We had most of our religious conversations while we were serving in the youth ministry together.  There were many of them during these years, and the ones I remember most clearly are the disagreements.  It wasn’t the things we agreed about, but that we disagreed about, which sharpened us. Disagreeing with each other forced us to examine our viewpoints, understanding our reasoning was key to articulating, and to surviving an argument.  We never disagreed for the sake of being contrary, but we found conflicting sides to nonessential points of doctrine, theology, philosophy and ethics.  Our respect for each other was undiminished.  He didn’t just stumble into these conversations, he sought them out.  My heart swelled with joy when I heard from Eric Benson about their mutual and cooperative pursuit of God…but that came later.

A snap, a shuddering thud.  Wheels down at SeaTac, wing-flaps open and brakes lock, fighting the terrible momentum of sustained flight.  My legs are tight from last nights run, my heart feels strong, but my stomach is churning, and I feel blunted.  Now that we’ve returned to the embrace of our native orb, now that we’re grounded, how will we cope with what we must face?

I don’t remember the moment I met her, but I remember the first time I heard her laugh, sitting on the floor.  It rang through the room like a bright bell.  She was beautiful then, a young girl flowing over with the wonder of life and the light of things hoped for.

Waiting in the steel-gray drizzle curbside, my eyes rest on a strange SUV.  The door opens, and I hear her laugh as she steps out of the car, it floats towards me, embracing me.  It’s no heavier, has no trace of sadness.

The reunion was sweeter than I could’ve hoped.  Whatever else is between us, the animating force is still love.  Grief touches our conversation, we see it in each other and mark it for what it is.  It doesn’t define us.  We love, and are loved.  We share strength in that, and together we become more than what we are.

—

“He loved you.  He was your brother, a band of brothers.”  “He was passionate.” He effected people, and we loved him. We love him still.  We wept, chests ached and faces burned.  When his sister spoke, her heart touched ours.  His fathers words, the simple truth, “he loved well, and was well loved.” perfectly encompassed his principle values.

“I don’t like the phrase ‘quality time’” his father told me once.  I arched an eyebrow, asked why that was.
“If you have to say ‘I have quality time with my kids’ it’s because you don’t have time.  You’re trying to squeeze quality into the limited time you’re giving them, instead of giving them You, freely”.  This, he did.

“Come thou font of every blessing” we sing, our voices rising, twining around each other and growing till they fill the sanctuary, touching the high ceiling and stretching into the heavens beyond.  Suddenly, the dim lights flare, chasing shadows from the room. We worship in the light, every bulb blazing.  Afterward, we’re told that the lights can’t be dimmed.  It’s never happened before, and it makes me smirk.  Nothing is more divine than the random accidents that feel driven by greater hands than our own.

We sit on the floor again, and we laugh, as much as we can.  When the hour of parting comes, none of us are pleased.  We’ve weathered our sadness, this reprieve, this pure joy laced with tear-free remembrance, tastes too sweet.  We’ve lingered long, and now we go quietly, aching, into the night.  I’m afraid of tomorrow, I think.  Afraid of daybreak and the heaviness of our departure.

When they left for Seattle I thought I was losing them.  I remember the day, I remember my pain.  It’s nothing to this.  I remember his easy smile at the beginning of that adventure.  His life was a string of adventures, from France to Alaska and Mexico to Hawaii, he lived well, and more in 27 years than many do in a hundred.  But I’m not grieving for what he missed, my pain is a selfish thing, and it’s for myself.

At the airport I tell her I love her, and it’s as true as my love for him.  I’d make her whole if I could, but all that’s left for me is a long flight home.  So I carry her in my heart, I hold her there, and hope for everything.  She shared his last weeks and months during the drive, told about the invisible hand at her back, guiding her.  We were silent, drinking in the promise of a compassionate and involved God.  That was the God he believed in.  That’s the God we’ve all hoped for, and relied on.

—

The pulpit shifts when I touch it, and the microphone cracks.  It’s Saturday, it’s been 2 weeks.  I’m looking at a chapel full of people who knew Jon, some of them love him even more than I do.  I don’t begrudge them that, it’s good.  I should be nervous, but I’m not.  I wrote my speech during the slide-show, five minutes ago, but it doesn’t matter. I won’t even look at my notes.  I know what I want to say.  If you want to honor him, love the people in your life.  That’s all.

It started with desperation.  He set the standard in areas I knew I could never measure up to, but the highest bar was his refusal to measure me at all.  Instead he was a friend, he was a brother, he was always there, always faithful, and always invested.  Though he was many other things, it’s this one thing that I latch onto.  I can’t be Jon, but if I love him, I’ll keep his values in the center of my heart.  That is the only fitting honor I could hope to render.

The slide-show is playing now and I keep seeing joy.  Always joy, in everything he’s doing.  I can’t help but laugh for the joy in his life.  Sometimes I’m the only one, my voice echoing over the crowd to crash against the ceiling, and that’s fine.   I’m beginning to understand other ways to honor him.  I’m beginning to understand the way he saw things.  The more I see, the more I love him, and the more my joy grows.  My friend is lost to me, but he was my friend.  He’s gone, but I had him, for a time.

I am diminished by his loss, but made irreversibly and immeasurably greater for having known him.

In this new world, Max goes on a journey.  He sails off through weeks and months, and almost over a year.  He comes to a place “Where the wild things are”.  In the book, these Wild Things aren’t described, but any boy would understand them.  In appearance, like a beast.  In nature, untamed, uncontrollable.

Until several months ago, I had created for myself a stable environment.  Within it, I operated as one comfortable with his surroundings.  For years, I was sure of some things.  Sure of a hot dinner, sure of four walls and a roof, sure that my decisions were right, or at least, justifiable.

The houses that we occupy are a sign of stability, but they are nothing compared to our own sense of surety, derived from long routine and the continual satisfaction of every expectation.  Like Max, I found myself one day, some months ago, in a forest.  It seemed to grow, and grow, until I wasn’t sure of anything.  In that situation, any man would do what Max did.  Any man would walk.  Sometimes we choose a direction with purpose, more often we pray, or hope, at the outset of a journey.  We pray that we find what we’re looking for, we hope that we know where we’re going.  But even when we don’t, we walk.

The longer we walk without finding the comfort of the familiar, the longer we tarry in that forest, the longer we labor on the sea, the greater our chance of coming to the place where the wild things are.

After almost a year, Max came to the place where the wild things are.  Sendack writes, “When he came to the place where the wild things are, they roared their terrible roars, and gnashed their terrible teeth, and rolled their terrible eyes, and showed their terrible claws.”

The forest is the beginning, and it’s meant to disconcert.  The sea is a long labor, and it may try strength and endurance and will.  Only after surviving (not, it must be said, overcoming, but only surviving) both of these trials, does Max face true fear.

The wild things aren’t external, like the forest or the sea.  The wild things come from within.

Shocking events…events that shake our foundations, are what give us opportunities to journey to the place where the wild things are.  Opportunities to face those things within us, of which we are the most afraid.  Often, people make the journey, they reach the shore, they see the wild things with their terrible teeth and their terrible eyes and their terrible claws, and they turn around.  It’s the safest answer, because facing the wild things requires a tremendous amount of courage.  In order to stand up to them, you have to accept what they are, and accepting them may change you.  It may make you look at your life and really see it for the first time in years.

When faced with their “terrible roars” and the gnashing of their “terrible teeth” and the rolling of their “terrible eyes” and the showing of their “terrible claws”, we see the boy master the beasts.  “BE STILL!” Max said.

When your foundation is shaken, be willing to go on the journey (you may not have a choice, after all.).  Walk through the forest.  If a private boat tumbles by, climb aboard.  And if you come to the place where the wild things are, if you come face to face with your hopes, and dreams, and fears, with self loathing and the knowledge of your own inadequacy, the realization that you’ve sold yourself short, and out, that you could’ve done better and that you aren’t good enough, if you come face to face with the wild things…tame them, with the magic trick of staring into all of their yellow eyes, without blinking once.

This vignette has been settled firmly in the back of my mind for several months, but I didn’t have the will to write it.  I figured I should take some time to set it down so I could stop thinking about it.

–

He flipped backwards through the photo album in his lap, mind elsewhere.  Paper pages mounted with pictures couldn’t hold his thoughts, which flickered off and away to some distant where.  A nervous habit, he triggered the screen on his phone.  Three minutes had elapsed since the last time, and he had not missed any communications.  His hands stopped at the first page of the album, the first picture of her, sitting at a street side cafe, smoking a cigarette.  He’d taken it a year ago, before he knew her name.

He rose slowly, his diaphragm opened and oxygen flooded his lungs, doing nothing to alleviate the pain in his chest.  The album fell from his hands to the floor and he walked away from it.  He spent some time walking through his apartment, back held straight, eyes roaming over objects which he couldn’t hold in his mind.  He drew books down from high shelves and grasped them firmly, like talismans against the emptiness growing in him, but when he tried to read them they were incomprehensible.

He found himself at the sink, a glass of water in his hands, with no desire to drink it.  Moments or hours later he rose from the bathroom floor, legs shaking, throat raw.  He heard her coming with the first light.  In the mirror he saw himself, a horror.  He splashed water on his face, raked his fingers through his hair.  Time dilated and he heard her footsteps in the kitchen, his hand surrounded the cold brushed metal of the doorknob, it siphoned his heat, warming.  He twisted, ever so slowly, and in the eternity between two heartbeats the latch disengaged and the door swung towards him.

There were books and cushions everywhere, a glass of water lay on its side, liquid pooled on the glossy concrete floor, creating endless reflections.  He stepped over this.  If she heard his approach she made no indication.  The counters were covered with plates and bowls, pots and pans.  She was efficiently emptying each cabinet until finally, she found what she was looking for.  She lifted out a small metal pail, unlocked it, and placed its contents in the pockets of her duster.  Quick movements, sharp and precise.  Not delicate, but beautiful in their perfection, she wasted no energy, she was not superfluous.  She had always been this way, in speech and movement, thought and emotion.  This characterized her.

He swallowed and cleared his throat, then winced.  His hands felt alien, the appendages of some other man, grafted onto his arms but not entirely under his control.  He slid them into his pockets as she turned toward him.

“You’re going.” he said, surprised, as always by her simple beauty.  She said nothing, and he knew this was the only answer he’d get.  She didn’t waste words.

“You don’t have to do that.  You can stay.” his voice trailed off, hopelessness coiling around him.

“I told you I would leave.” she said, her face perfectly impassive.  A fact, devoid of emotion.  She had made that statement.  He remembered it.  They’d just made love, he was talking about their future, whispering his dreams to the dark room, and she turned to him…he closed his eyes.

“Yes” he said, his voice faltering, “but I love you.  I’m in love with you.”

Eyes opening he found her back, her shoulders, and followed the line of her coat down to her calves.  Her heels clacked on the concrete with each step she took towards the door.  Pain shot through his body and he realized he was on his knees.

“Please.” he said, “Please.  Don’t leave me like this.”

She stopped, turned slowly and looked at him.  He felt hot tears rolling down his cheeks, and as she approached he tried to wipe his eyes.  Her hand went to the back of his head and she pulled his face into her.  He held on, sobbing quietly into her stomach.

She brushed her fingers through his hair, then slid six inches of cold steel past his ribs, into his right ventricle.

He gasped, his  eyes suddenly level with her pumps, and watched as his life poured out over the concrete floor.  She stepped away from the advancing pool of blood and his vision flickered.  A photograph of her sitting at a street side cafe smoking, blossomed in his mind, and was gone.

She walked to the door, resting her hand on the knob.  She opened it slowly, then stopped and turned.

“I love you.” she said to the empty room.

The bench was perched atop a hill, all covered in heather, swathed in snow.  The flowers were impossibly vibrant, defying winters bite.  Tomas was proud of this, it had taken a considerable amount of work and energy to accomplish the feat, and it had made her smile, which was more.

They sat, side by side, looking out over the city.  Their bodies touched more than was necessary, neither making any effort to withdraw, both quietly enjoying the closeness as a knee or an arm brushed against each other.

“What do you call it?” she asked, her eyes roving across the surface of the hill, taking in the patches of snow and the purple flowers.

He tilted his head and thought for a moment, then said, “I hadn’t named it.”

She looked at him finally, her deep brown eyes knocking the wind from his chest.

“You made it for me.” she said, her mouth turned down in a frown.

He stared back at her, saying nothing, and then felt her shift, breaking the contact between them.

“You can’t, Tomas.  You can’t do things like this.” her voice trailed off, and her last words were hardly more than a whisper “It’s dangerous.”

“I was careful,” he replied, looking down at his creation, at what he had wrought. “I did it in small patches, I didn’t overextend myself, I…I listen, Sarah.  I’m not one of your first years, I’m responsible.”

“I know what you are,” she said, her voice growing cool, “but this kind of thing draws a lot of attention.  You know that.  We could be in danger, Tomas.  They could be coming here, right now.”

A small smile crept onto his face and he shook his head, lifting his arm to point to a series of high rise towers, barely visible on the horizon. London’s Financial district.

“I did it from there.” he said, making no effort to hide his pride.

Sarah remained composed, though she wanted to gape.  She shook her head, and steeled her voice.

“That was incredibly dangerous.  You will not attempt anything like that again.  Do you understand the dilemma of distance and dispersion?  Forget your own life, if you’d missed you could’ve killed someone!  How could you risk that?” 

His arm dropped and he met her eyes, and her accusation, with fire of his own.

“I didn’t miss.” he growled. “I made sure-”

She cut him off with a wave of her hand and said, “I’m very disappointed in you.  When we get back, you’re to write an essay on Distance, and one on Ethics.”

He laughed, but there was no humor in it.

“Always the instructor, never the woman.  You know what this is, Sarah.” his voice softened, and he said “I’m sorry I got angry, but you keep pushing.  The closer we get, the more you push.”  His hand dropped down to lightly rub the side of hers, and he frowned. “Please, if you love me, let go.  Stop pushing.”

She swallowed, her jaw clenched and she said, “If it seems like I’m pushing, it’s because you are getting more and more inappropriate, and I’m trying to keep our student teacher relationship intact, Tomas.” She withdrew her hand, and stood, stepping away from the bench.

“It’s normal to have these feelings for your instructor, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.  I still care about you, Tomas, but you know there can’t be anything between us.” she said, working to keep the tremor out of her voice, willing him to stay away, praying that he couldn’t see her hands shaking.

“Do you love me?” it was the barest whisper, if the wind had been blowing the other way she wouldn’t have heard it at all.

Her stomach writhed and her heart ached at the pain she heard in his question.  She straightened her back, keeping her voice level, and said “No, I don’t.”

Tomas couldn’t see the tears streaming down her cheeks, couldn’t feel her determination wavering, crumbling slowly.  All he saw was her straight back, her small, squared shoulders, her soft hair.  He rose to his feet, shaking, and pushed out of himself.  Finding the thin fabric of reality all around him, he ripped his way into it, aligned himself with it, reached forward, and pushed.  Between he and Sarah, a pinprick of dull grey light appeared, and then knifed downward, forming a rent in the air.  This fissure widened, expanding to reveal a world of shadow and fog.  He stepped through it.

She thought she was going to die.  Nothing is worth doing this to him, she told herself.  I’ll leave.  He’ll leave with me.  What oath can be allowed to cause this much pain?  I won’t abide by it.  She spun around, resolved to give up everything to him, and for him.  To give up her position, her way of life, all of it, just to hold him.  She spun around, ready to fling herself into his arms, to kiss him as she’d been longing to do for months.  She spun around, and found herself alone, on a violet hill, swathed in snow.

Not for the last time, Sarah wept.

There are those who prefer summer, and it’s natural that they would live here.  I wonder sometimes if, like an old god from european mythology, summer is strengthened by the worship of those who inhabit this place.  In this age, when science is the most globally revered of all gods, Winter must advance.  It cannot disobey the directive that we call the natural order, but Summer is strong here.  This is one of its strongholds.  A bastion.

When Winter comes to a hostile land, it must first try its opponents defenses.  It feints and lunges, and sometimes it batters back a sword, weaves past a shield, and lands a glancing blow.  A cool weekend in October grants hope to those of us that long for icier climes, but it simply isn’t to be.  Summer rallies, it gathers itself and makes a valiant last stand, pushing back the cold breath of frost, beating it back with sun and fire and those blistering winds.  

There is a time in early November when I despair.  My coffee is uncomfortably hot in my hands, and if I stand outside for too long sweat beads on my forehead.  There’s no pleasure to be found in soup, and nothing but bitterness at the enduring warmth of the sun, it’s rays falling violently from the heavens.  Jackets hang in the long shadowed hallway, morosely watching as we pass by, in the swish and rustle of a sleeve I hear the question, “Perhaps tomorrow?  Tomorrow…?”  And still they sit, and wait, and hope.

Invariably, when it does come, it catches me by surprise.  I can never look back and say, “There.  There was the moment that winter began.”  If such a moment exists, it is too subtle to notice.  It isn’t the way of Winter to clobber her enemy, to plunge sword through chest and into heart, ending Summer’s reign in a fount of gore, or a bellow.  No, insidious as frost she creeps into joints, into muscle and bone and sinew, and as the days grow shorter and the nights grow colder, the Sun, distracted by her frontal assault, fails to notice.  Though the fight is bitter, there is no violence in her victory.  The cold triumphs, Summer is frozen in place, and winter, stepping around her vanquished oponent, is.  

So it happens, one day, perhaps a day such as today, I walk out of the grocery and as I pass the carts I see a tree, it’s leaves mottled with gold and yellow and red, a final salute to the dying glory of summer.  Looking through it’s leaves, I see that the sun is hidden, locked behind a curtain of gray clouds, heavy with the threat of rain.  A chill wind may blow, kissing my neck, and the shiver that comes may cause me to hold closer my coffee, to take a drink for warmth and comfort.

That was today at any rate.  In that moment, breathing the smell of rain, feeling the fingers of winter across my face for the first time in months, finding comfort in warmth, I realized that she’d won, again.  Of course, with the collective population of the entire world believing in the natural progression of seasons, it may have been impossible for Winter to lose.  And yet, and yet…if any battleground offered Summer a chance at victory, it would be this place.  With the support of these people, these sun worshippers. 

Winter is my patron season.  Who can write in the heat?  No thank you.

My mother, who created a rule which went as follows: “You can stay up as late as you want, provided you’re reading and that you’re able to function in the morning.”  My dad, who taught me to love knowledge and reason and to value the ability to understand.  I remember watching the way he thought about things, the way he saw through things, and thinking that I would never be able to find flaws in logic, to see through charades, as easily as he did.  I don’t know if I’m there yet, but it’s a part of my mind that I’ve cultivated, and which is sharp.  That’s because of him, and because of the books he brought to me.  The last person is my grandmother, who was an example, and also a source.  She had many, many books, and I think I’ve gotten some of her eclectic taste.  She read everything from murder mysteries to fantasy, political opinion pieces to sappy love-stories.  She provided me with an endless supply of pleasant reads, and reinforced that books are not just a collection of words which we can use to deepen our understanding…They’re also places to get lost.  Filthy with tyrants and heroes, blackguards and victims and SEALs and talking mice.  Books exist to sing to a part of the soul that our lives rarely awaken.

I was thinking about my love of books, and I thought I’d query my meager but loyal blog audience.  Blodience?

First a question of tactile preference.  Do you prefer hardcover or paperback, and is there a reason for your preference?

Second, Jennifer I already know the answer to this one.  Everyone else: What is it about a plot that most engages you?  For Jennifer it’s the love story, and if I’m being honest, that’s probably a big part of it for me too.  Anyone in love with Dialogue?  Characterization?

What style of writing do you most like to read?  Wordy and “literature”y, clean and minimalistic, or poetic?  Or something in between?  There are no wrong answers to these questions.

Finally, what do you hate in books?  What plot device, characterization, or theme drives you crazy?

Here I am, 5 months and three weeks later.  Have I run up on shoals?  Have I hit a reef?  Lets put the marine analogy to bed for now.  I consider the process of taking inventory one of the more important disciplines in life.  A big part of that process is looking at how far you’ve come.  Looking at how far you’ve come helps you keep things in perspective.  Often, taking time to really consider where you started will give you a more realistic appreciation for where you stand today.  In order to do this, you need to set aside a few minutes, take stock of where you are, and compare it to your memory of your first day at whatever it is you’re trying to assess.  For this post, I’ll be comparing where I’m at as a father today to my first day as a father.  This process is one that I’ve been engaged in for the last week or so, but I can sum up the results anecdotally.

There was a period, after the family had been ushered out of the room, before my wife and I really became acquainted with our new child, that comes to me only in disjointed flashes.  I can’t find the thread of its chronology, all I know is that, for a some time I slept while awake.  I have memories of the things I did in my sleep, but I know I was unconscious.  The move from the labor and delivery room to the recovery room is one such vignette, I can remember carrying bags while walking down a hallway, but I don’t remember picking the bags up or setting them down.  In this way several hours went by, some of them in waking dream, others in a place of exhaustion so raw that I was insensate.  By the time I regained my faculties it was late morning on the day of my daughters birth.  I remember laying in the hospital bed next to my wifes, awake for some time, at first unable to open my eyes, and then having opened them, unable to move any part of my body.  I did eventually win free of this paralysis, of course, but I was sluggish.  My thoughts were encumbered by a thick fog for several days.  It was in this state that I confronted the mechanics of fatherhood for the first time.

Everyone loves babies.  Loving babies is a biological imperative.  It is not rooted in the part of the mind where opinions make their nest.  It is not a choice for most humans, or in fact for most animals.  It’s impossible not to love babies.  If asked, most people would love a baby.  To hold, to look at, to be cooed at by.  But to raise?  That’s a different thing.  The biological imperative is harder on some than on others, and I often said during my wife’s pregnancy that you had to be quite merrily insane to subject yourself willingly to that highest calling.  However, by the time the child had made her inglorious entrance into the world, I felt most of the insanity had passed.  Carrying and birthing a child may be madness, but loving and raising one?  That’s a much more rational experience.

There I stood, looking at a hospital push tray that contained the entirety of my legacy; any good that I had ever done.  I knew then that it was more good than I had anticipated, or could have imagined, though I still don’t understand the depth of it.  As I stood and stared in wonder (My darling, what wonder have we wrought here?) a nurse bustled into the room.  We chatted amiably for several minutes, she checked on my wife but not me, and then she asked if we had changed BG Eagle (Baby Girl, who had no name).  Changed?  What would we change, if we could?  Meaning took time to penetrate the fog, and by the time I realized she was talking about a diaper, the callous woman was already unswaddling my only child, waking her up, exposing her tiny hands, her sensitive skin to the cool air.

Up to this point, I had never in my life changed a diaper.  Not one.  Don’t get me wrong, I had no problem with the process from an ideological standpoint.  I’m not one of those mysogynists who thinks that handling the “baby” is the mother’s responsibility.  To be honest, I had never known anyone with a baby well enough that I would be in that situation.  It had never presented itself.  Abigail’s first diaper change was mine, as well.

It didn’t go badly.  I was uncomfortable with the process, I used too many wipes, and it took some time to get her buttoned back up, but nobody lost any limbs and there was a bare minimum of crying on either side.  I think most parents will be able to remember the time before diaper changes were second nature to them.  That’s not to say you were poor at it, but it wasn’t instinctual.

A few nights ago, Abby lay in her crib, fussing.  Her fuss didn’t say, “I’m bored, get me” but, “I’m tired, I can’t get comfortable.”  Three months ago, I didn’t know the difference.  Then again, there may not have been a difference three months ago.  I took her out of her crib and carried her to the changing table, because I wanted her to go to sleep in a fresh diaper.  In the pitch black I unsnapped her onsie, undid her diaper, cleaned her with two wipes, applied the requisite lotions, balms, powders and poltices, and began securing a new diaper in place.  As I closed the last strap on the clean diaper I flashed back to my first diaper change, that fumbling, excruciatingly insecure episode played through my mind.  In a few short months, to go from discomfort with a process to doing it literally blind isn’t all that impressive, but taken as an analogy for parenting it resonated with me.

I was fooled, all those months ago, with my map.  There’s no map.  Those books, they aren’t a map.  After 5 months I disagree with more of them than I agree with.  But they do help to create a frame of reference.  Was I right?  Was I prepared, despite my ignorance?

Yes.  Having a child isn’t about having all of the answers.  It’s about being willing to try.  What I had 5 months ago was a willingness to take, in stride, whatever became of my life as a result of having a child.  That, coupled with the desire to give your child the best in everything, is all that there is to being a parent.  Every stage is different, every day is a transformation, and there’s no knowledge that will carry you through it all.

Was I prepared to be a father, when I wrote those words?  Yes.  Am I prepared for what fatherhood will call of me in the months and years to come?  With all of my heart, yes.

Do I fear the future?  No more than I’ve feared any future thus far, and my expectations have all been met.

Fear not.  We have an entire extra day of procrastination.  For those of you that don’t know, the participants in  NaNoWriMo are a collection of individuals devoted to a singular purpose: The writing of a novel, being no less than 50,000 words, in thirty consecutive days. 

This year, I’ve cast my lot with that happy band of lunatics.  I’ve got a thumbnail sketch of a plot, a loose idea of some characters, and a vast wilderness of unmapped territory.  My goal isn’t riches, it isn’t literary praise, it isn’t glowing reviews.  It’s simply to finish, and finish I will.  I firmly believe that a human being can endure any torture, however grim, if he only knows that there is an end.  It is because of this belief that I am not terrified by the prospect of writing a novel in 30 days.  It will require sacrifice for a period of time, but the cost can be measured, weighed, and quantified.

I’ve never taken on any creative effort of this scope, though I’ve dreampt of it.  Inspired by a love of reading, and by a father who is a writer, the title of ‘novelist’ is one that I’ve always quietly revered.  To be published is a secret dream.  It’s taken years, and concious effort, to bring myself to a level of comfort where, despite an abysmal lack of self confidence, I can even talk about that desire.  To be honest, I feel foolish, even now.  Then there’s the fear.  Fear of failure, fear of ridicule, fear of being revealed and, having been revealed, having revealed oneself, being mocked.  I know that courage isn’t a lack of fear, but what one does in the face of fear, and while my life isn’t at stake, my pride is on the chopping block.  I’d almost rather risk my life, than reveal as much about myself as I undoubtedly will writing a novel.

Why do it?  If you’re a writer, you probably already know the answer.  Paddy Gillard-Bentley famously said, “The play is the thing!”  and I think that sums it up nicely.  We write because the novel is the thing.  We write because it’s something that we want to do, and are compelled to do, by some part of ourselves which we don’t rightly understand, but which wants us to be miserable.  In the defense of the craft itself, I’ve found that I’m only miserable when I’m thinking about writing and not doing it.  Like climbing a mountain, it’s the last breath before you start that is the most torturous.

That being the case, maybe I should be lamenting the 30 days which this month is comprised of, instead of exulting.  Perhaps if it were only 28 I could have attributed these words towards my 50,000 word goal.  

I’ll leave you with this invitation: Join us.   Lose yourself in a totally new experience.  Take thirty days of your life and convert it into a novel.  To quote William Shakespeare, “Be great in act, as in thought.”

There was a bubble several years ago, fueled by the misapprehnsion that the internet was a magic portal to riches.  Companies created a visionary product that they would deliver over the internet, they pitched this idea to investors who knew it would make a killing, and invested heavily.  They put real money into an idea because they thought that the future of that idea was profitable.  Venture Capitalists, people who risked money for a living, did this.

During that era, we’ll call it the DotCom bubble, it was easy to be in IT.  In fact, for a period of time the mythos of the “IT Guru” rivaled that of the Lawyer or Doctor.  To say that we had ‘arrived’ would be an understatement.  I say “we” because this time was validation for a subculture which had been broadly and harshly denigrated up to that point, and with which I freely identify: the computer geeks.

It isn’t that we hadn’t been respected in our fields prior to the dotcom bubble, but the width and breadth of our desirability knew no bounds between 1998 and 2000.  We were rockstars.  No expectation was out of reach, no demand went unmet for the expert who knew everything and could get your idea on the internet.  Armed with a Dungeons and Dragon player guide, a witty and incomprehensible t-shirt, and a hairstyle nearly as surly as the affectations of it’s arborist, the Guru’s will was law.

But it wasn’t just the dedicated in our field who benefited during this time.  In conjunction with enrollments in nearly every collegiate Information Technology program increasing, anyone who knew how to turn on a computer was able to easily land a job as an “IT” guy.  

This situation was fueled more by ignorance than the Law of Supply and Demand.  It isn’t that there weren’t enough IT people to get the job done, but that no one knew exactly what kind of IT person they needed to do the job they wanted done.  Lacking clear direction, businesses hired the smartest person they could, allowed that person to set the agenda, and then hired several less competent (sometimes completely incompetent) people to shore up any possible holes in their infrastructure.  

And they should have known better.  Business ought not to allow any support personnel to set its agenda to the extent that IT people were allowed to call the shots during the Dotcom bubble.  That’s not why the bubble burst, but it is a lesson to be learned.  We exist to serve business, business does not exist to fuel interesting ideas, convoluted technologies, or hobbies that we couldn’t otherwise afford.  I digress.

The outrageous pay, the wide respect, and the perks lead even more people to declare themselves Computer Science majors.  Maybe we should have put up signs, but probably it wouldn’t have helped if the gateway to MIT and Rensselaer Poly-Tech said “Abandon all hope, ye who enter”.  The lure of promising, well paid positions in a new, exploding field was too much for some people.  They went, they got degrees, invariably they were given jobs that they either loved or hated, and either did well or failed at.  Because they came to the game late, because their motives were not “pure”, should they be dismissed?  That’s ridiculous.  And it is, again, beside the point.  The point is this: For a period of time, IT was the field to be in.  People flocked to it.

We know what happened next.  The dotcom bubble burst.  Suddenly, it wasn’t enough to have unfortunate hair and know how to work a computer, or say nonsensical things to your boss.  From 2000 to 2002 it was as if corporate America woke from a deep sleep, shook its head to clear its thoughts, and realized that it was being ridiculous.  Information Technology was standardized.  Expectations were laid down.  The attitude of entitlement was no longer accepted.  The technical workforce, no longer the golden child of industry, was forced to grow up and become professional.  

There are fewer of us now, because hundreds of thousands of people couldn’t cut it, or didn’t want to cut it.  Those who never really understood their jobs, or who felt that they were being treated appropriately during the ‘boom’, were the first to go.  Who was next and last are irrelevant, but who stayed matters.  The sharpest, the most reliable, those who integrated well with the business side of the shop, those who had a degree of professionalism, took their jobs seriously, and were committed to the work of Information Technology.  Oh, we still have our laughs.  Though we’ve gotten haircuts and wear ties, we haven’t changed all that much.  We still get more excited about technology than anyone should.  We still feel more alive in a humidity controlled room that’s 68 degrees fahrenheit, and too loud to converse comfortably in, than anywhere else.  And the ties carry the encrypted inside jokes that the t-shirts once did.

What’s the point?  After the dotcom bubble sorted itself out, there was another bubble, fueled by the misapprehension that home values would increase indefinitely, and that it was safe to buy a home of whatever price you could get a loan approved for.  During that era, it was easy to be a Realtor…