The Crooked Steeple

A little wine, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and the four of us…

January 17th, 2015

A little wine. A Charlie Brown Christmas. The four of us—S.B., Oogie, and Little Man—putting together the tree we got for free from The Salvation Army six years ago when we lived in Garden City. Things have changed. We’re north now. Living three blocks from Lake Huron, just a few ticks from the 45^th parallel. We’re comfortable. The stretch to make ends meet week to week is not as long and painful as it used to be. We wake with thanks and push through the days with hope, determination, and faith. At night—after something as simple as assembling a six-and-a-half foot tall fake Balsam tree—me and S.B. hug the kids, say prayers and finally get a chance to decompress. Slowly unwind and breathe and remember what it’s like to be ourselves again.

She is drinking wine and sketching or drawing or painting or reading or playing a game or listening to music or watching TV. Finally, she is free from Mommy and Honey and where are my shoes and where is the remote and did you pay the bills and how does my hair look and can you put toothpaste on my toothbrush and I can’t find my keys and everything that makes being a wife and Mom so great but so excruciating.

I am drinking wine and writing and thinking and realizing that the older I get the more I love people but the more apt I am to leave them alone and let them be and have them find out one day that they’ve waited too long. Time is up and they did not reach out or call or remember to do those things that put more good into the world than bad. Sometimes it’s just best to leave the ball in someone else’s court and move on with your wife and kids and fake tree and silent prayers and believe that in the end all of us will be together again.

In less than an hour, I’ll be with S.B. I’ll walk into the living room smiling. Shining a bit because I drink too much sometimes and because I had moments to myself to click the keys, make my marks, and string together—not words—but sounds and I will hum a little a song and hug her and we will stand and sway slowly back and forth, round and round, and I’ll feel that feeling I get, the one that tells me we’ve loved each other all along. Before today. After tomorrow. And everywhere in between.

~ K.J.
the benefit of the doubt

January 17th, 2015

You can never know what’s going on inside another person. Sometimes, the surface cracks. We see small tears, a biting of the lip, restlessness and moaning when they sleep. Other times it’s red cheeks, blood-shot eyes, a furrowed brow. But most of the time, people with guts and good sense and hope just keep on keepin’ on. They plug away through the days no matter what ails them. They may have been beaten. Molested as a child. They could be broke. Frightened. Sad. Their Dad may have just died. And you would never know it. And that’s why it’s important to give people the benefit of the doubt. That’s why we should be nice to each other and reach out and give. That’s why we’re here, folks. To live and help others thrive and to put goodness into the world. It’s not always easy. We snap at our kids because we’re tired. We give our wives headaches with our selfishness. But the chance we’re given every day is to recognize it—our grand lot of faults—and make sure that we’re allowing that in others. Nobody’s perfect. Not anyone here on earth. And that’s why we must keep trying to make the decisions that will build our spirit and the spirits of others so all of us make it to the other side.
the December surf is frightening

January 17th, 2015

A big wind moves Lake Huron wave after wave. They roll and crest white and break in the bay and push ice against ice so there is a constant roar. Our inland sea is angry with the way Mother Nature threatens its freedom.

“Hear that?” I ask Oogie. She is five and tiny and I am her everything.

“Yes, Daddy,” she says and holds my hand as we walk the bi-path at Bay View Park.

My wife, S.B., looks at us and smiles. She’s pretty and bright-eyed and put together so well and so naturally that she looks like she belongs everywhere. Times Square. Navy Pier. Northern California. Iowa. Portland, Oregon. And here—our hometown—Alpena, Michigan. She is the sun, the moon, the stars I cannot see as we walk under the orange lights and I wish for all of us to keep this time. This moment. So we never part.

The lake howls.

“Sounds a little scary, doesn’t it?” I say to her.

“Not really,” she says, but that’s my S.B. She’s unafraid and graceful and somehow loves me unconditionally. At my best and my worst. In my past and into the days we’ve yet to know. Sometimes, I’m sure we’ve done this all before.

The air is cold as it blows over the big rocks along the shoreline. And the sound of the December surf is frightening.

“I’m not scared,” Oogie shouts. She releases my hand and takes off running after her brother, Little Man. He is older and braver and smarter and faster and stronger than all of us and he is climbing the hill near the band shell. He flops down into the snow, calls for his sister to come join him. He’s eight and on top of the world.

S.B. stops to watch. I keep walking. Move away from the sounds and my selfish wishes until I’m near my favorite tree—a twisted elm—and its stark, gnarly presence is exactly what I need to forget that I’m perpetually tired and stressed and stretched too thin and that I am fortunate to have this simple moment with my wife and kids.
focused on the now

January 17th, 2015

A morning walk. The four of us holding hands. Past our shop—closed until Spring—then down 2^nd Avenue. Sleepy Alpena. Little Man and Oogie chattering. S.B. dreaming aloud. About art, the business, what may be waiting. In five years. A few months. Maybe just over the bridge.

Things can change suddenly. Weirdly. Without warning. But I don’t let it—my writer’s mind—get the best of me. Instead of tuning into the mess of movement that plays through continuously like motion pictures somewhere up there behind my eyes, I focus on the now.

Big wooden crate in the window of the antique store—we’re into those lately.

Puddles—winter today is melting away.

Oogie—fidgeting and fidgeting with her gloves.

Little Man—getting too far ahead.

“Stop!” I say.

He is caught up in one-foot-in-front-of-the-other. On the move. And when he is moving, he is much like me. Not thinking, but feeling. The warm sunlight. Lake Huron air. Wide open space that begs a boy to run.

“See that?” I ask.

He looks at the signal.

“Don’t walk,” he says.

“Exactly. Just wait a minute and then it will change.”

“Count to sixty,” says S.B.

I look to Oogie. She smiles. I look to S.B. She smiles. I look at Little Man and he is deep in the counting. He gets to 20 and the light changes.

“Hey!” he says. “That wasn’t sixty!”

“We got lucky,” says S.B. “We didn’t have to wait a full minute.”

On the bridge, we pass a short burly man. He’s in an insulated plaid shirt. Camo baseball cap. Wearing what looks to be safety glasses. He is fishing. No bucket. No tackle box. Just a pole. Line dangling all the way down to the black Thunder BayRiver that is filled with jagged white ice floes and happy ducks. I’m not sure what he’s after. If he’s after anything at all. And I know how it is sometimes—when you just want to get out, be near the water, alone—so I don’t say a word. The four of us pass the one of him in complete silence as the river pushes into the lake. Ice melts. The world spins round and we somehow hold fast to this—our place—just a horsefeather away from the 45^th parallel.

We walk.

Little man up front.

Me and S.B. side-by-side with Oogie close behind.

Another storefront. I see us. A reflection. A family passing by. And I see furniture I like but cannot afford.

There is the great theater we need more of.

The restaurant we’ve sworn off.

And as we pass Fletcher Street Brewery, I say to the kids, “Mommy and Daddy will be dancing there tonight!”

“We will?” S.B. asks.

The kids laugh.

“Sure,” I say, “Depends on how much we drink.”

She laughs. Smiles. And it is yet again one of those moments where I wonder how on earth this woman decided to shackle herself to me. A moody, stubborn man that always seems to want more than he has. Cannot function without writing. And fights daily to maintain the balance our family needs.

“Let’s run!” I say, and me and Oogie and Little Man run and run and run. When we stop, we all kind of go our separate ways. Little Man moves up the river walk. Far ahead to where Lady Michigan sits when the weather is warm and tourists are ready to spend, spend, spend. Oogie picks up small rocks. Stones. Names the ice floes as they drift by.

“A triangle!” she says. “A house! A diamond!”

And I stand there, looking at the river. Watching my boy. My girl. Looking back at my wife as she catches up. Slowly. At her own pace. Her curly locks bouncing. That contagious smile. And as the day warms and the river lets loose and the sun brings Spring to January, our town, our life, our choices look perfect. And I am humbled by the fact that things change suddenly. Weirdly. Without warning. And I am hopeful as we move through this motion picture.

Living dreams aloud.

Focused on the now.

~ K. J.

A little wine, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and the four of us…

the benefit of the doubt

the December surf is frightening

focused on the now