as private as her sister, mind you, but private enough so she kept a lot of things hidden from the world.

These days nobody hides much. Everyone wants to share everything they know and everything they do. It's like the whole world is one big only child and the internet is the guest who stops over ooh-ing and ahh-ing at every little thing that's pulled out of our collective room for show. It grows tiring. We turn off. And it gets easier and easier to ignore. I see it and feel it all around me every day.

But Judy's secrets--and I know a few, though I'll never say--weren't very salacious compared with what is commonly known about many people these days. Pull up even a venerable outlet such as CNN and there you have more people's dirty laundry out for inspection than you could ever imagine.

But my mom rarely used a computer.

She never sent an email by herself.

She only used a cell phone when it was connected to a giant curly cord in her car and ONLY for an emergency. I think it was around $2 a minute or something crazy.

But it's not because she didn't want to. She just had better things to do with her time.

My mom once told me that when she was young--in her teens--a fun thing she liked to do was to stand on the corner and just stare up into the sky. She would just keep looking up into the heavens as if there was something incredulous up there. Maybe exclaiming "wow"--softly under her breath--with one hand on her hip and one cupped over her eyes. She said she would do this until she got several people to join her--just staring into the sky. I remember her telling me this story more than a few times. She wanted to impress upon me that joyful living could involve something as simple as looking up into nothing.

My mom was the best.

I have so many "forever moments" from my lifetime. Those glimpses of time--almost as long as the average GIF--that will stay with one forever.

As I go about my days I often wonder if the moment I'm experiencing will become one of these in time. Anything is fair game. I've had several of these since moving to Japan. They aren't burned in like most are yet, but the color and contour on them is still sharp. I feel they have promise.

One of my favorite examples of this involves a trip my mom and I were on when I was in my early teens. I think it was somewhat far away--far enough so we weren't familiar with the area. And we were walking along a riverbank. There came a point on the river where several large rocks made a sort of walkway out to the very middle of this very active river.

My mom said to me (in her low and gentle voice) "Alex, look at that! I bet you could run right out to the middle if you wanted." And before she could take the next breath I was off and running. I hopped lithely from stone to stone until I was in the middle of a rushing, gushing river. I could barely hear her "Eeeeeee!" from where I stood the water was so loud.

It was this moment in time that happened nearly 40 years ago that I learned the word "facetious."

My mom said, "Sweetheart, I was being facetious." But I told her I didn't know that word yet and it made her laugh and I was still alive so it couldn't have been a bad thing to do.

And again, this is a loop in my mind that encompasses probably three seconds in all, but I will take it to the end of my days.

My mom and I had a game we'd play when I'd come home--two games actually.

When I'd get off the bus at the station in New Bedford my mom would always be in her car in the same exact spot around the corner. I'm sure she got there wayyy early just to make sure she'd be in that exact same spot.

And when I got off the bus I would always--always--walk in her direction and pretend to not see her. I would be looking the other way, or up in the sky, or behind me with a bewildered look on my face. I'd walk past the car knowing full well she was watching me the whole time--enjoying the show--and when I got to the other side of the parking lot I would dramatically look back with amazement.

"Mamma!!," I'd yell. And then run to the car and open the back door to put my backpack in and say "I thought you forgot about me!" Then I'd get in the passenger side and give her a big hug around her big belly and a kiss on the cheek. I'd slink back into the seat and slowly put my seatbelt on and my mom Judy would say, "Oh Alex, you are a crackpot."

A crackpot. How funny is that. Who says that? Who ever said that?

Judy did. Judy was the best.

The other game involved the next step in our journey from the bus station to her house. We would always stop for a gallon of milk at the store. See, I may have moved away from home at 21 but she could still give me errands to do. And one of the errands was to go into the store with one of her crisp $5 bills and pick out a big ol' orange-cap gallon jug of 2%. Always Guida's Dairy. Always tasty. I could drink a gallon in a little over two days.

I'd get the change (usually a little over $2) and put it in my pocket.

I'd get into her car and strap on my seatbelt--the one with the rainbow colored fur wrap so that it was comfortable on whomever was seated in the passenger side (which would more than likely be either me or my aunt) and put the gallon of milk on the floor and then I'd wait.

My mom knew I got change back. I knew I got change back. The cashier certainly knew I got change back.

But Judy would sit in that car and wait to turn the key in the ignition for as long as it took . . . until I said (with mock surprise) "Oh! You want the change back? Oh! I'm so sorry I forgot. Okay, here you go."

And yes, she called me a crackpot then too.

Funny, I don't think I've drank a glass of plain milk since the last gallon she bought for me over 15 years ago.

__________________________________________________________________________

My mom died of pancreatic cancer on January 11, 2007.

She was 65.

We had way more time with her than many people who get that awful diagnosis. I wrote about the fender-bender that gave the doctors a reason to do x-rays a while ago. If it hadn't been for that who knows when it would have been found.

Cancer runs in my family. It also took my grandmother (and many of her brothers), my uncle and my aunt.

Even though I quit 16 years ago, I still was a heavy smoker from age 16-35.

I lived a "rock and roll" lifestyle for almost that long.

I had a pretty average (read: awful) diet growing up. Basically endless meats, starches, sugars and salt including TV dinners and lots of microwaved foods.

I worry just a little bit every day if and when cancer will become part of my life.

But I am reminded by my incredible wife that one never can just lump it all in and expect that sort of outcome.

I have a whole other side of my genetics that I really know little about. And though I did treat my body poorly for a long time I have been making up for it for many, many years.

I just turned 51 five days ago. I don't want to assign a number to it but I'd like to tack on a bunch more years to my life now that I seem to have figured out what is important.

Yeah. I figured that thing out.

Oh, you want to know what it is?

You want the change back from the milk?

You've been sitting in this car the whole time???

Well, okay, I'll tell you. But you gotta promise me this doesn't go any further than you and me.

Okay, here goes . . .

What's important is . . .

It's that feeling that you get when you don't want to go to sleep because the day hasn't finished telling you its story.

It's the feeling that you get when you wake up and you don't want to look at the clock because it could be 4:00am and you still have over two hours to sleep or the alarm on your phone might actually go off when you pick it up.

It's the look on a friend's face when they see you and smile--the moment you can both stop thinking about what you were going to talk about and just start talking.

It's the feeling when somebody buys you dinner.

It's the feeling when you pay for your first meal for your parents (even if it entails finding the waiter on the other side of the room and giving them your new debit card).

It's the feeling when you make a decision for somebody who isn't thinking straight--somebody who might tell you it's no problem and also won't remember saying it.

It's the note you find on your lunch bag. The one that's worth getting made fun of for.

It's the first button you learned to sew back on.

It's the dog you loved almost as much as they loved you.

It's the people you had to excise from your life.

It's the magic trick you still can't figure out.

It's the kid that you taught how to read, and the way you realize the reason he or she suddenly can't make out a word is because your excitedly hovering finger hasn't moved on from the last one.

It's that first kiss.

It's remembering how your mom's breath felt as she reached her lips out to kiss your bearded cheek and wondering why it wasn't long after she passed away that you started shaving all the time.

It's the last kiss.

It's the way spaghetti tastes plucked from a rolling boiling pan when you know it has no chance of being done for ten more minutes but you just love half-cooked pasta that much.

It's the color black.

It's the color of jade.

It's knowing your mom never got her ears pierced yet she never went one day without wearing earrings.

It's gaudy lipstick.

It's cat hair.

It's not Pepsi but it's definitely Coke.

It's real whipped cream.

It's Easy Cheese and Triscuits.

It's the last batch of frozen home cooking she made for you--the last bite even--and knowing it's really over.

It's that last clock you forgot to turn back.

It's realizing you're not actually late for work after all.

It's the smell of lavender fabric softener.

It's knowing you don't use it anymore but you remember who it reminds you of.

It's that last cigarette.

It's that last drink.

It's the first early morning.

It's the first late night.

It's loving yourself.

It's knowing you are loved.

It's knowing you can return the feeling.

It's how she says "I love you" before you can even open your eyes.

It's the way she waves at you from her bicycle each and every morning on her way to work.

It's the smell when she made dinner unexpectedly.

It's knowing it's okay to let go of the wrapping paper.

It's a good cry.

It's now.

It's then.

It's just being good.

That's what's important.

See, you should have just pretended the milk cost $5. :)

Happy Birthday, Mom!!!

Sto lat!

All my love, always.

~Frederick

Thank you all for reading.

Day four thousand seven hundred and fourteen . . . Thanks.

2020-11-26T21:45:00.027-05:00

Today is Friday morning at 9:16am where I am. But where I'm from it's a very different day.

On the east coast of the US it is 7:16pm on Thanksgiving Day, and that usually means you're either on the couch watching TV or in the kitchen cleaning up.

I'm here on my couch thinking back on all the years gone by, all the Novembers come and gone, and all the ways I have changed as a person. My wife is at work all day as usual, and I'll be going in later on to teach my kids like I do three days a week. I'm a teacher now--albeit part-time--and that's something my mom and aunt would be so happy to know.

But I've been thinking a lot, today especially. And last night it was a bit bittersweet going to bed knowing that here it's just another Thursday.

I'm thinking how lucky I am to still be here.

Growing up I never thought I'd make it to 40, let alone 50, and those who knew me pre-2007 will understand. My life was so much different then. But some people just take longer than others to get the hint that life can be worth living. Some, sadly, don't get it in time.

I'm feeling very odd for a lot of reasons. When I moved to Japan in late-July 2019 I knew the world was going to change, but I had no idea how drastically and how fast that would happen. And I didn't really think that where I'm from was going to be going through a transformation at all.

But here we all are in the middle of it, and nobody being born now will ever understand it fully.

But I am thankful.

Why?

Well, I don't want to bore you with the details but I'll tell you a story.

I had a few great guitar teachers throughout my life, beginning around age 10.

Lots of things changed during my 10th year on earth, but most importantly my grandmother--my babusha--died. She was 68 when she passed in November of 1980. Her and my mom had never lived apart.

That incredible loss sent my mom into a bit of a tailspin, and I don't know if she ever fully recovered from it. For many years afterwards I had asked her if I could hunt for our super 8 movie projector that I knew was stashed somewhere in the attic of our three story tenement house in Fall River. She would always give me some excuse about the bulb being blown and a replacement being very hard to find. I sort of believed her at the time but was always saddened that we couldn't watch those old movies that I had never even seen once.

But now--after inheriting them and having watched a few reels with the same projector with an easy-to-find replacement bulb--I understand the reason she didn't want to see them: she just couldn't bear to see her mother on-screen. It would have just been too much.

Judy and Jean were too close. They shared everything. And their connection was deeper than anyone I have ever known. But that's probably because I knew them as I was getting to know myself. Those early memories are some of my most vivid recollections. My wife is constantly amazed that I can remember things I did at age 5 or seven or whatever. Just childhood stuff. It's all like apples on a tree in October to me. I can pick 'em off all day.

But like I was saying, 1980 into 1981 was a big year. I don't remember much about John Lennon's death because my Babush's passing the month before had eclipsed any and all news for that year and for many months to come.

But one thing I did was start taking guitar lessons.

My grandfather had given me a full-sized guitar in the summer of 1980. I didn't really know much about how to play it except that I could play "Taps" (of all things) on mostly open strings and I only had to fret one note. I wrote about that back in 2008 right here. So cool, right?

But my first actual guitar teacher was a man named Mr Normandin. His first name was Bob but I would never have called him that. I have no idea if children today still call people older than them "Mister" or "Mrs" or "Miss" anything. But living in Japan I use honorifics all the time (my name is "Johnson-san" to most receptionists).

But Mr Normandin was a wonderful man and he was a fantastic teacher. And if I let my mind go I can put myself right back in that tiny, dark, musty back-of-the-building "lesson room" with my much-too-big-for-me acoustic twanging away at a "Mel Bay Method For Guitar" book or any number of "1980s Top Hits for Piano, Vocal and Guitar" compilations.

This was at a place called Ferreira's Music Store up the Flint section of Fall River. Once a week I would haul my chipboard case with my dreadnaught inside all the way to the other side of town. It's not that far in reality, but my chubby legs considered it "endurance training". But the store was a wonderland of all things music. From the wrought iron music note/scale/clef security gates in past the drums, cymbals, basses, amps, guitars, electric pianos (which I loved banging on and hearing their faint notes chime out un-amplified), cases full of microphones and guitar effects (some highly sought after now) and the racks and racks of sheet music and music books. Let's not forget about the recorders, flutes, saxes, trumpets, violins and everything else that makes a great music store great. Ferreira's had it all. And Mr Ferreira was one-of-a-kind as well with his thick Portuguese accent and former-major-player-dude combover.

Where Mr Ferreira was boisterous and brash, Mr Normandin was patient and easygoing. He taught me my first few chords, scales and rhythm. He helped me work out most of the "John Denver Greatest Hits" book and he helped me with my posture, picking and fretting. Really, everything.

I don't remember too many specifics, but at age 10 one gets the shadows and feelings and one just has to trust in the process.

But through this process he helped me focus and find the notes on the fretboard--the ones I heard in my head as well as the ones I saw on the page--and let them come out of the guitar single file or in pairs, threes and even sixes. And because of that he made my whole family happy. And all I really ever wanted to do in life was to make my mom happy, because after her mom died there was so much sadness in our house.

She often told me over the years that I had forever been her "greatest gift and joy" in life. I only wish I had understood how tricky that kind of unconditional praise can be to navigate the pitfalls one faces growing up in this world.

But getting back to Mr Normandin, I remember being so distraught when he had to move on from teaching at the store. I cried and I cried and my mom even cried, I think. I'm sure she did.

But life goes on and I had some other teachers who would prove to be just what I needed as I got older and more advanced. I owe a debt of gratitude to Charlie Hodgate and Jon Varney, respectively.

In the years after Mr Normandin moved on from teaching me he became the thing of family lore.

I don't remember how it started but I think we saw him out at lunch at the same restaurant a few times--Greggs, I believe, or maybe The Beef Hearth--and that became a running thing.

"Hey mom, is that Mr Normandin?"

"I think so, Alex! Good eye!"

And of course it was just a random 40-something guy with a goatee who would wonder why this middle age lady and her 13 year old son were giggling.

A few years ago I found Mr Normandin on Facebook and wrote him. One of his daughters, Melody (I love that he named her that) wrote me and told me that he had had a stroke and couldn't write me himself, but she relayed my message to him about where my life has taken me through music. She said he was thrilled to hear it all and know that he had played a part in it.

A couple of weeks ago I received the news that Mr Normandin had passed away at age 74.

Within this past 40 year span (from age 10 to 50) I have done nothing much other than play and teach guitar. And Mr Normandin started that all for me

It's unfortunate that I did not try to keep in touch earlier, but that's just how life goes sometimes. People are important to you, they make a difference in your life, and you fly with that knowledge for a while and don't always remember who inspired the hard work.

It's a reminder to reach out to those who made a difference while you can.

But just a couple of days after I received the sad news about Mr Normandin something extraordinary happened . . .

____________________________________________________________________

I've always wanted a nylon string guitar. Not sure what stopped me. There are plenty out there at reasonable prices. But for whatever reason it has always eluded me.

But I was on my way to the laundromat with my wet laundry last week (home dryers are uncommon here) and something stopped me dead in my tracks.

I see a lot of strange things as I ride my bike around town. But nothing quite like this.

Propped up against my next door neighbor's wall was a Yamaha, mahogany body, made-in-Japan, nylon string guitar!

And upon closer inspection I saw that it had the appropriate tag for the garbage people to come by and pick it up and "recycle" it.

Looks like I was just in time.

Now, growing up on Bedford St I was a self-confessed barrel picker (I wrote all about that here). It was always my favorite day of the week. Some days I was late to school after scoring some treasures from the neighbors. But this goodie was my first here in Kyoto. And there appeared to be nothing wrong with it except the need for a new set of strings. So I promptly ordered a pack and learned how to put them on (it's a whole different world without ball ends to hold them in place).

And I even decided on a name for my new find: Mr Normandin. Because it seems he has made another appearance in my life, just this time it was in the form of a guitar!

Just the other day I took "Mr Normandin" down to the river near where I live. People bring all kinds of instruments down here to practice and even do live streams. I've seen thumb pianos to tubas and everything in between. Small apartments mean close quarters and not much privacy. So music is made outside or in rehearsal studios.

People here in Japan seem to keep their distance from not just foreigners like me, but each other as well. Pandemic-aside, standoffishness is just a part of life here. One rarely hears a hello from a stranger. It took me a while to get used to that but a year and change in and it's become normal: keep your distance.

But the other day I was strumming this guitar on a bench by the river and a new mother was walking by with her infant in a baby pouch hanging around her neck (I'm not sure what those things are called, lol) and she heard me playing.

Instead of walking past she stopped.

I had been trying to write a pop-rock song, but seeing her and her baby there I switched to a sort of slower lullaby rhythm.

We made brief eye contact and she started to sway and gently swing her baby to the simple chords I was playing.

Her baby was quiet and smiling as she gazed down.

The music came out of the guitar--"Mr Normandin", if you will--and for close to a minute we connected.

She smiled at me and nodded, and I nodded back and we both smiled beneath our masks. She kept walking down the river and I went back to my pop-rock song.

It was a beautiful moment.

_________________________________________________________

Every Thanksgiving I try and assess what I have to be thankful for and what I can look to improve upon in the future.

This year I think more than ever I am needing to remember the lessons that I have learned from my many teachers.

I have learned to be patient.

I have learned to be kind.

I have learned what is worth arguing over.

I have learned what is worth keeping and what is not needed anymore.

I have learned that life can be cruel and indifferent.

I have learned that life can be kind and glorious.

And most of all I have learned and continue to learn to be thankful just to be.

But funny enough I am a teacher now. Whether it's with a guitar or an English lesson book or a friend who has reached out to learn how to live a sober life, I am showing how to practice and progress.

I need to try to remember this as I get older and I see my face following suit.

I need to try to remember this as I realize that some people I haven't checked in on in years may be struggling.

I need to try to remember this when I see the people I trying to teach start to lose interest as I did a thousand times.

I need to try to remember this as I get ready for bed and wonder if I've done enough for that day.

I need to try to remember this when I wake up and wonder . . . what's next?

But trying to remember, I guess, is better than not trying at all.

I dedicate this to all my great teachers in life who never stopped trying.

Thank you for giving.

Thank you for teaching.

Thank you for sharing.

I guess it's my turn now.

Thanks for reading,

~FAJ

Day Four Thousand One Hundred and Fifty . . . Going Up?

2020-05-07T23:55:00.004-04:00

10:24 AM
May 8, 2020

I woke up this morning thinking about elevators.

Humans have a very peculiar relationship with elevators. We give up a lot of our power to a semi-automated box with numbers, buttons and lights on a regular basis. Depending on location and purpose they may even be designed with a window or two. Or it may be completely clear and on the outside of a building adding to its cool/elegance factor.

I'm sure there are people who chose not to use them. I shy away from them when I can just for exercise sake. But this internal agreement has its limits. I'd say five (maybe six) floors is all I'd really want to climb for health's sake. And of course this all is dependent on if and what I'm carrying. I'm lazy at heart. It doesn't take much to sway my resolve.

The four floor apartment complex I live in here in Kyoto is a new building. And as such it's got a cute little elevator that's big enough for maybe four people. It's got windows on its doors to see each floor as it goes by. There aren't that many tenants here and so I rarely see anyone waiting for it--I think it's happened once that I had to ride with somebody else. Sometimes I use it, but mainly I take the stairs. Regardless of whether or not I can see the floors going by I've still managed to get off on the wrong one on occasion.

But the elevators I woke up thinking about today are not the kind with windows.

No, I'm talking about your standard issue, big, boxy elevator that you walk into and the doors close and if it wasn't for the light above you it would be black as night.

We make so many casual, unspoken agreements on a day-to-day basis. So many things we do where we put our trust in something or someone else to work like it should--an ATM, revolving door, subway, traffic signal, etc. I'm not a statistician but I'd say it's safe to assume that those agreements more often than not end up all shaking out about even, or at least winning more than losing. I'd like to hope so. Either way I'm not going to look it up.

But your average, department store elevator comes designed with a feature that we all rely on in exchange for putting our trust in it. This goes beyond just safety and the assumption that it will stay powered, maintained and safe.

I'm talking about the numbers we all watch as it moves.

They may be digital or they may be (in the case of an old-timey version) an arrow that follows an arc with numerals on it as it goes up and down. Every elevator has to have them because we rely on these numbers to know where we are in relation to where we want to go.

If those numbers weren't there it would make using an elevator a challenge to say the least.

Can you imagine getting into an elevator in an unfamiliar skyscraper needing to go to the 50th floor, pushing the button marked "50" and not knowing absolutely for sure when you've arrived? Of course this is a ridiculous question. Nobody would ever design a system like this. It's counter-intuitive and just bad business sense. The whole point of an elevator is to get you where you need to go quicker than you could using your own limbs under your own power.

The numbers on the inside tell us what to expect so we can prepare and make our move. Sometimes I picture myself being announced to the audience of a late night program. The doors open, the band kicks in and God help anyone standing in my way. We got a show to do, people!

Can you tell I'm an only child? Can you?

I'm writing this while I sit on our bed, just after breakfast on May 8th.

At midnight I will be 50 years old.

Holy shit.

How did this happen?

I mean, the easiest explanation was that I was born on May 9, 1970 and I haven't died yet.

But seriously . . . this is how it feels.

This is what it's like to have a half of a century of life under one's belt.

This feeling of the closing of a book "Alex Johnson: 40-49 In Words And Pictures" is a very strange and surreal one.

It's exciting, nerve-racking and a little bit worrisome.

I know, I know, I shouldn't make a big deal out of it. It's just a number.

But god damnit it's my number. And to me it's a big one.

And when I say that, it's not that I feel like I'm old, per se. More so I feel like I'm incredibly lucky to have made it this far. Hell, I had some good friends who didn't make it this far. They had some of the same lifestyle issues as I did and came up in the same era and under a similar set of circumstances as me. But they didn't make it through this crazy maze of choices.

Who knows, maybe they made it as far as they ever were going to and I'm just a nut who thinks we should all have the opportunity to live out the full average lifespan of a human.

If that were to be my case I'd have a good 26 years left to do stupid shit.

But it's an average because . . . well, not everyone's lucky enough to make it that far. And my friends who died in their 40s play into the math. It's just the sad side of the percentage.

But sitting here staring at my empty yogurt and fruit bowl looking back on my last decade I have to sit and smile for the joy and new experiences it has brought me.

When I think about what it felt like to be in the last year or so of my thirties and to have just lost my ballast--my mom and aunt--to have gotten sober, bought my first home and . . . and to have met my future wife.

It's all almost too much for me to really take in.

But it actually happened. Ten years ago Jodi and I celebrated my 40th birthday and began our journey from the farthest edge of the east coast to the middle of Japan where we are writing our latest adventure tale.

But these elevators I woke up thinking about today. They have numbers so you can see where you are on your brief journey between floors. We rely on them for the short time we are in their care. I've never been purposely led astray by an elevator. I may have missed my floor because I was looking at my phone or just not paying attention (which is almost always because I'm looking at my phone). And we trust them to work and not snap off in mid-ride like in the movies. We expect them to work and at least in my case they always have.

But this whole life thing.

To me it feels like an elevator with no numbers.

I mean, I can feel it's pretty far up.

I can see in my reflection of the shiny door that my face tells the story of almost five decades.

I guess as long as I'm alive that this elevator I'm in is going up. But I have no choice but to believe it is from the way it feels deep down inside. I have to know that what I'm doing has been building on what's come before it--that it's been growing, expanding, learning and evolving.

I can feel in my heart and soul that I've lived several distinct lifetimes: precocious child, mama's boy, inquisitive adolescent, unabashed hellion, wanderer, rocky rocker rock star, insolent party boy, substance abuser, deathwish enthusiast, seeker of redemption, lovestruck fool, clear-headed creator and assumed expatriate.

And with most of these lifetimes comes a place in time, a way to put my life into some sort of order. Because as haphazard as my time on earth has seemed at times there's definitely been an arc to it all, not that an elevator travels in an arc. No, that would be a bridge. But I'm not going to digress again.

Tonight before I go to sleep I'm going to push the button on the inside of my elevator and when I wake up it's going to be the 50th floor. But I won't have any way to prove it means anything because I won't really be able to see the outside to tell how far up I am. I just have to trust that I am where my birth certificate says I am in life and believe in my capacity for trusting and loving whatever I find outside when I walk through the doors.

Not like I have a choice.

It's trust and love or nothing as far as I'm concerned.

Trust and love is all I have and all I have ever wanted.

Trust and love is all I get from the most important person in my world.

Trust and love guide me through my day.

Trust and love will let me sleep deeply and soundly into the night.

Trust and love will be what I hope to leave as memories of me when my time is done.

50th floor: trust and love.

Life is unpredictable. Nobody knows for sure what's around the corner.

I want to be alive for a long time from now. I've got things to eat, stuff to do, shows to watch and dumb jokes to hear and tell.

But, you know, nobody ever gets into an elevator thinking they won't be eventually coming out.

Maybe I'll take the stairs for a while.

Thanks for reading,

~FAJ

Day Three Thousand Six Hundred and Forty Two . . . Thoughts.

2018-12-21T09:31:00.000-05:00

This life is just too much.

I mean that in a good way.

It seems that every day for as long as I can recall when I open my eyes I experience a mix of terror and overwhelming joy. This--I believe--has nothing to do with this "world we are living in these days" or the "air of uncertainty" that I hear my fellow humans lamenting over as we attempt to connect with each other.

No, this has been going on forever. It's just that as I get older I'm learning to appreciate these distinct emotions and their depth of flavor and character.

Thankfully--as it does each day--the morning fog quickly lifts from my brain as I begin to raise the blinds from one room to the next. The bedroom first and then the bathroom (with a quick splash of warm water on my face) and onto the hallway. And I realize that the morning that has greeted me is like a gift from a secret admirer. There's no name attached so I never really know who to thank for it. I just know inside that it was left for me to do with as I wish. I wish I could repay whoever or whatever is responsible but part of me just enjoys the game.

So I just keep walking forward towards the espresso maker and start turning on the kitchen lights and my day begins to unwrap itself.

And this is my life right now, which is very different from my life a year ago and way different from my life ten years ago. As I write this I'm actively trying to divest myself of much of the stuff I've accumulated over the past decade since my mom and aunt died and since Jodi and I met. While I have to admit that I did end up with a hearty amount of my mom's penchant for collecting (shoulder bags, especially) I do have an off switch. And it seems as if I have managed to gain at least a bit of the perspective that my mom either couldn't or refused to utilize.

I feel like these things that I bought or absorbed from previous generations has a way of mirroring the layers of stress in my head and heart. And each time I see something move out of the house in a box or in somebody's truck or car it makes me feel good. I realize that I don't need much more than the basics even if my idea of "basics" may be a bit more involved than the average person.

This coming year I hope to reduce what I have by 50% or more. It's not impossible and I'm up for the challenge.

But I often think back to ten years ago.

My aunt had passed away in September of 2008 having lived long enough to see me sober for nine full months. This is something my mom (who died in January of 2007) had never experienced. She had asked me to try to do this as she was going through treatments for terminal cancer. She wanted to see me sober for more than a week. I had told her I couldn't do it for her and I meant it at the time. I wasn't ready to make this change for myself and I didn't want to "fake it" for her and then have no safety net when she left me.

What a selfish prick.

But then who knows how life would have turned out. I could have relapsed when she died and ended up in an accident or worse.

But ten years ago this December I was shopping for furniture for my first home. A bed, bureau, couches, kitchen stuff, curtains, blinds, rugs, bath mats, all of it. A new home, a new life, a new me, a chance to repair, renew and rebuild.

There was no Jodi yet even thought that was percolating right beneath the surface (we had connected online and in person but a first real in-person meeting was still a few weeks away).

That Christmas was one of the strangest I have ever had. But great loss usually brings about experiences that one cannot explain or expect. So I just chalk it up to that. One learns a great deal about the people who are left when a loved one passes. And we are all extremely complicated and imperfect creatures.

My life since that year has been filled with so much excitement and joy I cannot even begin to express. I think I've done a pretty good job outlining the big points on this blog, even if the number of entries has dwindled from over 200 the first year down to 50 down to one every two or three months. But I don't really feel the need to overshare anymore. That time in my life has come and gone.

____________________________________________________________________________

Today, December 21, 2018 is the winter solstice. The darkness will have it's final long laugh at us. Tomorrow--and each day on until this time next June--the light will begin to win a daily battle. Two minutes a day, that's what we get. It's not a lot, but it's these little tokens of light and life that accumulate in our pockets.

Before we know we will have a wealth of light that we don't know what to do with.

And then the coins start to fall though the holes in our pockets and we're back at even . . . if we're lucky.

___________________________________________________________________________

There are people in my life right now who are experiencing great pain. With this gift of life sadness is inevitable. Every one of us feels it at some point. But I'm thinking of these people as I write this and I'm wishing I could do something to help. "Let me know if there is anything I can do" is such a strange group of words to write to somebody who is fighting an unfair battle.

But these are the things we say to try to connect.

These are the things we do because we have seen it done before.

We wake up in the morning on the same planet and we wonder where we are.

We turn to the left or right and reach for someone or something to share our dream with.

We feel the breath come into our lungs and exit like accidentally opening the door to a room full of people in a party we weren't part of.

We have moments of calm yet severe insight and understanding that we can only hope will stay within us somehow for longer than we know.

We strive to connect.

We fight to survive.

We wonder who will hold our hand someday--and just how many hands will hold ours and think "this will be the last one."

We think this is a gift to keep.

We know it is only on loan.

We close our eyes and drift away.

We wake up.

We begin again.

Thanks for reading and Happy Holidays to you all,

~FAJ

Day Three Thousand Nine Hundred and Nineteen . . . Only the living.

2018-09-24T13:05:00.001-04:00

What makes this life exciting?

Do you know? Does it really matter?

I don't know about you, but I often have to check myself and make sure I'm still living here in the present tense--seeing, feeling, thinking, doing . . . being here.

So much of my brain has been portioned off over the last few years to process the news coming at it at light speed. I need to remind myself that "the news" in any format has to pay the bills. And if people aren't paying attention to it in one way shape or form then the lights will eventually get turned off. So while I appreciate keeping up-to-date on what's going on in the world I know that the news is a business and I am a consumer.

Consuming anything in too large a quantity will eventually lead to bloating. And that's never a good look.

So it's time for a rest . . .

I love the autumn in New England and today was (and still is) a perfect specimen.

Just last week I had to break out the wool-lined slippers that had enjoyed a comfortable couple of seasons in the back of the closet. They take the place of my blue, suede, made-for-the-Japanese-market Birkenstock sandals that take me from the bedroom door to the mud room and back again hundreds if not a thousand or more times from sometime in May until the middle of September. I used to walk through the bedroom across the white carpet (came with the house) but my very smart and very patient wife, Jodi, has gently convinced me that that is not in the white carpet's best interest. So they stay just outside the door like a well-behaved black lab ready for action at a moment's notice.

The Birks can eventually commiserate with my boxer pajama bottoms that are in semi-retirement. My flannel PJs have sent the equipment truck to the ball park in wait for opening day. That'll be sometime in the first week of October.

And my precious wool blazers are starting to feel a little less conspicuous. They fit in better with the shorter and colder days.

Tee shirts will always be in season, but my black (almost always black) crewneck sweaters usually get the lead story in my wardrobe this time of year. They ask so little while providing such a solid base of sartorial confidence.

But I love any season, really. Because I love this life. And I don't mean my life, necessarily. I don't mean what I do for a living or even what I do for enjoyment.

I just mean life.

I can only speak for myself, of course. After all it is the story that I can see from my two eyes bouncing around the ether and interweaving with other people's--hopefully for the better of both. The people and the places and the events that transpire--even if it's just holding the door for somebody or a smile exchanged while passing by in the supermarket. These are the things that only the living can do.

On so many occasions in past years I would lament having to get up early and go to work, or have to meet somebody who I didn't really know--having to make small talk and hoping I didn't come off as shallow or uninterested or worse . . . uninteresting. But that almost always goes both ways.

These are things we all do. These are all bullet points in the social contract we sign as we grow and mature into a person. It can take all our time worrying that we might have said the wrong thing or should have said something when we left an awkward pause. Conversely we can feel such joy in sharing a laugh over something that connects us. We can feel proud that we did well on a test after working so hard and pushing ourselves into a place we're uncomfortable with.

Sometimes just walking into a building is a test in itself. We have so many interactions out and about on any given day that fall somewhere in between a pass and a fail. I can look back on ten of them in the last hour of running errands and give myself a grade: a solid B+.

But I don't normally do that. And I definitely am being generous with that B+ . . . but this is my life and I hold the black pen as well as the red one. I correct my own tests.

There is love and life and happiness everywhere I look. I see it in the faces of the people who live in my town. I saw it last night when we gathered on the lawn of the local library to sing some songs together. Some songs we all knew and some were learned on the spot. But the breath of two hundred or more people under the light of the harvest moon made magic out of an otherwise uneventful September Sunday.

Only the living can do that.

I have begun to learn another language that doesn't use the Roman alphabet. Finally I have a chance to learn how to write with a pen so that it is actually readable, even if only by a few hundred million people. This language uses straight and curved lines, yes, but they make shapes that most Americans only associate with ethnic foods and action movies. I'm learning how to combine them to make whole and cogent thoughts. Soon they will become longer sentences with verbs and adjectives and some day they will become actual paragraphs just like this one you are reading in English. Each time I attach a new meaning to these letters and words it helps me realize that all I know isn't all there is.

Only the living can do that.

I still procrastinate and put things off that I should do today. I'll never fully outgrow that. But the lifestyle I have allows me to at least pull away from time to time and assess where I am now in relation to where I want to be. I have a long ways to go in a few aspects and there are life tasks that I have to get done with however many years I have left on this earth.

I get distracted.

I get excited.

I feel overwhelmed.

I let emotions get the better of me.

I overstep.

I make corrections.

I feel regret.

I feel whole.

I feel less than.

I fear the dark.

I find a dollar on the ground.

I smile and nod and feel a wave of acceptance.

I think I'm twenty one again.

I see a new wrinkle.

I see it go away when I smile.

I turn out the light.

I wake up with love in my heart.

Only the living can do that.

Thanks for reading,

~FAJ

Day Three Thousand Eight Hundred and Forty Eight . . . Odd jobs.

2018-07-10T10:32:00.000-04:00

There's a corner of my house I look at every time I go out to the back yard.

It's right next to the outdoor faucet which has a long garden hose connected to it so it gets a lot of use. I mean, nothing gets "done" in that corner right outside the perimeter of the deck, but it gets looked at every time we water the plants which is pretty often these days.

"Man, those leaves have been there since the fall", I'll often say to myself. "I need to clean that up." And then I move on and do three or four other things and it gets left and forgotten about until the next time I fill up the watering can or roll the hose back up.

In fact, now that I think about it I did clean that corner up this spring. But I guess not well enough, because up until just this past weekend there was a fine matted and thick layer of maple tree leaves c. November of 2017.

The job never fully got done.

But this weekend was a beautiful one indeed. The five day heatwave finally broke and we had temps in the high 70s and low 80s. Some nights it got downright chilly. And so I found myself outside a good deal of the time.

One of these days I did a bunch of weeding and Jodi did a bunch of watering and planting. As I was headed over to turn on the hose faucet for her I saw--as I had twenty times at least since the springtime kicked in--this very high profile corner with the matted carpet of leaves . . . and I began to put handfuls of them into one of the the many trusty Wegman's bags Jodi's mom had given us. It took all of four minutes for me to clear out this corner. And when I say clear out I mean I actually did a "good" job as opposed to my lifetime history of providing the barest of bare minimums in most situations that involve any kind of manual labor.

Upon putting the last brown brittle leaf in the bag I walked over to the side of the yard and emptied the contents onto one of the many piles of garden refuse amassed there, and then I returned to see the grand renovation I had spearheaded.

It was glorious.

This 5' x 5' area that I had overlooked for so many weeks if not months seemed like it was actually smiling at me. The landscape rocks that had spent the entire springtime in darkness were finally seeing the brilliant sunshine of July. The deck's damp lower corner's lattice work was finally breathing the same cool dry air I was. And the lines of the red bricks connecting with the foundation seemed to be showing off their pristine and prominent right angles.

Everything made sense again.

And all because I took four minutes to throw a few handfuls of leaves in a bag.

It's really incredible to me to look at something like this and think how such a small amount of effort can pay off in such rich visual and emotional dividends. And I know that not everyone gets a thrill from cleaning and organizing as I do. My mom, God bless her soul, was a "pack rat" as they used to call them. And there weren't too many corners of her house which didn't have something taking up space. Whether it was a life-sized ceramic baby lamb wearing a straw hat, or a Sterlite tub of gifts--still with their tags attached--purchased at a going-out-of-business sale earmarked for somebody who she hadn't yet met, the space she called her own was seemingly always filled to the max. I don't know if she could have lived in a house devoid of some sort of clutter without feeling the need for change. All I know is that an simple minimal life is one I hope to someday achieve. And each day I work towards that goal bit by bit, selling things on eBay, giving to the Good Will or making hard decision of what to throw away.

I have lots of areas in my life that are covered with a thin but stubborn layer of old leaves. Places where I meant to keep up with something or stay in touch with someone, but somehow every time I think about it my attention is either thrown overboard or gets dragged away by someone or something beyond my control. I know that this is a combination of intentional avoidance and legitimate overstimulation. But neither is an excuse for at least not addressing it.

I have learned over these ten years and counting that this life I'm trying to live--a sober life--isn't something that is achieved with the decision to stop putting specific things into my body.

Of course that is the big one.

It's the all-encompassing goal.

It's the house.

But it's the little things that pop up on a daily basis that help this dream become a reality.

It's the little piles of mental leaves that nag and taunt from an often used corner of my mind. An issue in my world that I keep meaning to address but never seem to "find" the time.

It's the weeds that pop up in the driveway--the ones that found life from the cracks that a long winter's thaw made--these are the places that need attending.

The loose boards in the deck that I walk over day after day after day and I keep saying "I need to really put a nail in that thing" and then I remember I never checked on the mail.

If I put a nail in the board it will fix it for a long time. But takes finding a hammer and, of course, a nail and putting the effort into it. It's not easy but it's not hard. It's just something I would rather put off. Most days I'm not expecting anything special in the mail, but it's easier to walk down the driveway and check it mindlessly, and then look at my phone and feel it is my duty to comment on something that someone said on some stupid social media site.

The next day I'll walk out on the deck and the board will still be broken and I'll have nobody to blame but myself.

The weird thing is, when you fix something, or clean something, or deal with something, for the most part that's it. It's done. It's done and you don't notice it again. I can fix the board in the deck today (and maybe I will) and the next time I walk on it I might notice it's not broken anymore. But that detail fades away pretty quickly and the stimulation is absorbed into the ether. Maybe part of me liked the constant reminder. Maybe part of me enjoyed knowing that that area to the right of the faucet needed to be cleaned. I don't really know, because I don't really notice that corner anymore.

I have some corners in my life that need attending to. They're mainly areas that I've put off for years because things have been going well. I don't feel like they've been growing from neglect like a patch of weeds. They're more like a thick rug of brown leaves that have amazingly kept in some moisture from a couple of seasons ago. There may be a mushroom or two underneath, who knows?

I've grown accustomed to the way that part of my world looks and feels, but I know inside that there is work to be done.

I realize that if I peel away these layers--and this job will take longer than the four minute bagging that I did to the right of the faucet in my tangible world--but if I peel away these layers, or put a nail in the stubborn loose board that I keep walking over, that this will keep my own house healthy and this will keep my relationships with others strong.

The payoff for all of this is different than just stepping back and being able to look at a corner of the yard you've just weeded and saying, "Wow, that looks so much better!"

In fact, there is no guarantee that there will actually be any noticeable difference.

There's no promise that the path one takes to mend a broken fencepost will lead to lasting change.

This life--I'm learning--doesn't get any easier the more days that go by.

Because a fence is more than one post, a house is more than one brick, a garden is more than one weed and a tree's leaves will always fall.

The job never fully gets done.

But there's a moment to strive for when one can hopefully lay back in bed and see a lifetime of little accomplishments and smile.

And sleep.

And wake.

And see the beauty in the job itself.

Thanks for reading,

~FAJ

Day Three Thousand Seven Hundred and Eighty Six . . . Birds Of Prey

2018-05-09T11:25:00.001-04:00

Something happened yesterday that affected me more deeply than I thought.

A couple of years ago my wife and I installed a birdhouse in our back yard. We got it specifically for the bluebirds who spend time here seemingly all throughout the year. They are so sublime in their coloring and they seem to just enjoy sitting, eating, and sleeping. They aren't too big and they aren't tiny. They are round and fluffy and they almost seem to smile from time to time. When I see them I can't help singing "Mr Bluebird's on my shoulder . . . "

In short, they make us happy.

We were told that the best place for the birdhouse is on a tall pole in the middle of the most wide open area in the yard. It seems that the bluebirds enjoy not only the inside of the house but also sitting on top and being able to survey what's going on around them. So we bought a pole that screws into the ground--it's about 6' tall--and it has a podium to screw the birdhouse onto.

We have a couple of pairs of binoculars which we use to watch all manner of wildlife that enjoy what we call our backyard to go about their lives. We call it ours but it's really just an area that abuts a sizable parcel of conservation land. So really it's for any non-human who cares to walk, hop, crawl of fly into its boundaries. My mom and aunt would love it.

So these bluebirds--there seem to be three or four of them--enjoy this birdhouse very much. Every time either Jodi or I see one we get so happy. My eyesight isn't as great as it used to be but I can still spot the bright blue tufts on the birds head and back. I say out loud "blue-bird" to her and we both get the binoculars and check them out for a minute or so.

I had to clean the birdhouse out last year. It was incredible how thick, neat and well made their nest was. I rather hated to remove it. But we were instructed that this is something that needs to be done every year so that the following spring the bluebirds can start afresh and build a new nest, lay their eggs and raise their family.

We have a good friend who is well versed in birds, plants and gardening. She is somewhat of an oracle. She had warned us recently that if we saw sparrows going in and out of the birdhouse then that is a sign of trouble, as sparrows typically end up invading the birdhouse, killing the inhabitants and taking over. They eventually mark their territory by adding onto the well-made and meticulous bluebird-made nest with their own haphazard and indiscriminate scraps. They pile it on top and use what was there as a foundation.

Yesterday she was over and we decided to have a look.

We turned the lock on the back door of the bird house and lifted it open. To our shock we were greeted with a bright blue feather sticking out from the middle of the cross section of nest. But this feather was connected. It was connected to the rest of a once-beautiful bluebird. The poor thing had been killed sitting on its own nest, and it seemed that the sparrow that did it had begun piling onto it a mess of twigs and grass.

Our friend immediately pulled the nest out and angrily threw it on the ground.

"This is just horrible!", she said. "Those sparrows are so brutal."

I proceeded to dust out what I could from the bottom of the house and we decided to put it back up in case the bluebirds who were left needed a home. I had said if I saw any sparrows in it I'd take it down and we'd put it away for a while.

Today I saw exactly that and went to check the house. Sure enough there was a mess of straw and grass and twigs inside it--the start of a sparrow house--so I shook it out and brought it inside.

We will have to see if the bluebirds return and, if so, whether it is safe to put the house back up. I don't really want to feel responsible for any more preventable bird deaths. Once again, I have too much of my mom and aunt inside me to let this happen.

But this all was very much unsettling.

We are living in increasingly unstable times, and many mornings I wake up in a bit of a panic. This feeling subsides as I my consciousness settles in and my day gets rolling. But some days it's enough to make me just want to just stay in bed until it gets dark again.

I know I'm not alone in this.

I feel like the world is so fractious and unpredictable that sometimes when I make it through to the end of the day and I'm brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed I get so excited that I get to sleep and turn off for seven hours.

It used to be that I hated to go to sleep because there was so much to do--so much to live for in the waking world.

I'd call this a byproduct of getting older (today is my 48th birthday) but I think it's a combination of many things.

I think the reason seeing the bluebird's lifeless body trapped between two disparate nests affected me so deeply is that it is a significant analogy to the way my life used to be. And I see how every day I am faced with uncertain dangers from most directions.

I try and keep my life orderly and organized. And while I'm far from perfect I'm happy to say that the streams of responsibility--bills, meetings, rehearsals, gigs, life events, etc--they all seem to flow pretty smoothly into the ocean that is existence in my world today.

I like to keep an eye on what's going on around me--not in a paranoid sense, but more so just to try and stay aware in case I need to make a sudden decision.

But I like to also be able to crawl inside my box and peer out from within, while sitting atop the nest that I created--my everyday version of sticks, grass, stone and mud. But, of course, this perspective only allows for so much in ones view. They say "don't look back" but reflection is important, and awareness is even more essential.

And I admittedly show off a little bit--fluffing my plumage here and there (I am a performer after all)--but I try to keep things in check and realize that life isn't all about attention. This is extremely difficult for me to remember being the only child of an overly doting mother.

I enjoy making the bed every morning and smoothing out the wrinkles in the sheets and preparing for the coming sleep in a matter of thirteen hours of conscious living. It's my way of sweeping out the nest for the next cycle of slumber.

But the sparrows are everywhere. Some are very much real and some are self-made. They exist in every city in every state in every country all around the world. And they are not content to live life on life's terms. They exist to take what they want and smother anyone who gets in their way. They see a doorway to a sanctuary and decide that this is what they want and they come in and take it without warning.

I don't struggle with temptation often, but it happens from time to time. And when it does I feel like a sparrow is staring at me square in the face waiting for just the right moment to pounce. I see people all around me who are dealing with their demons (or, rather, not dealing with) and I wish I could help. I have reached out to many but it is often not easy to accept help until help is the only option.

And all that said, I will try to live like the bluebird today.

I will enjoy my surroundings and the neat little nest I have built--a personal ecosystem created with rational, healthy, and conscious decisions.

I will attempt to live in the moment and not look too far ahead or too far behind.

I will fluff my feathers just the tiniest little bit at how far I've come, while at the same time remaining humble and grateful for what I have.

And I will accept love from those who care to show it to me.

I was raised by a family of bluebirds. They are gone now but the joy they brought to this world remains unchanged and unparalleled.

I may be the last of my kind but my time here is hopefully far from done. And I have many smiles to bring out.

Like the bluebird, I will try to make others happy, even if it is from far, far away.

The animal kingdom extends farther than the eye can see.

We are all capable of great and beautiful things before we fly away.

Thanks for reading,

~FAJ

Day Three Thousand Six Hundred and Fifty Three . . . The Plan.

2017-12-27T15:40:00.002-05:00

I had a plan.

Oh man, oh man, did I have a plan.

I was going to get my shit together and clean up my act. After twenty years of debauchery which began in high school--a lifestyle which kept evolving and growing slowly but surely from teenage experimentation to full-on, ugly, self-destructive and morally compromising co-dependence--I was going to kick it all.

I was going to enter an outpatient program in Florence, Mass (just a couple miles from where I was living in Northampton, and coincidentally where I live now) and get on some craving-reducing medication, clear out the old liquor cabinet (read: freezer) and start living life better and cleaner.

That was my plan.

Hell, I had only been in the habit of ruining gig after gig with my band at the time. To the point where I had to be physically taken off stage at one show in Boston and made to watch the quintet which was now four people work their way through songs I co-wrote and played an important role in. I don't remember riding home in my friend Paul's car, leaving my car parked outside the club near Fenway Park overnight. I barely remember waking up the next day and--finding my car gone--figuring out what had happened and sheepishly taking a cab to the New Bedford bus terminal where I somehow got to Boston and on a Green Line and found my way to the club--in the middle of December--and got my keys back from the bartender (a good friend, Matty C) who I promptly asked to spot me a drink as I had spent my last dime on the subway (he told me he was broke, thank goodness, and couldn't help with the booze). I had shown up to the show in a tattered and oversized Minnie Mouse tee shirt and sweatpants and Steve, my bandmate, made me ask to borrow a staff shirt from the club. Then, after realizing I didn't have a guitar to play, making friends with the opening band and getting them to agree to lend this guy, who could barely stand, a guitar for a 90 minute set which turned out to be--for me--only about ten minutes long. Thank God I don't remember much of that because that kind of stuff is just so hard for me to believe I lived through. But I know it happened and I remember how I felt--cold, alone, but connected to the one thing that made everything else seem okay: alcohol.

I had only spent a week continuously fucked up at my aunt's house while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery. This was a time I was supposed to be taking care of her cats (one with a very serious medical condition requiring eye drops) and watching the house while at the same time pilfering the pill collection I had amassed from the remnants of a family friend who had recently passed away. There was no need on her part to feel like she had to get rid of the Klonopin. I mean, she knew that her nephew liked to drink too much and smoke some weed, but he didn't know anything about pills, right?

And on Christmas Eve I had only waited for 45 minutes at the wrong hospital entrance to pick her up--the reason being because I had a head full of those little green devils. When I finally rolled slowly up to the right ramp and found her sobbing hysterically and she saw my face with my sunken eyes and blotchy-red skin, that was a horrible moment to have to remember. I can almost still hear her scream, "Oh Alex, what is wrong with you? You look like a monster!"

And when we sat face to face later that day, and I admitted I was taking pills on top of the alcohol I remember her getting madder and madder and seeing her head shaking violently, finally ripping open the top of her pants to reveal her wound from her surgery and screaming, "I have half my guts taken out and spend a week in the hospital trying to save my life and you cope by popping pills to get through it all?"

I don't remember anything about Christmas Day that year. Not one goddammed thing.

All I remember thinking--in general--was how much easier all of this would be to deal with if I had some vodka.

But I told her I had a plan.

I was going to start right after Christmas. Shortly after Christmas I was going to get it all going and try this thing for real.

I had even called that outpatient clinic in Florence and made an appointment to begin the course. I wanted to learn more about how to live life on life's terms.

But before all of that happened I was going to go out for one last night.

I was going to spin the wheel and see where it landed and make this one last night make up for however many nights I was going to stay sober for in the future.

So on the evening of December 26 I picked up a .750 of Smirnoff--my all-time favorite--and drank half of it (in a rocks glass with ice, nothing else) in about an hour.

I called up my buddy, Paul, and had a short conversation with him. We had been friends at that point for twenty years and he had been sober for a while. I shared with him some of the worst of my problems. We were in it together and he understood.

I told him that I was going to get my shit together the following week but--as I swept up a handful of pills from my table into my hand and brought them to my mouth--I was going to go "out with a bang" or something to that effect. I think I even made an audible "glug glug" noise on the phone with the cold-as-ice vodka as I let the pills slide down.

I don't remember what he said to me. I wish I did. I'm sure he tried to warn me against driving--or walking for that matter. I'm sure he told me he loved me and that he was worried about me.

But whatever he said to me didn't matter because I had a plan.

I needed to go to _____'s to get a little bit of _____ to keep the night going. Mind you, my idea of a night out on the town was basically spent in my bedroom with the windows covered with a heavy blanket so that when the sun came up I might be able to get an hour of sleep before calling in sick to work. I don't really want to get into too much of that part of the story. I never got into that stuff so heavy because I didn't know enough of the people who could get me it to get to the point where it was a serious issue, if you know what I mean.

But this night I had called a friend and asked if The Guy was there and he said yes.

So I got in my car and peeled out of my driveway. I only know that I peeled out of my driveway because my former neighbor told me so afterwards. I owned a Subaru Forester at the time. These cars are not known for being the best at peeling out.

But I had a plan.

It was in motion.

And so was I.

I took the back way through the industrial park area so as to evade whatever police might be lurking. I knew how to get around under the influence. I must have done it more times than not.

But this time was different.

And as the pills kicked in I found myself not at the edge of the parking lot of the place where I needed to go. I found myself in front of a main Northampton thoroughfare. Because, of course, I had to stop at the ATM down the road to get money for my guy.

I was only about 800 feet from where I needed to be.

If I just took a left and then pulled into that parking lot . . .

The police report that Officer Satkowski and Officer Liptak filled out said they observed me exiting the parking lot at a high rate of speed.

They said they saw me cross the white fog lines on the right and that's when they put on the blue lights for me to pull over.

And that's when my plan merged with their plan.

Among my possessions I have a photo of me taken shortly after December 26th turned into December 27th, 2007. Almost a year since my mom had died at 65 and just about nine months before my aunt would join her--the youngest of three--at age 60. It was taken by the cops and it's not a pretty sight.

When I blew the breathalyzer my blood alcohol content was .25%--three times the legal limit but pretty standard for me. I think that was more or less my goal on any given night of drinking, sad but true.

I probably would have never made it to 40. Hell, who knows if I would have made it to 38 (I'm 37 in the photo above). My guess is that I would have tried to clean up--again--and done well for a while. Maybe I would have gone back here and there and used and maybe I would have bounced back. Maybe it would have stuck this time, who knows?

Anyone who has kept up with my story over these past ten years will know that shortly after my aunt passed away in September of 2008 I had a bout with Oxys which had been delivered to her (or me, really). So I can't claim ten full years of sobriety. That comes in the fall and I don't really celebrate the date. Alcohol was my demon and that demon stopped terrorizing me on December 27, 2007.

Since then I have rebuilt my life.

I found the joy of all joys in Jodi, my amazing wife and best friend.

Together we cleared out and sold my family's home on the Cape.

I began my new musical venture, Colorway, and have put out two albums with a third in the works. I don't wear my heart on my sleeve in my writing, but I do touch on issues of recovery and the joys of a life spent free from my vices.

I have begun sharing what I know about the guitar with students of all ages. I've even seen some go from knowing absolutely zero about how to play, to becoming the proficient lead guitarist in a popular teen band in the area. My mother and aunt--lifelong teachers--would be so proud.

I have been a big part of the Young@Heart Chorus pit band. I luckily get to travel the country and the globe on a regular basis making people of all ages happy.

I have, for almost two years, hosted a weekly open mic night at a local brewery (ironically enough) showcasing the amazing talent that exists here in the valley.

And I have helped many people who thought they were too far gone to change their ways and seek help for addiction. Some of them have written me and thanked me. Others I know are struggling and may be reading this at this very moment. I am always here and easy to find and will lend a hand to anyone who may need help.

And, of course, there are far too many friends of mine who weren't so lucky. I haven't updated this blog since this past June. That's because one of my former bandmates--a guy who had to play on that stage while I was forced to watch from the audience ten years ago at that Boston club--died from complications of pneumonia that stemmed from a lifestyle that his body just couldn't sustain.

His name was and is J. Scott Brandon and he was a beautiful, kind, compassionate, funny and insightful man. When I last saw him he was in a bad way and I wish I had made more of an effort to try and help him. But people who were closer to him than I say they tried and tried and nothing was working.

We had discussed getting clean and what it would take to change his lifestyle but it never ended up more than talk.

My last post was inspired by that last run in with him. Shortly after I posted it his sister wrote me to say he was in the hospital.

He never made it back home. I will miss that man forever.

We all have our directives in life. Some people figure these things out early on. I was always jealous of the people who knew what they wanted to do in life and then just went for it. They knew what schools to go to (or try to get into anyway) and how to climb whatever ladder their profession entailed. Some made it and some didn't. But at least they had a plan.

I just knew I wanted to have a good time. I wanted to make music and be funny and be around funny people. I never really thought too hard about how I was going to sustain that directive. But alcohol kind of provided a goal for a while--make enough for rent and beer and the rest will fall into place.

My plan came later in life, as happens sometimes.

And it's still not clear cut. I'm getting older and feeling the effects of middle age settling in.

But my plan is sturdy.

My plan is strong.

My plan will hopefully carry me the rest of the way through life.

Be good.

Be kind.

Stay clean.

Remember that no emotion or moment--no matter how awkward or uncomfortable (or amazing, for that matter)--lasts forever.

Stay strong.

Love fully and with all my heart.

Do not fear death.

Remember and cherish those who shaped you, whether that was when you were younger than you can remember or even just something small that happened yesterday. We are all products of our environment and we are evolving every second of every day.

And finally, try to the best of your ability to help those you can, and remember that we are all here on this crazy planet trying to get by in our own way . . .

We all have a plan . . . even if it takes someone else to reveal it.

Here's to the plan and the next ten years.

Thanks for reading,

~FAJ

Day Three Thousand Four Hundred and Forty Five . . . Disk Almost Full.

2017-06-02T10:33:00.000-04:00

My computer is pretty slow.

It's at the point now where it's kind of an embarrassment and I can't let anyone else use it. And if Jodi and I are on it together--researching wedding stuff or making getaway plans or just general web surfing--I inadvertently end up getting self-conscious because I know her computer is so much faster than mine. And I know that there are only so many fifteen second waits for a page to load before she wonders aloud, "what do you have on that thing?"

Well, everything. Almost.

I've invested hundreds of dollars over the years on backups to help divert the flow of HD videos of gigs I played, posters I made, pictures I've taken, recipes I've stored and zip files that I've unzipped and never zipped back up. But in short order the accumulation seems to just creep back up little by little until I get that pop-up that tells me . . . "disk almost full."

And when that happens, of course, I always head to my go to: I empty the trash.

But lots of times there's nothing in there . . . because I hate throwing things away.

So I'll go to my disk utility and run a program that will take 30 minutes to execute and render my laptop useless while it searches to find all the little fragments of stuff that I don't need and won't ever know about.

That'll free up a few gigabytes which will last about a week, maybe less.

But this is the computer in my lap we are talking about. It's something I bought and rely on but it's something that I don't need to keep me alive, and it's something I didn't have as a kid. I was born and raised in the 1970s and for a long while we barely had flashing lights on any of our toys let alone a touch screen.

But I never really thought about the computer we are all born with until yesterday.

I was at Young at Heart Chorus rehearsal and we were going through a set of about fifteen songs. The folks in the group are 74 and older and many are way older than that. And these men and women are tasked with remembering the lyrics to a seemingly endless list of songs from the 1960s through today. And most of them do it without having to resort to looking at the lyrics sheet. It's truly amazing because these are songs that more often than not were popular to a different generation--the Boomers or the Gen Xers, not the Greatest Generation.

I have a hard enough time remembering the words to my own songs, and some of these guys are twice as old as me and they have no problem remembering the (sometimes esoteric) lyrics to Radiohead, MGMT or The The.

And that got me wondering about the little computers we all have inside our heads. I simply couldn't get over the idea of how much storage our hard drives must have.

Now, of course, everyone is different. There are plenty of people (some we may even know) who have a hard time remembering something we just told them. Or others who's attention span is so narrow that new ideas have to take a number and may never be absorbed to the point where they can be utilized.

But every single thing we do and every little piece of information we see and hear gets stored away in that grey matter. It's all in there whether we remember it or not because that's what it's job is--well, one of it's many jobs, anyway.

There was a very long period in my life where I drank myself into a near coma each and every night. I would pick up a clear plastic pint of Smirnoff and maybe a six pack of beer at the local package store. I'd drink it all while I watched TV. In time it progressed to just a bottle of Smirnoff--the .750L in the glass bottle because I wanted to lose some weight and the beer had to go. I'd drink most of that bottle in one evening. When I opened the freezer in the morning I would always have that last 2oz or so left in there. I will never really know if I left it in there because I was passed out, or if I wanted to save it in case I really needed it in the morning, or if I just couldn't handle the idea of it being over--the bottle being empty and therefore of no use anymore. Like I said, I hate throwing things away.

I really owe my brain a debt of gratitude. It took so much unbelievable abuse from me--at my own hands--and kept going and going and just chugging along logging the days, hours, minutes and seconds in my life. Compiling all the things I did, all the things I had to do, all the things I hoped I'd do, all the people I cared about, all the people I envied, and on top of it all, all the words I wrote to the songs I composed as well as those of my bandmates. And when it was time to put that all in play at a show it would more often than not come through for me.

Now, of course, my brain is not immune from prosecution. And it fear it must also bear much of the burden of getting me so fucked up to begin with. Because let's face it, that's where this all comes from, right? Our heart is supposed to have this magical power to make us feel certain ways about people and movements and drive us to great lengths to make our dreams come true. But we all know there would be none of this, that or the other without the brain. And if I have a family history of something, sure it's encoded in my genes, but my brain is the headmaster, so to speak. I may have been born with a proclivity towards overeating but my brain is what allows me to see the numbers on the scale, my image in the mirror and the amount of food on my plate.

If there was a way to stop the madness in the world I would have to guess its genesis could be traced back to the rubbery lobes inside our skull. And isn't that quite a paradox?

So let's see, where are we now? My brain is amazing because it ceaselessly works to keep me alive, moving forward, remembering myriad data and processing everything new that my eyes, ears, nose and mouth take in.

And it is also to blame for me nearly killing myself possibly hundreds of times during an almost 20 year span of drug and alcohol abuse.

Well, I don't know, looking at it from where I am now I'd have to say that I'm okay with all of that.

But there are too many people in my world that haven't been or weren't so lucky.

I just saw a birthday notification the other day on Facebook for a friend who drank himself to death last year. He had reached out to me to talk about getting sober. We hung out a bit and he had a good attitude but we lost touch and I didn't keep on him and now he's gone. Friends of his told me there was "nothing anyone could have done" to change his path. I guess I have to live with that but I wish I had tried harder.

There are at least five people I know who over the past ten years I've been sober have not been able to get the help they needed and who died because of their addictions.

There are many that are still with us that I know could use some help.

I see friends of mine who didn't get the wakeup call like I did and are still going about their daily routine like they're 25. I tend to want to keep to myself. I don't go to AA because I feel that talking about my past problems only can do so much good. I like to live by example--an example to me, really--keep moving forward and seeing how just doing the next right thing (a trusty AA adage) is really all that one needs to do. But a new goal of mine is to reach out to the people I know who could use some help in the hopes that there may be a way to introduce the idea of a different way to be. I know this can be exceedingly difficult because as we get older our identities become so entangled with what we know and what we've done that to give that up is more than just giving up a way to relax, as it were. It's more like getting a limb removed. We wonder how we could survive with only one leg or one arm--how would we do the basic things in life that we need to do to survive. But I see examples every day of people from all walks of life overcoming adversity--sometimes mental, physical or both--picking up the broken pieces, finding a way to connect them back together and learning to live again.

But just because others do it and just because I did it doesn't mean anyone else can or will.

Our brain is our brain and our brain is the final word on the subject. And me seeing something one way and feeling like it's the way life makes the most sense doesn't mean anyone else will get it. It's all just data coming in and one would hope that there is enough space on the disk inside our head that the information is accessible.

I'm constantly having visions from the earliest parts of my childhood and beyond. It seems to be happening more and more these days, but I know it's been a constant since my last drink on December 27, 2007. The memories are all there--the swing set at Columbus Park, the snake show at Southeastern Mass University when I was five, that first fateful attempt at a kiss at 13, my first guitar, my first gig, my mother's hugs, her big pink hands that used to smooth my hair back and hold my head straight when I was trying to wriggle away because I was too cool for school, her kiss on my forehead, my first apartment away from home, my first hangover, my worst hangover, my cross-country tours, my European tours, my mother's joy at how far her boy had come, the late night talks on the phone with my her and holding the receiver away from the rocks glass so she couldn't hear the ice clink, her audible tears, her visible tears, the hospital visits, the hopeful doctors, the resigned doctors, the last Christmas, the last New Year's, the long, labored last kiss on my bearded, bloated cheek, the unbeknownst last visit to the nursing home, the news at the nurses station, the shrieking, my aunt's furiously grasping hand, the sun over the ocean, the keys in the door, the empty house, the cats knowing all, the year of accelerated self-destruction and the day it all stopped.

It stopped because I was arrested. I've told you all about that. That was almost 3,500 days ago.

But this story could have had a much different ending. In fact, it could have ended nine years ago after my aunt left this world to be with her sister.

But it didn't.

And I guess I have to thank whatever part of the computer in my head it was that decided that no matter how much data was crammed in there and no matter how much of it was seemingly trash that needed to be purged, that it was going to keep things in order and keep this whole system moving forward.

I never thought I had the will to stay sober. I never thought I'd ever really do it for very long even if I tried (and I tried many times). But I somehow managed to convince whatever part of my brain that the things in front of me and the possibilities down the line are greater than that which I'd grown accustomed to. It wasn't easy and it didn't happen overnight. But it happened and I am living, breathing proof that it is possible.

So today I dedicate this post to anyone who is struggling with their addictions. There is help available to you and it's as easy as visiting a website like AA or NA and seeing how you can find a way out. I'm happy to talk with anyone who would like to write me. You can write to freddyfreedom@gmail.com and I'll be sure to get back to you.

And if my words here on this page or anywhere in this blog have made even a little bit of difference in anyone's life I urge you to keep on going.

The disk up there in your head will never fill to the point where new ideas are not allowed. You may need to empty the trash or fix some of the fragments that aren't connected to see it through.

I had my pop-up almost ten years ago. It was a warning that I heeded and is why I sit here today.

Let the world open itself to you and bring joy and magic inside.

Believe me, there's room.

Day three thousand three hundred and three . . . All the ways I love you.

2017-01-11T16:25:00.001-05:00

I am crying as I type these words.

I have shed many tears over the past ten years to the day since my dear mother left this world.

I have cried because something more special than the earth I am hopelessly stuck to, or the air that I breathe, was taken from me.

I have cried because I had nowhere else to turn to for guidance.

I have cried into the immediate surroundings from my lips, eyes and mouth to the outer reaches of space for the chance for one more embrace--to just put her fat, red hand in my fat red hand and squeeze them warmly together.

I have cried for sheer guilt that I was too selfish to show that I could exist without a bottle in my fat, red hand.

I have cried because the art that I have made will never again have her eyes slowly and excitedly ingest and caress from the outer edges of the paper inside towards the words or scribbled picture, or the first plucked strings, hummed melody or residual applause that might follow.

I have cried for knowing that the love I have found in Jodi must grow without her knowledge or relief--relief that the man she knew was always inside finally and furiously emerged from the shell of a pained and terrified life he was living, bursting into the real and the new, pulling back the drapes, throwing open the windows and screaming until he could scream no longer, falling onto the floor in a heap of fat, bones, muscle and blood and panting the words "I have found a true love" to the blue-grey walls around him.

That's not to say that I don't cry for sad commercials, too. Because I do. And my mom did, too. She always had a box of tissues nearby just for such occasions.

But I remember when she had a small, non-life-threatening cancer removed from the corner of one eye. They didn't fix her up exactly the way they should have. In the spot where they took the little piece off tears would spill out at random moments. She had it fixed, of course, but it was hard to watch this woman who cried so much for so many things in a seemingly perpetual state of emotion at any given time of day.

I can only imagine how many, many times she cried for me--because of me--as she sat, or walked, or talked with my aunt, or laid down in her bed a mere 75 miles away from "her boy". I'm sure it was less than I imagine, but from where I see things the past is often darker and stormier than it really was.

I put that poor woman through hell and I have no excuse for it.

But that book is one I keep on the shelf for safety and security. I don't need to re-read it. I've got it pretty well memorized.

But ten years ago, on January 11, 2007 at 10:20am, Judith Ann Johnson's energy left her body.

She had fought a valiant battle with pancreatic cancer--one of the worst and most vicious types--and finally let go.

She let go of the pain and the suffering.

She let go of the uneaten, pureed meals left sitting on the tray, the ice water in the squeeze bottle and the IV, the hospital socks and gown.

She let go of the emotional visits from her son and her sister.

Oh, how I wish I could have one more chance to put my bearded, bloated cheek up against her lips for even the faintest of kisses. How I wish I could lay my head on her belly and my arm across her body and just for a few moments pretend we could die together. Just leave the messy, dilapidated house and the unplowed driveway and the legal documents behind and just . . . go.

Oh, how I wish.

But I am here and I am well.

I am here and I have love.

I am here and I am continuing her legacy of making others happy.

I am here and I have her hair on my head, her tics in my eyes, her fat, red hands on the end of my arms and her seemingly limitless ability to remain hopeful that the sun will shine again even in the darkest night.

I am here and I am still crying as I write these words.

Because I am alive and I am breathing and I am hungry and I have love in my heart and I have music in my soul.

And I am able to share this little bit of me with the world--and every little bit of me has a little bit of her inside.

And she is crying, too.

But she's not worried anymore.

No, she's crying because she is happy.

I can almost hear it.

Thanks for reading.

I love you all, but especially Jodi.

~FAJ

Dedicated to Judith Ann Johnson

May 14, 1941-Jan 11, 2007

Day Three Thousand Two Hundred and Seventy Six . . . One For Lynda J

2016-12-15T12:52:00.002-05:00

She was what they call a "complicated" person.

She was the child they had in order to "fix" the failing marriage.

(Eugenia, Alex Sr., Judy, Alex Jr.)

My grandfather, Alex, having been living up to his "Alley Cat" nickname from what I was told. But it was post war 1940s--1947 to be exact--and on December 15 of that year, Lynda Jean Johnson was born.

They started things out rough by spelling Lynda with a "y". That would lead to a lifetime of correcting people.

She had piercing blue eyes and red hair--surely this would make her stand out in a crowd.

She was raised in a devout Catholic as was my mother and uncle.

I'm sure that she was good in her parochial school--she was always an extremely bright person. But something happened in 1980 when my grandmother died. I believe the priest--the highly regarded Fr Diaferio refused to perform a full mass for her due to some sticky financial details. I never did fully understand what happened but it was enough to turn this feverishly agnostic woman into a devout atheist.

She studied hard and received excellent grades all throughout school. She was a follower of fashion and surely made her mother and father proud.

She loved her brother, Alex, but he joined the Navy in the 50s and set off on his own adventure. He would eventually move to Newport, RI in the 1970s for some years with my Aunt Norma and cousins, Heather and Dirk. But Lynda said she wished she could have had him closer to home when she was younger, as the father figure in the house wasn't exactly around as much as he could have.

She was a child of the Sixties--a sprightly nineteen in the summer of 1967.

And she set out for California shortly after college with her best friend, Anne, who I always knew as "Auntie Annie."

I have some diaries from those days. They include some pretty amazing stories of working as a dancer in some of the clubs in the Los Angeles area. Now these aren't the types of dancers you might associate with strip bars today. These were the "dance card" dance clubs where you pay just for company. Though I'm sure there were some unconventional practices if I know my aunt she was pretty much by the book.

She was living in Montebello, California in 1969 when my mother showed up with my soon-to-be father (it's a long story) and were taken aback by the strips of tin foil hanging from the ceiling creating an environment like walking through a psychedelic diamond. The story goes that my mom and dad were not exactly "with it" enough to appreciate the decor.

She was still there when my mother drove across country nine months pregnant to stay in the "safe house" with her and her then boyfriend, Manuel--whose name is one fourth of my baptismal name--and have me, out of wedlock, and stay for a few months until I was ready to transport back to Fall River.

Like I said, a very long story.

She traveled in Central America and in Europe in the early 1970s. I believe she had some connection to the Peace Corps. I hope I find some diaries from those days. I'm sure knowing how she was the rebel of the family there would be some stories to preserve.

She had many sides to her personality. That's putting it nicely, I guess. From what I'm told she had been proposed to on several occasions and said "yes" to many of them only to have things fall apart before too long. That said, she apparently amassed quite a collection of engagement rings.

Life is complicated enough these days. But we have so many ways through many of life's problems such as therapy and inspirational life coaching. I'm sure it must have been a total mess in the 1970s.

She loved her mother and father. But it was her mother, Eugenia, who was the beacon of light in the Johnson family. When she died in November of 1980 from cancer our world was torn to pieces.

By 1980 Lynda Jean Johnson had been an English teacher for seven years or so. But when my grandmother died something sparked in her and she decided to . . . become a lawyer.

That's right. She went to Suffolk Law at night after working all day teaching "hellions" (as she called them) at B.M.C. Durfee High School.

She took the bar in 1983 and passed.

Here's a congratulatory letter from state representative Tom Norton.

And here is the license plate she proudly drove around with on the back of her beloved Datsun 280Z. Oh, how I loved to get dropped off at middle school in that car. Though she always insisted I kiss her on the cheek before I got out. Kinda ruined my early teen swagger rep.

So here's the thing . . . it's 1983, she's been a teacher for probably ten years. She just the first few years of the 1980s studying law. She could have quit her job teaching the "hellions" and make some bank and get a fancy mahogany and maroon leather chair.

But she didn't.

She didn't practice law at all.

She just wanted to do it--to prove to herself that she could.

And then she went back to teaching and trying to inspire her kids in the classroom.

She kept that license plate for many, many years. As you can see the registration is from 1993.

Like I said, a complicated person.

In the mid 1980s I was in a band--a few of them, of course--but the main one, Undercover, was a cover band (get it?) and Lynda J Johnson was our manager. I have business cards somewhere with her name on it.

See, one of her colleagues was a guy named Marc Dennis. He's a very famous Portuguese singer. And his band, Atlantis, was the top of the pops back in the 80s. She struck up a deal with him: her band of teenagers would come and play between sets at his band's shows. They'd use all the other band's gear and play as long as they wanted to take breaks.

This was good for everyone involved. We got some experience playing in front of people and his band had extra time for whatever activities middle age musicians fancied in 1987.

I remember the first time I got drunk. After one of our sets I had been given two large plastic cups of Bud Light from one of the Portuguese Feast's beer tent bartender. I drank them both and then it all hit me at once. I remember rolling on top of a parked car's hood and my aunt saying, "Alex, you're drunk! What happened??"

This would not be the last time I heard this said to me.

In 1988 she began a complicated and lengthy relationship with a former student--twenty years her junior--but only after he had graduated high school, so I was told. They were mentors for each other it seemed. He was able to have the mother he always wanted who encouraged him to further himself and foster his artistic talents. She was able to have a young strapping companion who would accompany her on many trips and be that complex combination of surrogate son and lover. They were happy for a time. But as these things go and as time passed on the relationship soured and became unhealthy. It ended badly and I'm happy not to know many of the gory details.

But before this would happen, in 1992 her father--my grandfather--died after complications from dementia. It was a long and arduous journey. Even with all his faults she loved her dad and would dote on him, my mother too. And it was heartbreaking to watch him slip away, even though at the time I was beginning my long and storied relationship with drugs and alcohol.

I was living here in Western Massachusetts and beginning my own new chapter. After two summers of my mother spending time in Poland and me raising holy hell with my friends in Fall River I was given an ultimatum: quit drinking and drugs or move out of the house.

I chose to move out of the house and into off campus housing with my then girlfriend, Amy and we would eventually move two hours west. I would continue my long and slow descent into madness that would take a little over fifteen years to run its course.

In the meantime my aunt and her best friend, my mom, bought a home in Mattapoisett, Mass and sold 1073 Bedford St in Fall River where I was raised. They sold my grandfather's print shop/home on Beattie St.

They started their own new chapter in their lives beginning in 1996.

In a surprise twist my aunt became a contributor to the New Bedford Standard Times as an editorial cartoonist.

The devout atheist had found a new calling.

But she was an animal lover as well and had a penchant for persian cats. At one point I think she had five of them, all rescue cats. Though Lynda never had a child she had many babies. Her cats and her sister were her life at home. And the animals in the vast backyard were recipients of this love as well. One of my favorite memories of my aunt is her traipsing out into the snowy yard in her mu mu with a full bucket of dog food for the deer, bears and raccoons (there were two of them and she had named them both).

They would spend a decade together in that tranquil house in Mattapoisett. I'd come home for holidays and to do some work in the summer. I was a mess for most of those days and years but I loved both of them, even if my aunt and I had a hard time coming to terms on my lifestyle habits.

When my mother got her terminal diagnosis in late 2005 my aunt was all but destroyed. She was about to lose the last person in her life that wasn't me. Her mother and father were gone. Her brother had died in 1998. Her good friend Anne lived in Virginia and mainly visited during the holidays. I was living two hours away and a complete mess. And now her sister--her best friend--was about to begin her long goodbye.

The sixteen months that it took for my mom to complete her journey was one of the hardest things I have ever had or ever hope to do. But she was my mother and I have a different understanding of the person she was. But my aunt had known her for close to sixty years. When my aunt was in elementary school my mom would walk her there and then continue on to her school. She was my aunt's guardian. She had always been there for her, supporting her and encouraging her with love and admiration. When my mom passed in January of 2007 her world changed forever.

But in less than a year it would change again.

On December 27, 2008 I would get arrested for DUI and have taken my last drink.

Those first five months of life in sobriety was some of the most remarkable days ever. And I got to share it with my aunt both in our many phone calls as well as through this blog. Though she retired early in 2006 to take care of my mother, her vocation never ceased. Each blog post I would put up online would be lovingly corrected on her end and then sent back to me for reposting.

She was so unbelievably proud of her nephew.

In April of 2008 she began experiencing pain in her abdomen. On May 8th I encouraged and accompanied her to see her doctor in Boston.

At 3am on May 9th--my 38th birthday--a doctor who we didn't know and I'm sure I'll never see again would come into the hospital room we were both asleep in and deliver her final diagnosis: her cancer had returned and spread and there was nothing they could do to save her.

The final few months of her life were spent going back and forth to Dana Farber in Boston. I drove her most days, especially towards the end. I had a ignition interlock device in my car which was a stipulation of my DUI case. My amazing attorney, David Mintz, managed to get me a deal where I didn't lose my license for two full years as is normal for a 2nd offense. At the time we were just happy this was the outcome and I had already begun my journey into sobriety. But now that Lynda was sick again, and eventually unable to drive herself, made this all the more poignant of an outcome.

As a diehard liberal and progressive it is a shame she never got to see Obama elected.

She never got to see me buy my first home.

She never got to meet my Jodi and to share the magical feeling of our engagement announcement.

But all that said she certainly experienced a lot in her sixty years on earth.

In her final months she would often say to me, "It's okay. I've had my turn."

I hope when the time comes for me to leave this earth--if I'm given a chance to ruminate on it at all--that I will be able to summon the strength and humility to let go like this. I pray from time to time that I let regrets fall by the wayside and just take life for what it is: an amazing journey that encompasses a full spectrum of emotion, from the highest peaks of joy to the lowest depths of sadness and everything in the middle.

I'll always remember hugging her for the last time as I left for a short tour with the Young at Heart Chorus. She had encouraged me to go and do what I love. She said she would be all right. And I knew that her friend Anne would be there to spend a few days together while I was gone.

She took me in her arms and hugged me.

She looked me square in the eyes and said.

"You. Go and just be good. That's all I ask. You do that for me and I'll be happy forever."

Well, I've had quite a run, Auntie. I think you'll be happy to know that on December 27--if all goes as planned--I'll have been good for nine years.

There is so much more I could about Lynda Jean "Ms" Johnson. But I think that's probably good for now.

So how about I just say Sto lat and Happy Birthday.

I love you so very much.

~Squaka (another very long story)

Lynda J Johnson

12/15/1947-9/7/2008

As I do every year on her birthday today I will donate to one of her favorite charities, A Helping Paw. They are a no-kill shelter and do many great things with the animals of the South Coast. And she loved her animals almost as much as she loved me.

12/15/1981

c. 2002

Day three thousand one hundred and sixty five . . . Odds, ends and beginnings.

2016-08-26T10:40:00.001-04:00

There is so much love in my life.

I guess it's the era I grew up in--the 1970s--that colors my appreciation for it. Or perhaps I should say it accents my appreciation for it. Because I tend to see things in a maudlin or overly dramatic way and oftentimes I misconstrue the daily atmospheric shifts in life's moment-to-moment climate for something deeper and darker--a foreboding that's a flitting hummingbird on the feeder.

I had to grab this moment to sit down and concentrate on sharing my feelings today because . . . well, because if I didn't then I would have probably walked in the bedroom and started cleaning. Or I would have walked outside and started half-heartedly weeding. Or gone downstairs and began to start unpacking the PA gear from last week's show. Or anything but sharing my thoughts on the world I am in right now. A laptop on my lap is a familiar feeling but it's been over three months since I stared at the blank page and tried to fill it with something someone other than myself might care to read.

But this is a period of transition and I must make a mark of it. It helps me categorize the life I'm living and that helps me see where I've come and where I would like to go, regardless of if that's where I'm probably going to go. One can only prepare so much.

Birthdays are a funny thing.

We get given gifts, songs, hugs, kisses and cards for something we were only an accessory to. Really, our mom's should get the attention on these days because they really did the heavy lifting . . . or pushing. Dad's too, but you know. It's different. But, of course, that idea doesn't really work too well in a practical sense because if life goes as probability suggests then we will outlive our parents and there would be a point where birthday commerce would stop and our economy just couldn't handle that. Not now anyway.

But my birthday is the beginning of May and Jodi's birthday is at the end of August (tomorrow, actually) and so this seasonal shift in my world is nicely denoted by those auspicious events.

They are two very distinctly different times of the year.

In May the air is a bit crisper and the flowers are fewer. We have asparagus at every farm stand and still a lingering threat of frost for farmers big and small. The rivers are high from the snow melt but the humidity is still low. Shorts are still worn as bait for June's sun and heat and flip flops are really more or less taken out to see if one needs to buy a new pair this year. Our modern day version of a fossil may someday be shown in museums as foot imprints on seven year old Teva sandals.

Occurring at the end of August, Jodi's birthday is full of all the colors of the garden--reds, yellows, blues, greens, purples and every shade in between. Furious dashes to the edges of the continent for one last trip with the family before school starts. Droughts and mandatory water bans are a norm but you can still find patches of green grass to lay down a blanket and have a leisurely picnic as the late day sun shines bright. Pumpkins are waiting to shock us out of our summer reverie and fall fair organizers are submitting their full page ads in all the local papers. Summer concert series are winding down but there is still music in the air if you know where to listen. It's the end of the season but the heat and sun will still be on our side for weeks to come if we're lucky.

They are both beautiful times of the year for very different reasons and for very different people. I don't go into the whole astrological thing as much as some but I see where it makes sense. I'm a spring asparagus baby and she's a summertime flower child. For true.

We didn't have much of a summer last year due to our search for a new home. 75% of our possessions were holed up in storage so we could show the house when needed. Each day was a furious fumble on any one of the homebuyer apps on our phones.

"Did you see this one? It's walking distance to town!"

"Oh, yeah, it's next to a school . . . ugh!" or "too much house for us" are just two examples of the many texts regarding things we found not right with the slim selection of homes last summer.

But we found the place that fits us and that fits in with our world. It makes us happy every day and I have a hard time realizing that we've only been here less than a year. The people who bought our home seem happy and I'm sure they are making some wonderful memories.

This summer we have enjoyed ourselves as much as possible. Jodi's work is demanding on her both physically and mentally but they treat her well and for now she doesn't really complain much. But with her time off we've gone on a few trips and even begun taking bike rides again. We've enjoyed dining on the porch and growing a small garden (made even smaller by the voracious appetites of the local wildlife).

Wedding planning has begun in earnest and we have a JP, a date, venue and caterer. Still plenty of stuff to do but at least there is a framework. Love conquers all, even if the non-refundable deposit may seem to point elsewhere.

I still very much enjoy making music both with my band and with the Young at Heart Chorus. I spend more money than I make, but such is the way of most artists. Thankfully my open mic night that I host every week has helped a bit since I began it in March.

But it's the transitions that always trip me up.

When Jodi and I travelled a bit more on trains than planes she told me once, "You do great once we get onboard. But the whole 'on and off' thing is kind of tough for you. You don't do so well in transitions."

And she was and is right. I know I'm not special in this regard, but the little things like taking in the stuff I've brought home in my car and keeping the mail under my arm while my guitar is slung over my back and jiggling the keys just right so the house key lands in my palm. Or taking change back from a cashier while getting my bag card stamped and making sure the next person in line has room to put their stuff on the conveyor belt. Getting it all to flow in an elegant manner has always been a struggle for me. My mindfulness meditation has helped but it only works when I remember to use it.

I think the movies of the 1980s with their endless montages of daily life moving perfectly (to a danceable soundtrack) in a forward direction has tainted my non-movie life irreparably. Damn you, John Hughes.

I'm sure this is one of the big reasons I used to drink, smoke and all the rest. It made me less aware of transitions. It took the nervousness away and allowed me to just flow for a while like a river with no dam. Just moving in one direction until I reached an obstacle I couldn't get over or around. And at that point I was always too far gone to notice there was a problem. They were keys I never had to fumble with. They were bags that never fell off of my back seat emptying their contents on the floor of my car. They were handfuls of change that always somehow ended up in the right quantities in my pockets.

And they were just around the corner anywhere I went.

And none of that has changed. They're still there, and at any point I have the ability to turn to them again and put them to work.

But I can't and I won't.

Because the great thing about transitions is that by definition they are fluid and ever-changing. You see there is one side, there is the middle, and there is the other side. If one constantly focuses on the one side and the middle (where it may seem awkward) then one forgets that the natural progression of time and life is to end up on the other side. And I'm not saying that the other side of every transition is going to be positive or comforting. But it stands to reason that if one makes it through unscathed once that in time there will be another one. And another one. And an endless waterfall of transitions through life--many which happen without our even noticing--and the mere accomplishment of opening one's eyes every day signals that a new opportunity has arisen.

All that said I've been having a tough time of it lately, I have to admit. And I only say this because I've always been honest in these pages . . . about everything. No, it's not about sobriety. I'm still 3,165 days since my last drink and almost as many since complete abstinence. It's more about getting older and watching the world come up behind you in your rear view mirror. It can be daunting if one can't acquire some perspective on it all. And without children in our lives it's easy to just kind of float somewhere in the middle of it all--not 25 anymore but not almost 50 either, right? Well, not really.

But this year marks ten years since the last fall and winter with my mother. Strange, because when I think about those times when I was 36 instead of 46 I feel like I was older then. And for all intents and purposes I was. 50 pounds overweight and with a head full of pills, vodka, weed and cocaine I could have been 75 years old and on my last days. And I can almost feel like that again if I try hard. But it makes me so sad to think that's how I chose to handle things at the time. Jodi tries to console me by reminding me that I was sick and it was out of my control. I don't buy it 100%. I had my days and weeks of sobriety when things were okay in the other aspects of my life. But when the shit hit the fan it was all out the window. I think part of me was trying to leave on the same plane as my mom, as it were.

Knowing what I know now--that my aunt would be gone less than two years after my mom, leaving the house, its belongings and everything that went with it to me and me alone--it's safe to say that there was no other way.

Knowing that the same month that my aunt passed--September of 2008--I would make first contact with the woman who will soon be my wife is enough to make me almost pass out from joy of life and living.

Knowing that the time between then and now has been filled with creating a body of work (both in words and music) that is dedicated in part to the memory of the people who raised and nurtured me is a comfort I never could visualize.

Knowing that the years came and went before I was born and will continue long after I am gone is an understanding that ebbs and flows in my soul. For I often lose track of where I am in life. Really, the best course of action from where I stand is to just try and forget about the past and the future. It's what I try to achieve with my mindfulness and sometimes glimpse. Hopefully as I get older this state of mind will become easier and last longer. But I am a sucker for nostalgia and so I don't hold out the most hope in that regard.

So today I will prepare for Jodi's birthday.

I can't tell you too much about it because that would spoil the surprise. We're keeping things simple this year and she's made me promise not to go crazy with gifts. So I've found a few things I think she will like. We've found something to do that will be fun but not extravagant. I've got a bit too much of my mom in me and it's hard to not try and make a fuss. But I'm learning every day how to be a more true person.

I'm learning every day how to challenge myself to not expect too much.

I'm learning every day that true love does not need to always be on the table--that it's often in the legs of the chairs we sit on, or in the way we hand over a read section of the morning paper.

I'm learning every day that success can be squeezed out of every day like the last dab from a toothpaste tube as we get ready for bed knowing that we can pull the covers up to our necks and welcome dreams onboard.

I'm learning every day that transitions can be stubborn foes or they can be moments of acceptance that perhaps we have tried to take on too much. Perhaps it's us inside knowing that we have too much in our pockets to begin with.

I'm learning and I'm living and I'm trying to make a difference in my world.

But even if that difference is only something I could ever witness and it dies with me tomorrow I need to be okay with that.

But tomorrow will be a joyous day as we welcome another year into our world--a year that begins with August 27th.

A transition.

A window of life.

Happy Birthday and Sto lat to my sweet, sweet Jodi.

I love you with all I have or ever hope to hold in my soul.

Happiness always,

~FAJ

Day three thousand and sixty . . . Sto lat.

2016-05-13T12:29:00.002-04:00

What's in a number?

Seventy five.

Seems pretty innocuous.

Well, it's so hard for me to think of how my mother would be turning seventy five tomorrow if she were still here.

I think of my family--my mom, aunt, grandmother--the people who raised me. None of them made it out of their sixties. My grandfather made it out but I tend to think of him as being a whole different set of genetics and predispositions. He was 86 when he passed. That's pretty impressive. But on my Grandmother's side it was 60, 65 and 68. My uncle was also in his 60s when he died--all of them from cancer except my grandfather. Though ultimately dementia got the better of him and it was a heartbreaking experience to witness.

But my mom. She never seemed old even when she was in her 60s (and I know that's not technically "old" but still). So it's so hard to picture her as three quarters of a century old. But her birthday is every May 14th and this one is the 75th since 1941 so I guess that's where we are.

I have been pretty lax in keeping up with this blog. And while I kind of made a promise to myself not to apologize for it it still feels weird. There has just been so much else going on in my world that's it's not easy to take the time in the day and sit down and focus on this portion of my life--my sobriety and my life's story. And I don't want it to be a thing where I only post on important days in my life. But something called me to this page today. And when I checked back to see how many days it's been since I had a drink I guess I seem to have missed a pretty momentous milestone.

3,060

It has been three thousand and sixty days since I had a drink of alcohol (and almost as many since total drug abstinence).

That's another number that's hard for me to fathom.

Because this guy right here? This guy talking to you? This is a guy who once told his mom and aunt that he was never ever going to quit drinking because it was "who I was" and nobody was going to change that.

Well, I guess there was a back door to that clause and that was there was nobody going to change it except for the guy who said nobody was going to change it. Because that totally happened.

It happened over three thousand days ago and my life has never been the same.

I remember waiting outside the liquor store at 8:50am with a bag full of change that I would turn into a plastic quart of vodka.

I remember coming to from the smoke wafting off of my futon mattress that was burnt from the still lit cigarette dangling from my unconscious hand.

I remember (vaguely) telling the Northampton police officers that I couldn't continue with the field sobriety test and that they better just take me in.

And from that day on I remember every day just a little bit clearer. I remember how my body felt as the poisons from the years of abuse slowly left me. I remember how my gait became a bit freer and easier and how sentences and communication developed a quickness and clarity that was new to me.

And I also remember how memories came flooding back from the years before things got bad. And from time to time I'll catch a glimpse of a conversation I had with my dying mother--important things as well as the offhanded joke or goofball comment. But so much of what we shared I will never recall because I thought the only way to deal with her leaving me was to be gone myself.

But over three thousand days have come and gone since that last gulp of Smirnoff. Over three thousand suns have set since I decided I'd "go out with a bang" as I told my best friend, Paul on December 27, 2007.

And over three thousand mornings I have woken up and known what I did the night before, which is great on the days when the days before it were good ones. But on the hard days--the ones we all want to forget--there is no easy escape. And one must just let time heal the wounds.

I barely remember this day. It was the last birthday my mom would celebrate, at age 65--ten years ago tomorrow. But I remember giving her the amber necklace that I bought at the local Tibetan shop. It hangs in the bay window of our house here in Florence, above the plants that Jodi (mostly) cares for. Plants were one of my mother's favorite things in the world (being a horticulturist) and so it makes sense that something that reminds me of her so would find its place there.

But what's in a number, right?

Ten years ago I gave her a necklace that I happen to be staring at as I write this. Seventy five years ago tomorrow she was born.

And three thousand and sixty days ago I took my last drink.

So today, my sweet mother, I will write this for you. I will remember how you made every day special, let alone birthdays. How you cherished every moment you were awake and, I'm sure, all the time in your dreams, for you always did look so contented when you were snoozing (or "resting your eyes" as you would always insist). I will remember the way that your hair felt and the way that you hugged me so tight when you saw me it was as if I had just been rescued from a burning building. I'll remember how you would fill my refrigerator with food when you would come to visit and how you would slip me the odd $20 and say "This is for milk!" I will remember how we would goof around when I would get off of the Bonanza bus back home and pretend I didn't see you sitting in your car and walk past it and then pretend to be shocked when I turned around and saw you waving for me. I'll remember how you would put me to work oiling the kitchen table and chairs before every holiday (which I loathed) and how you would give me a nickel for each dog poop I scooped in the front yard of our house on Bedford St in Fall River. I will remember how you tried to console me when that first girl I had a crush on turned her head when I tried to kiss her. I'll remember how you and I toasted on my 21st birthday when we pretended it was my first drink. I'll remember how you cried every time when you left me after a visit because you never knew if you'd see me again. And I'll remember how it felt to see you in the hospital so many times and saw the way you would smile to see me--in as much physical and mental pain as you were in--because your boy was within hugging distance. I'll remember the way I could always find you in the crowd of wherever I was performing. And I'll remember how you would always look for six of the same outfit to give me and "the guys." And I'll always remember how embarrassed I felt upon handing them out. I'll remember shopping at Savers or the Salvation Army with you and seeing you from across the store and hiding behind a rack and then surprising you and how you would delight in showing me what you found "on a super sale" and how you would try to convince me that I didn't need that $15 shirt but would buy it for me anyway. I'll remember how it felt to have to tell you that I totaled the car you gave me three weeks before. And I'll remember when I had to make the choice of giving up drugs and alcohol or moving out of the house.

But I'll always remember most your voice. Low and slow and soft with an old New England accent as warm and reassuring as melted butter. I don't know why I don't have mine. I think it just fell off like a snake sheds its skin. But I know it when I hear it and it always reminds me of you. The way you said "bahth" and "Hahd" but not "nevah" or "fahtha". It was refined and detailed and it always made me feel safe and sure and home.

I remember so many things, good, bad and otherwise, as they say.

But tomorrow, as I head out on the road to play a show in northern Vermont I will remember you, my sweet, sweet mother. Your gift of life was cut shorter than you or I or all those around you would have liked. But you made your impression and you made me and you will always be loved and remembered as long as I can keep this flame alive.

Sto lat, Judy. Blow out your candles. Eat your cake. Hug your boy. Let the tears flow. Let the love bloom. Let the numbers stand as they are . . . for they mean nothing.

All there is is all there is.

Thanks so much for reading,

~FAJ

Day Two Thousand Nine Hundred and Eighty Seven . . . Leaps and bounds.

2016-02-29T17:26:00.001-05:00

"I wish there were more hours in the day."

"I wish there were more days in the week."

"I wish there were more months in the year."

"I wish there were more days in the month."

Yep. Got that last one today. February twenty-ninth, baby. Only happens on a year whose last two digit's are divisible by four. That's what I remember my mom telling me.

This feeling inside me, though, keeps nagging and nagging. It's telling me to get this stuff out there. It's knocking on the door like a Bernie Sanders canvasser. It knows I'm already on board, it's just so easy to keep under the covers or stay at the gym a little longer, or down in the basement rehearsing, and stay away from opening that door.

But I have to keep writing and telling my story. And if there was ever a better reason to not put it off anymore it would have to be today. Because today is a freebie. Garbage time.

Leap Day.

I'm a bit of a mess these days. It's not anything to worry too much about. I haven't raided the liquor cabinet. I've put too much work into this here sobriety thing to let it slip away like that. And I haven't gone to get a weed card, as much as I want to. Though I always maintained a relatively healthy relationship with marijuana I don't think I'm ready to try and "be responsible" with it. That could only end messily.

But my head has been in a fog for the last month since Jodi and I returned from our trip to Costa Rica.

This would be the trip where we spent ten amazing day on the beach.

This would be the trip where we ate ceviche and plantains and hung in hammocks and read for hours.

This would be the trip where I asked her to marry me and she said "yes."

Well, actually the first word out of her mouth was "what?" and then she said yes.

Yep. My mom would be so unbelievably happy for me, as would my aunt. Everybody, in fact, would be or is thrilled for me because I really did find the right person for me. And believe me I realize I'm a bit of a handful. Let's not get into that. It's been pretty much documented over the past few hundred posts or so. I've tried to be as honest as I could. I think I've succeeded so far.

But yes, Jodi and I are engaged and plan to marry next fall. It seemed like the right thing to do and a natural progression in our relationship. She is simply the love of my life and I can't imagine a world without her in it.

But I have to say that when left the jeweler with my grandfather's gold and diamond ring that would be transformed into Jodi's I felt markedly different. Not sure exactly why, but something tangibly changed and I felt like I had made an even bigger decision than I originally thought. It was as if some new medication I had been prescribed just started to work. It was a great feeling, for sure. I just wasn't expecting it. But I took this ring (which I wrote about eight years ago) to our local jeweler and he turned it into something simply gorgeous and unique. And now it's residing snugly on the ring finger of the left hand of somebody equally gorgeous and unique.

But Jodi is on a work-related trip right now and I've been home by myself for a few days. It's a strange feeling because we are almost never apart for this long. And as she is out of the country and away from wifi I haven't heard from her in a good day or so.

I'm not worried, per se. I just feel so strangely disconnected. I can find out an unlimited amount of information on my computer and be in touch with almost anyone I can think of. But the one person who means the most to me is just out of reach. And I'm willing to be she's feeling it too.

But I keep my head about me and make sure that I remember that all that I see around me--my house, my clothes, the food in my kitchen, my car, my guitars--that these things are all here and safe because I have remained sober for eight years and counting. That this life I lead is all contingent on the idea that I cannot and will not pick up again. There is no "just a little taste" or a "cheat day." No, this is almost literally etched in stone.

We had an incident the other night at our house where the sump pump that keeps the ground water at bay was overwhelmed. It was the same night we had to get up at 4am to get Jodi to the airport to put her on a plane for this trip. And thank goodness the thunder woke us up and we heard the emergency siren going off or there would have been even more than three inches of water covering every inch of our 1,400 square foot cellar floor.

I have to admit I did something stupid in walking straight into the water, but not 100% stupid. To my credit I did make sure the shoes I was wearing had rubber soles. Then I plunged straight into the mess. First thing that caught my eye was the glowing orange light of the power strip on the floor. I carefully but quickly unplugged it from the wall.

Yep, I'm kinda stupid sometimes.

But I didn't kill myself, thank God. And I didn't short out the whole basement worth of lights. Because I can only imagine if there's anything worse than trudging through three inches of water in your basement it's doing it in the dark.

Jodi had the peace of mind to call the fire department. God bless those guys to come over at 2am and lend me their extra sump pump. They successfully drained the basement and even helped me move the drum kit out of harms way. They stuck around to make sure everything was okay with us and said to just return the stuff the next day. I asked them if we got charged for this and the captain said, "You already paid us for this trip . . . with your taxes."

So, to my new neighbors I apologize for the idling fire truck outside your house in the wee hours of Thursday but everything seems to be under control for now.

For the last three days and evenings instead of writing new songs in my basement studio, instead of having band rehearsal, instead of writing my blog I've been trying to make sense of a mid-level disaster. We lost some stuff for sure, but thankfully my insurance looks like it will pay for that. A whole box of Jodi's ticket stubs and Polaroids and personal mementos had to be carefully dried and laid out. I talked to her while I was going through it all and broke down and started to cry it was just so overwhelming. It was such a strange feeling to be going through her personal stuff but it was either that or it was going to be lost forever.

But I did what I had to to repair the damage that was done by our overwhelmed sump pump. In fact, I had the basement company come and install an even more powerful pump so this will hopefully never happen again, fingers crossed.

In the end, nobody got hurt, the city came to my rescue, and I was even able to get Jodi safely and securely to the airport on time for her flight.

And now, due to the heavy rains, our newly upgraded sump pump is working around the clock. It runs every forty seconds or so. The sound gets to me a bit when I'm in the bedroom but I can't really hear it through the rest of the house. We need to invest in a generator next to make sure we never lose power for an extended period of time during a storm or this thing will just happen all over again.

It's a bit unnerving to have the safety and security of my studio and storage area left up to a couple of water pumps and one wall outlet, but this is just the way it is here in our new abode at the bottom of the hill.

It reminds me a lot of my sobriety.

My abstinence is quite similar to this small bucket of cast iron machinery, plastic cords and vinyl pipes.

It keeps a low profile most of the time. In fact, when the weather is good you barely know it's there.

As life just hums along it's easy to forget how essential this often overlooked facet is to keep order and sanity.

But when the rains come, as they always do, you better well and be prepared for it.

When life's climate shifts and changes on a dime you need to have everything up and running and connected to a steady source of power.

Because if this one piece of the puzzle fails for any of the myriad reasons life presents us with there's a possiblity it's going to wreak havoc on everything in its way. It's not going to wait for you to figure out how to staunch the flood. It's not going to cut you any slack. It's going to just keep filling up and up until it reaches the electricity and then the lights go out and you may lose it all.

Then comes the time spent cleaning up the mess you've made, peeling apart photos and wringing out rugs, working against the clock and trying to fend of the impending mold that will set in if everything isn't aired out.

So I tell you this so I can tell it to myself. I feel out of sorts due to a lot of reasons right now. I've been on and off of caffeine for the past three weeks. I can't seem to figure out if I need to give it up or not. I'd really hate that to be the case because I do love it so. But I know that it's a drug and a ritual and just like all the others that I've danced with there is opportunity for abuse.

I miss my fiancé dearly. And how nice is that to write down in public? For she is my one true love and she and I have practically become one person with all of our seven years of shared experiences be they bad, good or even unbelievable. And we have forged a new family together with all of her clan in New York State coupled with mine in Virginia, Washington State as well as southeastern Mass and beyond.

No part of what we have feels out of place or errant.

No part of who we are feels fake or forced.

No part of where we are going scares me or gives me pause.

No part of why I love her so makes me wary.

She will return tomorrow night and my world will make a little more sense. I'll have somebody to bounce ideas off of and someone to laugh at my good jokes and shudder at my bad ones. I'll have a woman who brings me more happiness than I ever thought I was capable of experiencing in this world--someone who never judges and who never holds back how she feels.

She is light and love and she wants to be with me as long as life keeps us both buoyed aloft on earth's endless and unpredictable waves.

And I know that all I need to do is to keep my personal sump pump running in order to enjoy all of this. I just need to keep the maintenance up-to-date and think ahead for what potential trouble may be just out of view.

And that's why I wrote today of all days--this Leap Day, 2016.

Because every day is a gift, this is true. But today is extra special.

Thank you for sharing these few minutes with me, reading how life goes sometimes.

And on we go . . .

~FAJ

Day Two Thousand Nine Hundred and Ten . . . I am them.

2015-12-15T13:44:00.003-05:00

How do we change as we age?

This is a question I've asked myself a lot as life continues to unfold around me.

At 45 years and seven months old I am pleased to have retained most of my hair. I say "most" because there was a time I can remember--not so long ago--where I had to wet my hair brush to get it through my thick Armenian-Polish coif. But those days are behind me now and it seems I can almost brush my hair straight with just the fingers on my hands. When I get a haircut and the stylist pulls out the little mirror seeking my approval on the way the back looks I always get a little jumpy to see how "Hurricane Fred" is doing, the eye of the storm swirling around the northern regions on my scalp.

But these changes are part of life. These are biological certainties that we can't avoid, hard as some of us try.

My skin gets some help from a certain line of natural skin care products that I am lucky enough to have a seemingly endless supply of. But even as much as I cleanse, tone and moisturize I still look like a man my age: 45 years and seven months. It's part of life and I feel lucky to still be here after my years of use and abuse.

And though one can tell a lot from appearances I know all too well that just because our outward self looks healthy, inside things may not be so rosy.

We have a beautiful seven foot tall Christmas tree in our living room. Its incandescent glow and sparkly garlands give off an appearance of joy, health and happiness. But all I need to do is bend down and reach my hand inside the tree holder to see that it has sucked up all the water I fed it yesterday and is probably screaming for dear life. "Somebody water me!!! You cut me down for no reason and now I have no sun, wind, stars, minerals or water!! FEEED MEEEEEEE!"

And so I water this beautiful specimen of nature and symbol of this winter holiday and it makes Jodi and myself smile every day for three or four week of the year. It was grown for this purpose and that makes it a little easier to know it will only last so long. But as quickly as we prop it up in its stand and cover it with silver, gold, lights and love we know it is rapidly deteriorating.

Time takes its toll on us all.

To me now as it ever was I find that I don't understand concepts unless I can see how they work. When somebody starts explaining something to me I easily gloss over and start to slip away. I try my best to stay in the moment and keep my connection with them solid. But all through my life it's been this way.

I think that's one of the big reasons that this online journal has helped keep me sober. I've been able to work through the reasons why I did what I did in order to understand why I had to stop. Somebody tells me "You gotta quit drinking, buddy. You're gonna kill yourself," and I just wave my hand and say, "Oh, believe me I know," and move on. But digging in deep and picking out moments in my life where certain substances became synonymous with rewards and affirmation? Deciphering and pinpointing moments where I clearly chose insanity over clarity? That kind of stuff really opens my eyes and helps me understand what it's all about.

But this question of how we change as we age, this is also a very helpful conversation to have to make future decisions in a more productive way.

I think that when I was younger I was really good at making my family worry about me. In fact I kind of perfected it. And I don't really know why this was something I let happen. Now that I am older and have those crazy years behind me I can't even fathom thinking that it was somehow okay to allow the two most important people in my life to sit across from each other and talk for hours about how best to get me to "clean up my act." And I know pretty well how the conversations would go. My aunt would show my mother an article she found in the paper on a new drug or intensive treatment to curb alcoholism. My mother would start to cry and say "He'll never do it, Lynn," or something to that effect. My aunt thought she knew me; my mom actually did.

Because when I was younger, interspersed with managing restaurants and playing around the country with my rock band, worrying and upsetting my family was what I did.

But everyone gets older and sometimes our old habits have a way of changing.

Today would be my Aunt Lynda's 68th birthday. Being the youngest of three siblings I suppose she kind of figured she might be the last to pass, but certainly not the youngest. My Uncle was 68, my mother was 65.

But my aunt died just shy of her 61st birthday.

That said, Lynda Jean Johnson was the only one to see me grow up. What I mean to say is that even though she only was around for the first seven months of it she was the only one in my immediate family to live to see me quit drinking. And at age 37 this development was quite possibly the most important and life-changing decision I could have made not only for myself but for everyone around me. Because choosing this path changed everything.

I became responsible with my money.

I became concerned for my weight and for my health.

I began to see my way through problems and not just ways around them.

I understood that there was somebody inside me that was worth loving.

I saw the time in front of me as being more valuable than the time behind me and therefore I refused to live in the past.

I realized who in my life I had filled with dread and worry for years and years and I tried to make things as right as I could.

And most importantly I discovered how I changed as I aged because I could see laid out in front of me who I had become.

I had become . . . them.

All the years of trying to distance myself from my mom and aunt with drugs and drink and dangerous living, all of that had emanated from a deep seated fear that I was just like my family. How outrageous! How preposterous! I couldn't be like them! They were well-respected school teachers who changed people's lives in a single year by connecting and trying to instill in their students a confidence that they may not have been afforded by their family and peers.

These normal people who made every single holiday or milestone extra special for those around them, who kept a steady supply of balloons, streamers, gift bags, kazoos, funny hats, silly signs and greeting cards . . . I wasn't like them.

I was cool, man.

I was different.

I was dangerous and dark!

I was a rock star and I lived the life!

I had a death wish.

Nope.

I was not any of those things.

I was just . . . like . . . them.

Well what do you know?

It took me 37 long years to realize this simple fact: that being them is not a curse but a blessing! That being them is something to strive for. That being them is not only becoming scarcer every day but that being them can change people! That being them and holding the door or picking up a quarter that somebody dropped or writing a thank you note or bringing home a balloon on a special day or calling somebody on their birthday or just checking in with someone you haven't heard from in a while . . .

That any of these things is just being who I am: Frederick Alexander Johnson.

And as hard as I fought it for almost four decades I finally gave in and came to and it all made sense for one brilliant and beautiful moment. And that's all it took for me to understand what to do moving forward.

For me, just doing what I've been doing seems to be working. Because instead of making people around me worry about me and just generally being a punk, I'm staying clean and sober and helping others do the same.

I'm giving guitar lessons just like I told my aunt I would in her last few months of her life.

I try to never take my partner for granted. I try to encourage rather than nag. And I celebrate every day we can be together because I have felt like the luckiest man on earth since the day we met.

That is no lie.

That is love.

And they were love.

And I am them.

For once. For all. Forever.

I want to dedicate this post to, of course, my Aunt Lynda. Though her birthday was precariously close to Christmas my mom made damn sure that it was as singular of an event as possible.

And on this day as I do every year I will donate to one of her favorite cat charities, Habitat For Cats.

She loved her cats almost as much as she loved me.

Happy Birthday, Aunty.

I love you, I miss you, I'll see you again someday.

~Squaka

For the rest of you, thank you all so very much for reading. Enjoy the holiday season and try to be safe in this crazy old world.

~FAJ

Lynda J. Johnson December 15, 1947-September 07, 2008.

Day Two Thousand Eight Hundred and Fifty Five . . . Decade-nce

2015-10-21T14:22:00.003-04:00

Ten years ago—though all seemed in check—my world was about to implode.

I had been enjoying an unprecedented year of international travel as the guitarist for the Young at Heart Chorus, having joined in December of 2004 and beginning our ritual of touring twice a year overseas. That year we had gone to Belgium and Holland for two weeks. Those two weeks turned into a month as the rest of my main band at the time, Drunk Stuntmen, found themselves included in the tour, finagling plane tickets and lodging, and piggybacking it all into an actual international tour of The Netherlands.

Though I was 50 pounds heavier than I am now, when I think of those days I can actually feel myself as being lighter and more alive—each day floating down like a feather from an exploded pillow. The memories come to me like a dream because that’s how it all seemed, as if every day was a windy scene in a movie. Each new act circling like leaves and newspapers around and around, the frame spinning itself out of focus and the present day taking control again. And then I’m just here on my couch, 45 years old and very much sober and aware how much it all is interconnected.

I think about that time period and remember how much of a mess things were with my health and my addiction to alcohol. And while I was certainly a walking (or stumbling) disaster by all accounts, I find it amazing that I did have my life together enough to make sure that I had just enough money to get my pint of Smirnoff and six pack at the end of the day, as well as taking care of my bills, connecting with my family every few days, and playing in two successful bands.

When you first start to go to meetings, as I did for a few months, you learn some key ideas. They are laid out in clear and simple terms in order to be utilized by anybody who wants to clean up their life. But one of the big ones I’ll never forget is that staying sober seems like the hardest task in the world at first. And it’s not an easy thing to do by any means. But staying fucked up is a hell of a lot harder. You just don’t think about it like that when it’s happening because the end result is disconnecting and checking out. But when you’re trying to just stay on one level and take life as it comes, everyday can seem like a prison.

I made it through the first year of international debauchery and came back with some great stories and a few stamps on my fresh passport.

I’ll never forget telling my mom and aunt, on one of their many trips to visit me here in Western Mass, how I needed to go get my picture taken at AAA. They asked why and I told them, with great enthusiasm, that I needed a passport to go to Europe! For me this was a huge deal. And they were so happy for me, as they were both very experienced international travelers and knew how amazing it is to see a world outside of the one most Americans know. But they were also worried for me because of the same reasons they were always worried.

But I made it through 2004 and my tour of Belgium and Holland and continued to play in both bands. In the summer of 2005 my orders came in that we would be traveling to London for the last two weeks of October (a “fortnight” I was fond of joking).

I was over the moon. London. Pubs. Nightclubs. Fish and Chips. Everything comped and a nice paycheck at the end of it all.

But my return from that trip would be forever seared in my memory as the end of the first 35 years of my life.

My mother, Judy, had suffered her share of scares with her health.

Melanoma was a constant worry. It stemmed from endless instances of severe sunburns she suffered battling her lily white skin. She told me that when she was a young girl she wanted to blend in with all of the darker-skinned Portuguese and Italian girls in her hometown of Fall River, MA. But being of Polish, Irish and English heritage this was a longing that would prove to be a formidable challenge. And her many attempts of tanning would end up with disastrous results. Had we known as much about skin cancer then as we do now who knows what might have been. In the throes of youth not standing out can feel more honorable and important than any threat of illness later in life. This, I know all too well.

Judy battled numerous instances of skin cancer on her face as well as in her breasts, to the point of requiring a double-mastectomy in her early 60s. Her doctors gave her several clean bills of health and she would excitedly shared these with me as soon as she could. My mom always wanted to make sure her boy knew she was going to be okay. But I know without a shred of doubt that through it all she was more worried about me than she was for herself. She could survive without her breasts. She could recover from multiple skin surgeries. But she felt she could not recover if anything happened to me. And for all the times I seemingly attempted to check out for good I always did wake up and I always did make sure she knew I was still here. Even if "here" was used in its loosest translation.

I feel so hardened to pain and suffering now due to the events that followed. But one of my deepest regrets is not having been more aware of her struggles and the seriousness of it all when this was happening. I’m sure part of the reason I numbed myself each and every night came from my fear of losing her. But my own selfishness I will never fully forgive myself for. It’s okay, I’m not a sad person and I don’t hold a grudge against myself. But when one makes up a list of things they wish they could have done differently, me not being present for the truly life-changing twists and turns in my mother’s health would be right there at the top.

Ten years ago in September my mom was in a car accident—a fender bender. Somebody rear-ended her while driving her beloved Nissan Maxima. When I close my eyes I can remember exactly the way that car always smelled—deep and bright lavender, a result of the scented fabric softener she used. When she would pick me up at the bus stop in New Bedford on any of my many trips back home that familiar scent always made me smile as I threw my belongings in the backseat and then settled myself in with a kiss on her cheek and a hug around her big belly. I remember the way the seat belt felt across my chest in that passenger seat. She loved her little comfort-accents. One of those was the rainbow-colored fake fur wrap on the chest strap of her seat belts. It was a simple touch and I’m sure helped her find her car in a crowded lot.

But it was this same seat belt (on her side) that prolonged her life in two ways. First it, of course, protected her when she got rear ended. But in that same accident in September of 2005 she suffered a small injury to her abdomen. It wasn’t that big of a deal but, apparently, it was enough for the doctor to order some tests, X-rays or something.

And it was the result of those tests that alerted the doctor that there may be something much more serious going on than a bruised rib.

After the tests came back she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. But the doctors said that thanks to the accident they had found it early enough to potentially remove it. They called it “treatable and curable.” I’ll never forget those words. Had I been of the right mind to do a quick online search I would have found out in three tenths of a second or less that pancreatic cancer was one of the most aggressive and deadly forms of the disease. It took my grandmother at age 68. In most cases the symptoms show up so late in the development that treatment often proves futile and the patient rarely has more than a few months left. But my mom had been through so many bouts of cancer that I took it in stride. The two of them—my mom and aunt—played it off too. I will never know if they did it that way so as to not worry me into drinking myself into a coma. If they only knew how bad it was with me maybe things would have been different. But the doctors gave them hope.

They told Judy Johnson that her beloved seat belt gave her more than a fighting chance.

And so, in October of 2005—right before I went away to London for those two weeks—my mom and aunt would visit me for the last time as characters in that first 35-year chapter of my life.

We went to a local family restaurant here in Northampton and got gigantic cheeseburgers with fries.

We talked about how exciting it was that I was getting to go back to Europe after just being there in the summer.

We held hands at the table and, with trembling voices, made a toast to the next time they would come to visit me—when my mom’s cancer was gone and things were back to normal.

They left the driveway of my apartment after an extremely teary goodbye. I lit up a cigarette, poured a very tall glass of vodka over ice, turned on the TV and just let time slip away.

The trip to London was a great success. It was on that run of shows that a filmmaking duo saw the group perform and approached the directors with the idea of making a movie about us—here at home in Northampton. And it was because of that movie’s international success that we traveled to Japan (twice), New Zealand, and all over the US.

We returned from the trip on the evening of October 30th, 2005. I had originally planned to take the early morning bus to New Bedford so we could all go out to lunch and have as much time as possible together before my mom had her surgery on November 1.

On the bus ride back home from the airport I borrowed a cell phone from one of the chorus members and called my mom like I always did—just to let her know we made it back to the U.S. safe. She was so happy to hear my voice she began crying. She said, “I can’t wait for this to be over. I just want this thing out of me! I just want to be able to live my life again. I can't wait to dance with you again!”

But—and this pains me to no end to say—my addiction had other plans for me. I decided it was more important to me to be able to stay up all night drinking vodka at home and sleeping late and then taking the afternoon bus back home. This meant that we would barely have any time at all to spend together as bedtime would be extremely early in order to leave for the hospital at 4am. We needed to do this to get my mother prepared to go in for a potentially 12 hour procedure.

The nerve. The fucking nerve!

I need to jump in here and say that I am writing this story not only because it marks a decade since its occurrence. But I need to remind myself that my reliance on alcohol at this time in my life clouded my judgement to the point where I made decisions for which I will always regret. And that it can and does happen to anyone who lets it. I’m not one to allow the idea that the addiction is more at fault than the person—we are proud to make our decisions freely in this country. But I will always be amazed at how deeply my compassion and ability to reason had been held hostage.

The events that followed are somewhat cloudy but I still remember pretty well.

I came in on the evening bus on Halloween—hungover, of course—and I think we had some sort of dinner. Because it was so late we ordered take out and at at the house. We all went to bed around 9pm or so and I woke up at 3am to get ready to leave the house at 4.

I was sort of mad about the whole scenario. I was also quite jet lagged and that made things all the worse.

But in the early morning hours of November 1 we got my mom in the passenger seat of my aunt’s Toyota Highlander and I curled up in the back. They threw a blanket and pillow in there so I could sleep during the 12 hour procedure. We drove to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and all walked in together. They prepped my mom for surgery and we had some time to spend together before she was rolled down the hallway.

I wish I could remember more of what we talked about in those few minutes but I do remember this. She called me in close—her only child—and said, “I want you to know, Alex, I have never been more proud of you than I am right now. Always remember this.”

This, after my insolence and grand selfishness of sleeping all morning after staying up drinking British vodka all night. She was proud of me.

I didn’t know what to say.

She said, “If anything happens to me I want you and Auntie to be good to each other. Because you will only have each other and there is nothing more important to me than to know you can get along.”

My aunt and I had had our differences over the years. She had often felt I was a selfish and spoiled brat that my mother should have disciplined long ago. But we did love each other very much, this much cannot be denied. And my work with the Young at Heart as well as my career turn as a mental health counselor had made her rethink things a bit.

I hugged my mom, poked fun at her free shower cap the hospital had fitted her with, told her I loved her more than anything or anyone and stood next to my aunt as they wheeled her away through the first set of swinging doors and around a corner.

I can still feel my heart beating as fast as it did then. I thought I might pass out and my aunt felt the same.

They gave us each one of those little plastic discs that you get at restaurants when you are going to be waiting a long time for a table. When it blinks you are supposed to come and see what’s up. I got mine and went out to the parking garage and climbed into the back seat, covered myself with the blanket and settled into the less-than-optimal surroundings for a nap.

I woke up a few hours later and had to use the bathroom.

I decided to walk back to check in on my aunt. As I was walking toward the waiting room the lights on my disc began to whirl around. When I got 50 feet away I saw my aunt standing there—pale as a ghost. She was waving me towards her and shaking profusely.

The doctors wanted to talk with us about the procedure. It was slated to take 12 hours. This was only hour four.

There’s no way this could be good.

They had done what they could but the cancer had spread.

I remember they asked if we wanted to talk to a priest and my aunt—vehemently agnostic—said “Why the hell would we want to do that? Um . . . NO!”

It was a scene. It was a horrific scene. My aunt was crying. And it was one of those times when you know something is the worst it could be and somebody is crying so you can’t join them because you feel you have to keep your shit together to help them. I’ll never forget not being able to cry with my aunt. But I held her close—she was hot and soaked with sweat from worry—and we just stood there and the magnitude of that event just rained down on us for what seemed like forever.

When my aunt was able to compose herself we walked to the cafeteria. Not that even a shred of me felt hungry but my aunt wanted to make sure we ate a salad. Because in these few years of health scares she realized how horrendous our diets had been and she was trying all she could to reverse the damage. I remember the way the tongs felt in my hand as I picked up a clump of sliced carrots and let them loose on my spinach. If felt like a front loader releasing two tons of concrete. I’ll never forget the way those carrots felt as I crunched on them and stared ahead blankly at all the other people in the dining room, some of them doctors, some of them nurses, many of them family and friends and each with a different story playing out in their heads.

But this was our story and this was our day and we had not planned on this.

I remember finally losing my shit, though, while on the phone to my friend and bandmate, Steve. I had called him on my aunt’s cell phone from the hospital entranceway. “She’s not going to be okay!” I said to him. “The cancer spread and they can’t get it out!” I was sobbing and shouting and just dripping tears.

“I’m so sorry, Fred,” he said to me “I really am.”

We realized we couldn’t do much else at the hospital that day, and there was no way we were going to be able to see my mom until tomorrow when she could talk. So we walked to the car together holding each other close. We knew she wasn’t coming home with us that day when we brought her there, but we certainly didn’t think this is how we would be leaving.

That night I’ll never forget how my aunt was a complete wreck. We stood outside in the backyard of their home in Mattapoisett and she was babbling. She was screaming about how I needed to have a child and how she wished she had children so the family would go on. She implored me to have children between crying fits. I had to shake her by the shoulders and tell her how much I loved her. I told her that none of what she is suggesting is going to help the situation right now and she needed to go in and get some sleep. I told her to look up at the heavens and think how little we are compared to the universe.

And at that point we both witnessed the most amazing shooting star across the Cape Cod sky either one of us had ever seen.

We hugged for what seemed like an hour and then went to our respective sides of the house and went to sleep.

So much happened following that first day of November in 2005.

My mother asked me—on our first visit to see her after her surgery—if I would stop drinking for her and I told her no.

I told her no because if I stopped drinking for her and then she died then what would I all have been for?

I can tell myself that this was the right thing to do but, of course, it was partly me being selfish again. And certainly it was the addiction talking.

I would spend the following two years spiraling completely out of control and diving into a world of pills and other things that I’ve written about pretty extensively. I’m certainly not proud of what I did in reaction to my mom--and then my aunt--passing away while I was still in my 30s. But I do get some sort of peace from being able to divide my life up in ten year chunks like this. To be able to look back at a full decade and see how it began—with a simple fender bender and an x-ray—and follow that through all the massive boulders in the road and tracing all the steps that it took for me to get to my DUI in December of 2007 that would start me on my path towards sobriety is really something special. To see the awakening of my soul while my aunt was alive for those first five months of sobriety—before her own terminal diagnosis—and to know that she was able to witness the seeds of my understanding of where some of my self-destructive behavior came from is something I hold near and dear.

I lost so very much in first few years following my mother’s diagnosis, but in these past ten years I have gained more than I could have ever pictured. From learning how to drive again at 35 (after thankfully swearing off car ownership at 21) when my mom bought my my trusty Subaru so I could come home to visit her, to finding the love of my life in Jodi. It has all been unforgettable. Oh, how I wish they could have all met each other, but I always feel a little less like I am without the two most important women in my life when I am with this one. And I know it is because of my sobriety that I am able to stay with her and stay present in my world.

I get up every day, wash my face with warm water and look in the mirror. In that mirror I see on my face the lines that befit a man of my age. I am not 35 anymore and I try not to pretend that I am. But I think back to the days when I was and I can feel that heaviness that I should have never lived with. I can—just for a few seconds at a time—relive that feeling of dread and regret that I woke with nearly every day. I can remember trying to retrace my steps from the night before by looking in and around the trash can for clues of what I ate and what I drank. I can still see in the faces of some people I don’t even know that they remember me as that guy. I don’t feel the need to ask them what I ever did to them. I’d rather not know. Because the hands on the clocks will always only go in one direction.

I have made my peace with my family.

I have made my peace with my friends.

I have realized where I went wrong and I understand the root of those decisions.

I can write about these days like this because they are the events that made me who I am.

And sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve to have found love as true and as honest as this. I think back to all the times I thought of myself first and let others down.

But each one of our days are so very long and at any moment we can be asked to do the one thing that will change our lives forever.

That thing for me was to put down the bottle and hope to never pick it up again.

Ten years of changes is upon me now. And as they flow through my existence each and every day I can safely say that they have filled me with the joys of a lifetime.

Thanks for reading,

~FAJ

Day Two Thousand Seven Hundred and Ninety Six . . . Carry-on.

2015-08-23T17:46:00.000-04:00

It's so hard for me to travel light.

I know this is something that's more than just a superficial inclination; it's a part of me.

I realize that I've inherited more than a few traits from my ancestors. Like my mother's uncanny ability to not only pack on the pounds no matter what the season but keep them on, too. I'd call it a skill but that would be bragging.

Maybe I have some residual memory of traveling with her in the 1970s and 80s when it seems like paying for extra baggage was merely a dystopian view of the far-away future. My mom, it seems, wasn't one to travel light either. Over the past few years I had to dispose of many a set of brighly colored, Samsonite luggage--three and four pieces each--that I'm sure accompanied her on many of her journeys. And on each of her bag's luggage tags her name was written in her near-perfect script, "Judith Ann Johnson" along with our Fall River, MA address and "USA" in gigantic letters, underlined in red squiggles from her trusty red teacher's marker.

The tags were attached to their corresponding bags with the utmost care. Buckles were cinched closed and straps were fortified with string. Brightly colored puffy fur balls were added next to set hers apart from the rest rolling down the luggage belt. My mom didn't enjoy flying, but if she had to do it she was going to make damn sure her belongings didn't find an easy escape.

Flash forward to present day.

I have five or six different sizes and styles of luggage--one piece each. I have a large one for extended trips and they get smaller and smaller ultimately ending with a tiny piece of Japanese luggage that I've often dared myself to use. It's that small.

A couple of week ago I went on a four day tour playing guitar with the Young at Heart Chorus. It being a summer trip, and after checking the weather report, I decided I could really just bring the basics--jeans, tee shirts, a pair of boots, socks, a bathing suit and a long sleeved shirt. I packed it all up in my tiny Japanese suitcase and brought it downstairs. I went searching through my travel supplies box for a luggage tag and came across one I had picked up in New Zealand. It was bright blue with a bird on one side and the obligatory clear information page on the other. The tag seemed pretty secure and strong, but the strap that attached it to the suitcase was made out of rubber. And not only that it had a strange way of closing that just didn't seem very well thought out. But I was in a hurry so I just slapped it together and closed the buckle and brought it out to the car.

I remember thinking, "That's not gonna stay on for long." But it was a carry-on so I wasn't that worried.

We had a great tour and played a very cool theater in Grand Rapids, Michigan and made a bunch of new fans.

When we landed in Hartford I had it pretty easy because for the first time in my life, it seems, I didn't have any checked baggage. All I had was my little Japanese suitcase.

A couple of days after we returned I got an email from the chorus's administrator, Mark. He said, "Freddy, somehow your luggage tag ended up in our office. You can come by and pick it up whenever you'd like."

Weird.

Somehow the means of identification I used for my belongings had broken off and become its own entity.

Somebody in the group must have picked it up off of the ground, or the van, or the bus or wherever it had fallen and said, "Oh, this is Freddy's, he's going to be looking for it," and put it somewhere safe.

And this started me thinking how strange that I took the time and care to fill out the information on the tag--making sure my horrible penmanship was as legible as could be--but I just threw it together with the bag, using a strap I was almost certain was going to come undone. And how the idea of finding the I.D. tag on its own and returning it to its rightful owner is pretty ludicrous.

I think this speaks to a deeper level of living.

I think it conveys to me that sometimes that which I consider my identity can travel far from my actual life. And how not only is this something that could happen but something that should happen from time to time. It is so hard for me to admit it but I often get so hung up becoming the person who I want to be and forget that my name and address are really just words on a piece of paper.

Frederick Alexander Johnson

I'm living my third life right now.

My first life was the years up to when I started drinking when I was 15 or 16; my second life was from then until I got sober at 37; and from then until now I have been making a new person. This person is very different from those other two and there are people who don't recognize me since my life started again and, for better or for worse, aren't really a part of me anymore. But life is fluid and no two people are the same.

There is a version of me that I can see now in retrospect almost like a movie I once watched.

I see that me as a reflection of the years it spanned. I see the colors differently, like a filter on Instagram, and I know the resolution was much grainier. I can see how the characters in the story were much younger and alive and how they had so much less to care about when they had so much less to care about. I see brash and bold moves outside bars at last call, I see fights, I see rolling on the floor laughing, I see love, I see the neediness of an only child and the insolence of youth. I see people who were in one scene only to fade away, unfortunate victims of the reckless living that was just another average day back then. I see people who cared so much for me that they would stay on the phone while I wailed and coughed, trying to remember to put my hand over the receiver as I brought the glass of ice and liquor to my lips. I try to remember what those characters said but I so often come up empty. It's probably best not to know, but part of me can't help wonder. I see a young boy pretending to be a man. I see a man who somehow knew when to stumble off before he got his teeth punched out.

And then I see a life that began to unravel ten years ago next month when his mother fell ill. The movie stops shortly after that plot twist, the theater empties out and the first run is over.

A new story begins just like that, with a very similar cast of characters but a whole new set of goals. I can see that guy pretty clearly, he's right here and he's still very much in control. His name is the same but his identity has changed. The belongings are in the suitcase but the tag fell off long ago.

You see, there was a weak connection point holding his identity to his baggage and it just couldn't handle the turbulence.

I really do think it is a beautiful thing that that luggage tag had an adventure on its own regardless of how long. I love that it snuck away from the container that held the items that I felt I must have in order to exist away from home for four days. And I also love that I couldn't just say "Naw, you can just throw it out. I don't really need it." No, I had to retrieve it and put it back in my box of travel supplies where it sits safe and sound.

Upon inspection I noticed that the rubber strap was still attached but the flimsy buckle was broken; I threw that part away. But I kept the tag because I most certainly will use it again. It's a great tag and if my luggage does somehow go missing I'll definitely want to make sure it gets back to me.

And just like this time somebody will see my name on there, Frederick Alexander Johnson, and come up with a story in their head of who I am, what I look like and what I do.

I couldn't do it if I tried and believe me I have.

So for now I'll just keep hoping I get some good lines in the upcoming scenes.

Needless to say I've never been good at being the strong silent type.

Thanks for reading,

~FAJ

Day Two Thousand Six Hundred and Ninety Five . . . The Big Day.

2015-05-14T12:33:00.001-04:00

Today is a day I've been waiting for for a very long time. A day that's been two years in the making.

Today is my band, Colorway's second album release party at the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton, MA.

Now, I knew we were shooting for a May release when I booked the time back about a year ago. I wanted to make a summertime album and I wanted there to be enough time to get it out there so it could be in people's cars and on their iPods and iPhones and everywhere else. There is a lot of work to be done in the planning way above and beyond the actually writing, rehearsing and recording stages. It's sort of a full time job.

But I also knew that I wanted to have our release show at the Iron Horse again. It's a great music hall that holds about 200 people and I've played on its stage in varying configurations many, many times since moving to the Valley in 1991.

I remember the first time I ever went there to an open mic night one summer night in, let's say, 1992. It was such a popular thing to do and there was always more people who wanted to perform than slots for them. So they would have would be performers put names in a hat and a few would get picked out to play. If you wanted to you could ensure a slot for next week by agreeing to put up posters all around town. This was a long time before the internet pervaded people's lives and print media and community bulletin boards was the way to get the news out.

I didn't get picked to perform that night and for the life of me I can't remember if I ever did. But I remember they had a notice in the newspaper ad that said something like, "This is a professional open mic. If you have not practiced or are not prepared we strongly discourage you from attempting to do so on this stage."

But this was the Iron Horse and it was the most prestigious stage in town. It had hosted some of music's biggest names and still does today, more than 40 years after opening its doors.

I was in a band back in the 1990s called Soup. We did the jammy rock thing but with solidly written songs. Sort of jam pop. I'll never forget when I got the call from our bassist who worked at the Iron Horse at the time. He said that the band scheduled that night had cancelled and they were looking for a replacement--somebody that might play for tips. He suggested our group and we all said okay.

It was really more like a "HELL YEAH!!"

That was it. We were in. We had a gig at the Iron Horse . . . in five hours!

We got on the house phone (yes, the one phone for five people) and called everybody we knew. We put up posters and went around and knocked on doors and gave it a mighty community push. We put a good bunch of people in that room and rocked the house mightily.

And that was the beginning of my relationship with that stage.

And that stage hosted my band (who would later change their name to Drunk Stuntmen) countless times over the next ten years or so. We had Halloween shows there and CD release parties and multi-band showcases there.

Suffice to say that it's a place I feel comfortable as I possibly can.

I had been talking to Brendan, the talent buyer, about the possibility of our next album release even before it was done being recorded. We had our first album release there in June of 2013 and for a band nobody had heard before we packed the house pretty well.

He gave me a couple of dates we could do it this year and one of them stood out to me.

Thursday, May 14.

My mother's 74th birthday.

You better believe I jumped at that chance.

Because while my mom may not be around anymore in a physical sense she very much was at many of our performance at the Iron Horse. She lived two hours away (two and a half if she was driving) but whenever she could she would corral my aunt and hop in the Nissan and make the schlep to see her kid on this tiny stage in the grand room.

She was nothing if not supportive.

In fact, on her memorial card that was printed up was a picture of her from one of our performances at the Horse. It was a Halloween show we did and she dressed up like a rustic Polish farmer girl. I'll never forget her and my aunt making me wait in my bedroom in my little apartment while they changed up into their clothes. My aunt was a dressed as a belly dancer if I recall correctly (and she really knew how to dance). When they told me to come back into the living room and I saw them all done up it was just so unbelievable I almost cried.

This is a pic of the card that I keep in my wallet and have done so for going on nine years now. She's sitting in a booth at the Iron Horse and you can just see how happy she is. But she was happy so much of the time. Really and truly happy, even though she was so often concerned with the future of her boy.

These two very private people had a strange way of exhibiting outrageousness that always surprised me. I only wish I could have come to terms with it years before. I often felt embarrassed or shocked by them as if they were my children instead of my parents.

But we learn as we go and sometimes it just takes time to sort things out. I'm glad I got a chance to tell them both that I loved their shenanigans and wouldn't have changed a thing before I lost them.

So this album that we are celebrating the release of tonight at the Iron Horse, it's called The Black Sky Sequined.

There is a very good reason it's called that.

In one of my mom's gigantic notebooks--the notebooks of her first drafts of letters to all of her friends and family--on the very last page, after the pages of letters she wrote to me and my aunt saying so long for now (definitely not "goodby") was a poem. I haven't been able to attribute it to anybody but her. It's even got a word crossed out which leads me to believe it had to be original.

Anyway, here is what it says, in her handwriting:

"Then it began. Rockets. Stars. Flowers blooming. The black sky sequined. Reds, yellows, blues, greens. Silver and gold. Explosions and the cheers of spectators."

Now I have a hunch at what this poem is about but I am just going to keep that on the inside. I could be way off and I don't want to assume. But you can take from it what you will.

I decided to take the title of the record from this poem (the text is actually included in our debut album liner notes) and, as always, to represent her and remember her in whatever way I can.

I don't have many regrets in this life. But one that I have had for many, many years is that in the aftermath of her passing I never had a memorial service.

In 2007 I was in no shape to do it and my aunt wasn't either--both for different reasons of course. And so she passed away and I dove deeper into my substance abuse and things just fell away from me.

If you've followed this blog then you know what happened next. If you haven't followed this blog just know that I finally got the message in the form of a DUI and got sober and have remained that way since 2008.

It's been a long road but I'm so very happy to still be walking on it.

But this is why tonight is so special.

Because as much as the whole idea of being a musician and being the frontman in a band is an ego trip, and as much as the only child in me enjoys being the center of attention I am proud and happier than I can explain to be sharing my music with a room of friends and fans on what would be her 74th birthday.

When I was putting the set together it really amazed me how many songs had something to do with her. I try not to write with my heart on my sleeve. Some of the references are sly and most people wouldn't really get that it's about her. But I have a part of her in so much of my songwriting, in so much of my playing, in so much of my singing and in so much of my enjoyment of life that it's hard to not feel like she is a part of this band.

It's been a long few months getting this album written, recorded, produced and promoted. I'm kind of a bundle of nerves today just knowing that it's all about to reach it's climax. But this is kind of the same feeling I used to get getting ready for her birthday. It was always so hard to find something she didn't have already or something she may not have known about.

Because she never really longed for much.

She never asked me for anything she could wear, touch, hold or look at.

All she ever asked me for was to be good.

All she ever asked me for was to try to figure out why I was hurting myself.

All she ever asked me for was to try to understand that I am worth taking care of, because she couldn't do it anymore from two (and a half) hours away.

So today, tonight, I play for my mother. I give her this gift of music. I give her this gift of care, of kindness, of joy, of life, love, happiness, contentedness and togetherness.

I wish I could hug her and tell her how much I miss her.

I wish I could send her a card--I do so miss addressing envelopes to her old house.

I wish she could be there tonight when I take the stage.

And I wish she could see me now, 50 pounds lighter and seven years sober.

So this will be my gift and my memorial to my mom, my Judy, my sweet, sweet lady.

Sto lat, Mom.

I promise to take care of your boy because I finally love him as much as you did.

I'll see you at the Iron Horse, like I always used to, and I'll play my heart out for you.

Thanks for reading,

~FAJ

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Day Two Thousand Six Hundred and Nineteen . . . Pie Eyed

2015-02-28T13:31:00.001-05:00

I have a friend who gave up drinking long before I did.

Now, he's older than me by a few years, granted, but he's been clean and sober for decades.

Decades. Plural.

I barely have one.

But, of course, as they say in the halls we all have the same exact amount of time under our belts: today. Just make it through today and get to tomorrow and that is how you tackle the long game, the grandiose thinking, the irrational idea that one can predict the future.

My friend and I have something else in common: neither of us went the traditional route of Alcoholics Anonymous. And as such we have to come up with creative ways to remind ourselves that a sober life is the only way.

I remember the first time I got turned off to AA. It was actually due to something that was said to me by the first person to ever bring me to a meeting. I had stopped going and instead instituted a personalized program of blogging, seeing my therapist, working out and living and learning. I saw him one day and told him how I had been sober for several months. I told him how much my recovery meant to me now. He quickly responded "But you're not in recovery if you don't have a program. You're just biding your time."

He relapsed not long after that, lending credence to my own adage that "It only works until it doesn't."

I find it interesting these days that I know more and more people who have gone the sober route but eschewed The Fellowship that has been a standard since 1935. Maybe it's the part of the country that I live in--the solitary and uptight Yankee northeast--that make people just want to do it on their own without anyone to check in with on a daily basis. I know for myself, I just simply didn't feel like letting more people into my life that had the same problems as I did. What I wanted was people with less problems. Or just different ones. I guess it's worked up to now.

But getting back to my older friend.

He wrote me the other day to say that it's amazing how after so many years of sobriety he still has never managed to conquer the desire for a drink during times of celebration.

This got me thinking.

Because as much as I read about how the science of alcoholism is the same from person to person I have always had a hard time just chalking it up to being that simple. I don't believe that I feel the need to drink for the same reason that the person down the street does, or the person at the restaurant bar, or the guy hanging out on his porch stoop with a 30-pack at his side.

I don't believe that we all felt the same need to continue. But what I do believe is that we all stopped for a similar reason. And that's the most important piece of the puzzle. Because it doesn't matter why it happened it only matters that the desire for change was strong enough to bring about its end.

So I started to think about the rituals of celebration. It's amazing when you start to realize how unbelievably enmeshed drinking--and toasting, in particular--is in worldwide culture to heighten the act of appreciation of an accomplishment. Now, of course, you can toast without alcohol. I do it every time I sit down to a meal with Jodi. We toast to the meal we just made. We toast to a hard day's work. We toast to a loved one's memory. We sometimes just toast to the fact that we can toast--that we are alive. When we do my glass is invariably filled with either coffee, seltzer or just water. But to think that that toast is any less meaningful than if it were full of beer or wine or whiskey is ludicrous. That's because that part of sobriety doesn't bug me anymore. That's because I'm not the same as my older friend and I'm not the same as the guy who just quit drinking two week ago.

That's because I'm me.

But I stepped out of my little me-bubble for a moment. I tried to sum up what it would be like to take these seven years of sobriety and just close my eyes and fill up a glass of vodka with ice and toast to whatever celebration may be a hand.

I decided that it would be like hitting myself in the face with a pie.

There would be the initial shock.

I would look more than a little surprised.

It would taste really good.

And ultimately it would make a huge mess everywhere and I would have nobody to blame for it but myself.

So I told my friend this. He agreed that pie was delicious but there was no need to waste it in that manner. He's a smart cookie and a funny guy to boot.

I'll close this quick post (sorry it's been so long since I've written) by just saying that it's amazing to watch this world in action. It's such an eye-opening process to witness the advertizing agencies as they try time and again to link drinking with never ending good times and unfathomable achievement. It's as ludicrous as having McDonalds as an official sponsor of the Olympics. But nobody really believes that Gabby Richards got to where she is by swilling Coke, Big Macs and fries.

My jealousies of being a "normal" drinker have fallen by the wayside over the years. I used to pine for the good old days when I could pick up a six pack after work and have a few beers watching TV. But my brain has developed a keen sense of selective memory and the ashes from the many good times I set ablaze seem to end up blown away in the wind.

When we talk of accomplishments and celebrations I find it interesting to note that staying sober is its own reason to make a toast. In this world where we are usually lauded for doing something how refreshing is it that there is cause to celebrate from refraining, abstaining, and letting go of what we always used to do.

We learn to live as we go until we find ourselves at a point where we need to learn it all again.

And for me everyday I see a new reason to stay on this path.

I love pie and I love me.

So I see no reason to make a mess out of either one.

I raise a glass to you all and say . . .

Thanks for reading.

~FAJ

Day two thousand five hundred and fifty seven . . . "Boy, am I toy-stee."

2014-12-27T14:34:00.003-05:00

A guy walks into a bar and sits down.

The fairly inebriated fellow with an empty glass to the right of him loudly exclaims, "Boy, am I toy-stee."

The first guy doesn't think much of it and orders a beer.

A couple minutes later he hears, once again, from the fellow on his right, "Boy, am I toy-stee."

So the first guy says, "Bartender, I'd like to buy this fellow right here a drink."

Bartender gives the man a beer which he drinks down in one, intense glug.

All eyes are on him.

He puts his empty glass down on the bar, burps loudly, leans back and says:

"Boy, was I toy-stee!"

I think this is a pretty funny joke. It stands on it's own right as just a silly little observation of some curious human nature.

But I also see into it and can relate on some deeper levels.

You see, at 12:45 A.M seven years ago this morning I had my last drink of alcohol.

And I had been very toy-stee, indeed.

I was out and about and looking for trouble. I knew where to get it but I didn't take the right back road and was subsequently pulled over by the cops. But funny enough I didn't just pull over when I saw their lights. Oh no, I didn't do that because I knew that if I did that I would have been busted directly across from the bar I was headed to.

No, instead I actually took a left across a busy street and drove up into a narrow parking lot that was adjacent to the bar. So, at least that way if anybody wanted to see me try (emphasis on "try") to walk a straight line they'd have to step outside to do it--which they did, several of them.

I have the whole police report of the incident. It's got some classic quotes from me, like when the cops asked how much I had drank that night I told them "Two glasses of vodka."

Not mixed drinks, mind you. Just glasses of vodka.

With ice, of course.

I was very toy-stee.

People talk about "desperate cries for help" and other signs they should have seen along the way. They talk about how there's a motive behind every action, and posit that people who abuse drugs, alcohol, and other vices have a "sickness."

I know that this is true in many cases. I've seen the evidence and I've seen the damage. And I've seen too many people who have gone over the edge and never come back. And I've certainly seen a few who have come back from the edge but not really all the way. And I know more than a few who might not ever change--who are proud to be the mess that they are. And I connect with these types of people because that's who I was. It hasn't been that long that I don't remember the pride I took in my ability to empty a .750 of vodka in one sitting--alone. When you're an alcoholic you take your sources of pride where you can get them. And I got mine in the form of a weekly full recycling bin of clear bottles with red Russian labels on them.

I've been watching old home movies from the 1970s recently. Watching these and listening back to reel-to-reel tapes of me and my family I see a pattern of behavior that is alarming. It's alarming in and of itself but also in the fact that I see how it followed me into my adolescent years and then on to adulthood.

I see a spoiled only child who asked for every toy on TV and got at least most of them for Christmas.

I see a child who had to always be heard and couldn't stand to not be the one being talked to.

I see a little boy who was loved by all around him and never knew anything else. I see the dream my mother had come true: the dream of a son to raise on her own--removed from the societal expectations of a having a dominant male figure in the house. My mother didn't have any desire for a partner in this grand scheme. She knew she was smart enough and woman enough to raise a child on her own. And by all accounts she was. But somewhere along the way the joy of the dream coming true led to my spoiling. It showed up in punishments that fell short of being disciplinary and lies believed because she wanted to believe them.

I see these things and realize that this atmosphere could possibly have been the breeding ground for the innate sense of invincibility that I developed as I dove deeper into a world of substance abuse. And when I moved away to Western Massachusetts it was because my Aunt Lynda had finally stepped in and given me the ultimatum of clean up or get out.

And get out I did.

It would take sixteen long years of slowly trying to kill myself ounce by ounce to finally hit a wall. I put more than a few people through the wringer over that time period. There are some who went along with me and try as they might never were able to get me to change. And there are some who were sad to see me change so drastically when I did. I know I'm a much different person now than I used to be. And because of that I don't really see some people who once were such a big part of my life. It's one of the things people fear the most when they consider a life of sobriety, and for good reason. But the flip side of that, at least for me, would have not been an acceptable solution for long.

And when I did hit that wall in the form of of swirling blue lights I can only say I am thankful that the discipline came in a form I couldn't talk my way out of, because I would have continued on that path of self-destruction, probably to the end.

But here I am, seven years later.

I'm still in my Christmas Pajamas at 2:30 in the afternoon.

I'm happy it's warm enough to go outside and rake leaves in the yard in the middle of December.

I've got a party to go to tonight where there will be several bottles of booze on the kitchen table, I'm sure. But I've been to fifty parties in the past seven years where there were bottles of booze on the kitchen table--and some of them I even brought myself.

But I'm not the guy who needs it anymore.

I'm not the inebriated starved-for-attention only child anymore.

I've learned my own form of self-discipline in these last seven years. Writing these words on these pages has been a big part of it. Because sometimes when you shine a light on the darkest part of the room you notice there was a lamp there all along--it just needed a new bulb.

And in this lit room I can look around and count my blessings.

Even better, I can look inside and count my blessings.

I'm not the one anyone needs to feel sorry for at the bar anymore.

And I never, ever, take any of this for granted.

I have today, just like we all do.

How I spend it is what matters in the end.

But it's very true, and I'll say it again one more time with feeling:

Boy, was I toy-stee!

Thanks for reading,

~FAJ