Day One Thousand Nine Hundred and Fifty Nine . . . The Simple Life

What have I gotten myself into?

I claim to long for the simple life. To just relax and sit and think and enjoy what's around me. To take it all in and accept what comes my way rather than trying to concoct some grand plan where I cull ideas from the far reaches of my psyche and throw some sort of grand party to celebrate things which have yet to be but could if you'd just give me half a minute. To be in the moment and present rather than hoisting up plate upon plate atop thin dowels setting them spinning one by one whilst riding on a unicycle in a circle surrounded by a few hundred bystanders screaming my name.

But apparently this isn't really what I want--this so-called simple life.

Because somehow I've landed myself in the spotlight again. And it seems almost like some kind of internal publicity stunt.

My birthday is tomorrow, and as I sit here today I'm about to sign off on twelve songs which I've spent the past three weeks recording with good friends at a great studio with tasty food, drinks, company, and weather. I wrote them about my life, my love, my loss and my repair. I made a little music box to keep all my very private thoughts and emotions in and set it down in the town square with a "please, come have a look" sign on it.

And I have no idea how I ended up here.

Next week I leave for a ten day, five gig tour of Holland and Belgium with the Young at Heart.

I have some other appearances to make in other musical collaborations in the month of June, and then I hope to fill one of the most prestigious rooms in this arts-centric little town: The Iron Horse (on Saturday, June 29) for a CD release party.

So much for keeping things simple.

Since losing my mother and aunt in 2007 and 2008 I haven't really stopped trying to distract myself. It's not a bad thing. Absolutely not even a little. Because I had been distracting myself for years and years before that using all manner of detrimental pathways for no apparent reason at all. And it almost killed me.

But something happened a few years ago and it just started this ball rolling. Presently we're somewhere near the middle of the mountain it fell from heading down the canyon at full steam. From the looks of it there's still quite a ways to go before it comes to rest, if I have any luck at all.

And I just keep right on rolling along with the seasons and the daylight hours. I keep picking away at my drawer full of shorts, fooling myself that it's actually nice enough to get through a day with a pair on and not wish for a freaking alpaca throw. "Oh, a nice alpaca throw would be nice right about now" I'd say. And then I just shiver a little.

I make the bed sometimes and wonder if it's time to put away the comforter for the spring. I consider plugging in the water cooler and then have second thoughts. I make firm plans to change out the glass in the storm doors with the screens so that the cool spring breezes can come in and then I just don't feel like it.

And I guess it's all part of getting older. All part of that beautiful process that takes place sometime in our late thirties where the things you felt you just had to accomplish get pushed aside and you start thinking less about what you need to remember to do rather than what you'll be remembered for.

These days I look around at the musical equipment I own and think "how the hell did I get all of this?" I certainly ended up with more stuff than I need, not that I really feel I can part with any of it (the classic paradox). And it seems like I spent a lifetime wanting, saving, buying, using, and storing a whole music store's worth of guitar-related gear.

And while there are certainly some pieces I'd like to add I feel like I'd be being greedy to say that I actually need anything else. But when I'm someday not of the living, breathing creatures anymore somebody is going to end up with a nice haul.

Where is this all heading?

I guess I'm just a little overwhelmed at who I've become and where I stand.

I've always considered myself a beta in the personality department. Always kind of sheepish and following. Never really leading but not being shy to follow. I suppose I always considered blind faith the ultimate form of self-assertion.

I was leading myself to follow.

But getting sober and de-greasing my mind, body and soul have had a strange effect on me.

It seems that because of it all I've developed into somewhat of a leader.

And I don't say this to sound self-important. Because, while I have a healthy ego, I don't think I feel that what I have to say is any more poignant than the person sitting next to me on the bus to the mall.

But right now I sit here ready to embark on a new journey where I put myself out there for any and all to judge. To say "here is something I did" and let the myriad opinions come furious and free. I'm the guy in the middle in the picture. I'm the name on the back who it says wrote all the stuff. I'm the guy who is taking the phone calls, emails, and letters. Hell, I even got a PO box!

And this is the guy who always used to sit in the very back of the van. The guy who never wanted to be the first person to start walking in a new town. The guy who always had a big mouth but needed a good head start on a sixer before he could open it too far and speak too loudly.

And I know for a fact that one can't really change who they are so I'm left with the idea that I've really been this way all along. I've found that while cleaning house my original rafters have started to show. Like a new house built around an ancient one.

And if that's the case and I was always this person it leads me to believe that I am now the guy who needed a good head start on a sixer . . . but I don't need the sixer anymore.

I don't know where this all started. I wish I could pinpoint it. Go back to it on my calendar and try to figure out when things really started to pile up and point me in the direction that ultimately led me here . . . back to the beginning. But I just don't really have the time or the energy to put into that kind of investigation, not that I think I could really turn up more than I already have.

So I think I'm just going to have to get used to this feeling. I'm going to have to get used to the idea that I have something to say and it doesn't have to come out slurred from the far reaches of my mind.

I can just say it.

I can just put it out there and wait.

I can believe I'm doing what I'm supposed to and not worry who will like it and who won't.

My mom always told me that I was capable of doing whatever I wanted to. She said she believed that inside me was a person who was given as good of a head start as anyone could ask for, from the person she chose to create me with to the schools she sent me to to the food she made me to the wisdom she showered me with.

And just like the rain in the sky there will be places that get soaked and spots that miss out and stay dry. Hopefully I soaked up enough of what she shared to last a few more years.

But right now I find myself sitting here with the world at my feet. I have my girlfriend who will come home soon from work. We'll work on getting the photos together to send to Tom, my album designer. We'll have some delicious fish I brought back from Mattapoisett when we were there a couple of days ago working on the house we hope to sell this year. I'll play her what may be the final mixes of the music. We'll watch TV. We'll hold each other close under the three blankets that are customary for nighttime TV viewing. We'll have too many chocolates from the box that my co-workers gave me. We'll go to bed at ten o'clock like we always do these days. I'll sleep right through the midnight hour when I turn 43. I'll think about this very night five years ago when I pulled a blanket over me in the hospital bed the nurses found for me so I could stay with my aunt, who I brought in because I knew something was wrong with her. I'll remember how when the clock struck midnight that night she tearfully sang me "Happy Birthday" and "Sto Lat" knowing it could possibly have been the last time. I'll think about what happened at 3 o'clock that night when the doctors came and gave us the bad news about her illness . . . and how we realized it probably would be the last time.

I'll remember all the cakes, candles, presents, photos, and 1970s home movie camera shoots with the bright as a beacon light that I could see and hear all the way around the corner of the house even though they were trying to surprise me. I'll remember all the birthday songs sung. The English ones as well as the Polish ones. They're really one and the same to me now.

I'll remember the cards, the phone calls, the hugs, kisses, hand shakes, smiles and tears.

I'll remember all the years that had to pass by to get to this one.

I'll remember the way I used to feel.

I'll think about the way I feel right now.

And I'll wonder, just a little, what I'll be like as time goes on.

Thanks for reading everybody.

Cheers,

~F.A.J.

Day one thousand nine hundred and twenty-six . . . A Temporary Occupation.

I see the drama all around me
and pray my lucky shooting star
that when I walk the crimson carpet
it leads me to a waiting car

"A Temporary Occupation" performed by Colorway (F. Alex Johnson)





These are my words and they sum up my take on this world I'm stuck in.

And when I say "stuck" I mean it in the best way possible. Because I'm grateful to be anywhere, really. I thank whoever or whatever is responsible for the strings that had to be pulled in order for me to be sitting here on my couch in the first week of April, sober for over five years, in my home, with the love of my life at work for the day, lolling around in my gym clothes, tap, tap, tapping away on my Macbook.

It may not seem overly dramatic, but I assure you from these eyes that I see out of it is indeed.

It's been quite some time since I wrote about my life and all the things in it. Almost five months in fact. But the winter days, I guess, are when one takes breaks from the usual progressive activities--personal growth and emotional bounty--and begins to sour and ferment like so much kim chi buried in the backyard. At least in New England we hunker down and hibernate as the yearly freeze takes over. We stockpile our jars of honey and cords of wood and let a semi-permanent grimace slowly replace the pumpkin pie-eating grin on our faces that the fall brings--one of Mother Nature's dirty tricks as the cool days take over from August's sultry sweat lodge.

But from my perspective--the only one I have--it's been all for good.

We had Thanksgiving here at our home for the first time due to a shakeup in logistics from the past four years. It was strange, quiet, and wonderful. We slaved in the kitchen for over eight hours to make food for the two of us which disappeared in less than 30 minutes. After this experience I will never again underestimate the effort my poor mother made (and family chefs all over the country) to create a Thanksgiving bounty one day a year, every year.

Christmas was delightful. We made homemade Nutella. It's easier than you might think and about twice as fattening.

I celebrated five years of sobriety on December 27th.

We went to New York City for New Year's Eve and saw Phish play at Madison Square Garden.

We spent four weeks in Central America just like we did last year and escaped the world's worst blizzard (from all accounts) though we came back to two feet of snow. So, the tan was short lived and the flip flops are still wondering what they did wrong to get such an excommunication.

Jodi and I celebrated four, unforgettable, robust, and exciting years together on the trip in between hermit crab herding and taking a surfing lesson on one of the most beautiful beaches in the world (Jodi even "hung ten" for a good ten seconds. No need to ask how I did. I'll never say). 

I got to play some fun shows with the chorus when we returned, including a collaboration with Staten Island's world famous children's choir, PS22.

And I wrote a whole album's worth of music, put a band together, made a commitment to go into the studio the third week of this month and set a CD release date at one of the best rooms in town, The Iron Horse Music Hall (Saturday, 6/29 at 10pm to be exact).




But the consistent thread that is woven throughout all of these events is that, at least up until today, at this very moment (knocking on wood) I have been able to shield myself from major personal drama.

Yes, that's right. I'm totally jinxing myself, but I don't really give a care. If it were that easy to summon bad luck then there would be a campaign to cajole our enemies across the world to recite such blatant announcements of personal good fortune out loud in hopes of an unprovoked turn for the worst.

I don't really know how I did it. But then again I didn't really do anything.

And that's the key.

I can't look into the future and gauge how something will turn out if I keep my nose out of trouble. I can't predict what my health will be like or how my personal interactions will progress with the inhabitants in my world if I stay clean and sober.

But I know what would happen if I didn't.

All hell would break loose, that's for damn sure, which is good enough for me.

I have a friend who recently had a "setback" as I've heard some people call it. He had been on the positive path (I hesitate to call it the "right" path because right and wrong is subjective and not for me to say, but "positive" is a different story) and fell off and dug himself into a deep, dark hole.

He reached out to me a few weeks back. We spoke on the phone. He sounded scared and desperate.

"How do I care about life again, Alex," he asked.





So how do you answer that? Anyone?




Well, I answered the only way I could.

I told him I had no f*cking clue. I meant it, too.

I said that if I knew how to advise someone else to care about their life in twenty minutes over the phone then I would have had my own mental health wing dedicated to me at Brigham and Women's Hospital by now.

But I've thought about it over the last couple of weeks. And while I may not be able to tell someone else how to care about life I can attempt to distil it down to the reasons why I do.

I care about life because it's mine. I'm living it. I've wrecked it in the past. I've stitched it up. I've put bandages on it. I've dealt with the recovery time. I've had to learn to live with the scars. I walk around with them each and every day and proudly present them to everyone I see--people who may or may not know me from the life I used to live. At this point they are one and the same.

I take this life seriously. I tell it dirty jokes. I shower it with presents. I take it out to dinner. I elevate its heart rate to 135 bpm for 30 minutes three to four times a week. I tell it I love it and that I always have. I brush its hair. I buy it new clothes. I spend the last fifteen minutes before sleep thinking about all it's done for me. And when I wake up I make sure to ruminate and reminisce and make plans for the next few hours before I slip into my slippers, run my stubby fingers through my thinning hair and face the new lines I see in the mirror--the one way looking glass that never seems to show its wear.

I talk to this life of mine about all the people who loved it. From the one who I miss the most--the one who knew about it first back in August of 1969, to the one who made the last great impression on it one lucky February in 2009. There were the ones who believed in this life from the other side of my eyes who may have sensed potential for good at an early age. There were the ones who believed in this life from the other side of my eyes who sensed a potential for destruction at any age. And there were the ones who shared time and space with this life of mine who I never formally met. The ones who shared this life with me for even thirty seconds in an elevator who might have gotten a chuckle from something that came out of the mouth that does my life's bidding.

These things make me care about life.

The drama that surrounds us does just that: it surrounds.

It makes us the center.

It magnifies what it sees.

It smothers.

It removes perspective.

It sucks our breath from our lungs.

It spreads rumors. It tells lies. It second-guesses. It double-crosses. It cheats. It steals. It kills.

Stress from drama killed people in my family, though the death certificate may try to convince otherwise.

But I, right now, in my life have a choice to take it or leave it. I have the option to concentrate on the things that I can do to make the world around me and the people in it better. Or I can chose to let the high emotions and staccato violins take over and divert my attention and lead me into drama's evil lair.

And yes, I do realize that it is highly ironic that I should use such dramatic prose to describe such a choice.

Because there really is no escape from it. There's only the potential to filter it. There's only the meticulous procedure of deciding every day which areas of our personal soap opera deserve our attention and which should be used as a snack break. 

This life is a temporary occupation.

Even though at times it may seem like this life will go on and on and on for eternity, weaving from doldrums, desperation and despair to climbing the foothills of positive personal achievements to mountaintops of cathartic elation and higher to the fickle utopian pillows that the clouds in the sky present to us and dare us to rest on them for a minute before disappearing into the ether leaving us to fall, spinning, smiling, crying back down to earth.

This life is a temporary occupation.

I wish I had a better and simpler way to coax someone I care about how to believe in his life again.

And even though I was raised by a family of lifelong teachers all I fear I could ever be was a student.

May I never stop learning.




Thanks for reading,

~FAJ


PS: If you'd like to keep in touch with my new band, Colorway, please click here and "like" the page.

Day One Thousand Seven Hundred and Ninety One . . . A curious crowd.

" . . . the passing down of memories is the strongest link in the gossamer bridge that binds us together as people."

~David Baldacci, Wish You Well

I never knew who said that.


And the reason I know it at all is that it was written on a page of my mom's stationary along with a few other quotes that she adored. There were also a few that I believe she wrote herself as I can't seem to find them anywhere other than on that one piece of paper which she assembled shortly before she passed away almost six years ago.

Amazing.

Amazing to think that my world will have existed six years without her in January.

I always have to remind myself that the reason time passes so swiftly under my feet while reminders of her presence present themselves so forcefully and fully is because I really never feel like she's not with me.

She is always with me.

She is always with me because I remember.







There's a special Thanksgiving that's really etched in my mind--I was probably five or six.

I remember the way all the fall colors on the 1970's paper decorations popped out amongst the muted plaids and floral patterns of the upholstery and wallpaper. I remember the way my babush (the Polish word for "grandmother") would sing with "Popeye" and "Brutus", our two canaries. And in hearing that with my tiny first or second grade sized ears that somehow, someway, they always sounded simpatico and free like a Copeland score: exciting, daring, playful, and sure.

I remember--as does anyone left in my family who heard the story tens of times over the decades--how one year, maybe that year, as my mom was carefully--and when I say "carefully" it would have been almost as if it were a live explosive device in danger of being triggered by the vaguest sudden motion--how when she was carefully taking the Thanksgiving turkey out of the oven (wearing, I'm sure, a floral sun dress) that in her extraordinary concentration how she suddenly and shockingly lost her footing on the linoleum floor and slipped and fell on her ample behind. I remember how she fell in front of the stove, the golden brown and fully cooked turkey tumbling onto the floor, the baking pan clattering and clanging and my mother exclaiming one very sharp and untranslatable hoot into the air. I remember the piping hot stuffing that sprayed like buckshot in a three foot radius, and the insistent and repeated sounds of her one or two swear words that she would entertain only in extreme circumstance until I grew older (not for fear I would co-opt them; but merely because--as she maintained fervently and for life--but because I brought them out in her).

And as my poor thirtysomething mother was lying on the floor, with all the hopes and dreams of Thanksgiving oozing from a giant headless bird in front of the still open 325 degree oven--and me, of course, standing in the other room watching it all happen, because I could never be too far away from the kitchen for fear that I might miss being asked if I wanted to "lick the beaters" which either held a scrumptious coating of whipped potatoes, vanilla frosting, whipped cream or fudge--as this all was transpiring any normal sister in a normal family would have come running to help her up and try her best to salvage what was surely a 20 pound bird that had most certainly failed the five second rule.

But my aunt--her sister--had a more unique reflex action.

She went running for her camera.

And as the story was told over and over and over again, the picture she took was one of a beautiful mother, sister, daughter in a floral print sundress on the floor of her own kitchen, with a fully cooked, partially stuffed turkey next to her being furiously licked, nosed and summarily devoured by one delirious and never satiated Wire Fox Terrier named "Bonnie" who was getting away with murder because her owner could not . . . stop . . . laughing.

The scene I can remember as if it happened this morning. But of course those memories are like dreams--shaded with strange vignetting and effected by odd reverberations and echoes. They come through the brain like a hot bath being drawn, but they end before one can enjoy the full effects of the water. They will repeat the process if you ask them to but they're never exactly the same. And when they happen to be from one's childhood they're even more subject to change on a whim.

But the stories go with the memory that goes with the picture that goes with the laughing, the chiding, the I-wouldn't-expect-anything-less-from-my-sister comments years after the fact. And it happens every year because the holidays make it so.

The holidays--and especially this one--thankfully bring forth the recounting of this fateful tale that I suspect I must have written about in one of the hundreds of memories I've extolled on this journal of mine.

It's a tradition that I'm proud to be a part of. The retelling of this simple but fully engrossing event that happened on a day that is by design fraught with worry and trepidation over a kitchen catastrophe just as I have described.

And yet it's that memory of my dog--Bonnie--such a good girl--grunting as she licked at that damn turkey, more than likely burning the hell out of her long, pink dog tongue and rightfully not caring one little delicious bit. With my mother, who was always a lady, lying on her bottom, in her dress, covered in grease and stuffing, skin bright red from embarrassment which would more than likely match the color of the oven mitts she loved--long ago turned brownish black at the palms from years of pulling hot magic out of a convection oven. It's that memory that I have of her in hysterical laughter yelling at her sister to come help her and "put the damn camera away and make yourself useful, please" that is putting me on the edge of tears as I write this all down. It's the memory of the curious crowd that gathered at the entrance to the kitchen--where the carpet met the linoleum--at 1073 Bedford St. in Fall River, Massachusetts, as my Babush and I--with Popeye and Brutus the canaries singing their visionary score for two birds atop opposing perches in their cage--and my grandfather in his tweed sport jacket and trousers laughing his big laugh, Auntie Annie in town for the holidays, and Aunt Lynda in her sun dress just standing there with the Polaroid looking down at poor Judith Ann Johnson on the verge of crying but knowing full well that this year's Thanksgiving--the food holiday--will not be cancelled because of a little setback such as this.

Because we are resilient people.

Or maybe I should just say we were all really hungry.

I'm quite certain the big day went on as scheduled. I'm sure I grabbed a startled Bonnie from the mid section and led her out of the kitchen to her dog bed to sleep off the Tryptophan buzz. And I'm also quite sure my babush and aunts helped my mom up. Somebody--my grandpa, maybe--must have picked up the turkey and cut around the parts that were a bit dog eared, as it were, and brought it out to the table and set it next to the whipped potatoes, the gravy, the mashed carrots and turnips, the cranberry sauce spooned out but still retaining a ribbed can line or two, the corn and peas, the celery sticks, sweet gherkins, soda, milk, rosé wine, and the occasional beer.

And I'm sure we ate and ate and ate and then we would sit and talk and listen to the birds.

I'd bring out my violin and squeak through a new piece or two that I had been working on which would bring my mother to tears for all the right reasons and the rest of the room for the wrong ones.

My grandfather would leave in the early evening after running out of jokes (it would take hours) and make the one block walk back to his place.

My Auntie Annie would go back to the hotel she was staying at with five pounds of leftovers.

My Aunt Lynda would go downstairs to the first floor where she lived with her dog, Dandelion.

My babush would sit and sew and sing along with Brutus and Popeye.

I'd lie down in front of the television getting my fill of the magnificence of holiday programming in the mid-1970's.

And my mother--my poor, sweet, loving, delicate mother--would more than likely be holding the Polaroid that my aunt took of her in her most embarrassing moment to date.

And I'm sure she just shook her head and smiled thinking, "Well, this will make a good story someday"






I have many things to be thankful for this year.

I have my sobriety of almost five years and counting.

I have my lifted-out-of-a-dream girlfriend, Jodi, who has stuck with this--some would say persnickety--man for what is going to be four amazing years this February.

I have her wonderful, unique, and constantly growing family in West Seneca, New York who I will very much miss this year as Jodi and I celebrate our first Thanksgiving here at our home in Florence.

I have my health.

And I have my memories.

I wish I could remember more. I wish I could flip through this big old brain of mine like a world atlas and pick and choose certain memories so as to fill in the blanks to help me understand why I am the way I am. 

But I have to let them come to me because for all the right reasons we can only ask for so much at once.

And while I wish I had that Polaroid of my mother on the floor with Bonnie and the red oven mitts and the sun dress, sadly I can't quite put my finger on it. Amongst the thousands of photographs that I inherited I'm hoping I will someday come across it. I'm certain it was saved. But it--unlike the rest--was a Polaroid and there's probably only one copy out there.

But you see if I had the photograph I probably wouldn't have been inclined to write so much about it this Thanksgiving Eve. I may have just posted it on Facebook and put a cute caption under it and nobody but me and one or two other people would have really understood.

But as I said at the beginning of this post, the passing down of memories is the strongest link in the gossamer bridge that binds us together as people.

My mother truly believed that.

She lived this way.

She taught me these things.

And today, as most days in my life, she is remembered.



I wish all of the people who read this a very happy Thanksgiving. Thank you for spending a while with me and one of my fondest memories.

And just keep in mind that whether it's a table for two or twenty, that sometimes something you think might spell the untimely end of the year's most important day . . .  can help it live on forever.


Thanks for reading,

~F.A.J.

Day one thousand six hundred and fifty three . . . Independence.

It is so quiet here.

I'm not here alone that often. That must be it.

But it's been quiet, in general, for the better part of the week, save for the random hillbilly firework or two going off down the street. In the winter I have to remember the benefits of not being able to keep the windows open. Not hearing M-80's going off randomly in the bar parking lot, scaring the bejezus out of me, is one of them.

Around these parts we actually celebrate the Fourth Of July a couple of weeks in advance with a grand party at our local park. My neighbors are a driving force for putting it on. I'm honored to live near them and their kids (who I've kind of watched grow up over the last almost four years). I don't know how anyone can sustain the kind of energy and commitment to making things happen. I didn't get that gene in my DNA. I like going to things. I like participating in things. I like to contribute when I can. But I don't really like coordinating tens of people, thousands of dollars, and heaps and gobs of public relations work. But that's just me. I like to have parties for my friends; they like to have parties for everybody. It all works out, really, because I go to theirs and they come to mine.

So every year the community comes together to share in the excitement of the summer, the thrill of being alive, and the collective acceptance of being a free people. We, as Americans, often forget how lucky we are. We can do so much and say so much and tell the world how we feel like almost nobody else in the world, rhetorically speaking.

At the Family Fourth Celebration there is food, music, face painting, train rides, all kinds of stuff for all kinds of folks. And then, after dark, they finish the day off with a grand fireworks display. This one went off without a hitch. It did its job which was to thrill and excite with light, color and sound. And after it was over we all left en mass almost as if there was an evacuation order. It was a strange sight to see and be a part of.

It was over and then not too much was said. Mainly because it went well.

Now,  shortly after the Fourth of July I saw a bunch of news stories about firework displays that did made huge headlines but not for any good reason.  They were top news because they either didn't work, hurt somebody, were set off days early by a random rifle shot, or malfunctioned and all went off at once. But you never really hear too much about the wonderful and safe fireworks spectacles because that's just how news travels.

But this celebration we have here in Florence is a loud one. It's loud because it's full of people. One person can walk around all day by themselves and stay relatively quiet. But add somebody else to that equation and things can get loud really quickly. Put those two people in a park with a couple thousand others and add games and food and fireworks and we're talking about one loud motherflipping time, indeed.

But here, today, it's so quiet.

Jodi's on a little trip right now. I'll be joining her on Sunday and we'll camp for a day or so and have a good old time. I have my list of things to bring like bacon and eggs and a frying pan and coffee and all that good stuff. I haven't camped in a few years since I used to do it with my band on tour. We did a few state parks and such but most of the time it was in somebody's back yard. A little Occupy Wall Street village before it was en vogue.

She left yesterday afternoon.

And since the moment her car pulled away something changed.

My harmony is gone.

Strange.

See, we spend a lot of time together. Like, almost all of it. And this I like very much. It took a little getting used to because I've spent most of my life as a single man. Sure I dated and all, but as far as a serious girlfriend who actually wants to be with me and vice versa this is it.

We both have very flexible schedules as far as our work goes. What this translates into is being home at the same time quite often. And we get used to the dynamic of being here together. Our rhythm is well honed from hours spent talking and listening. The peaks and valleys of excitement over either a development in the local news, a photograph being edited, a song in progress or an unexpected bill's arrival are all quite familiar.

But these things happen between us as much as they happen individually.

And now that I'm here by myself there's a feeling of unease.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not crying in my sparkling water over here. It's not the end of the world and I'm not jealous or paranoid. It's just a strange sensation and it inspired me to talk about it.

When I used to drink I'd talk a lot to myself out loud.

I don't really know why that stopped. Maybe I'm living more in my head these days. Maybe back then I needed to hear my intentions out loud. Maybe I was lonely. Maybe I was going a little bit cuckoo. Either way I remember telling myself all kinds of things out loud.

And now, if I'm not talking to somebody in the room or on the phone I'm a pretty quiet guy.

I walk through the house and it's just me.

I go to close up the house and set the alarm and grab my keys and it's just me.

I make breakfast, lunch and dinner and it's just me.

And I remember a time when it was like this every day.

I think back to the years I spent living on my own with nobody around me wondering what time I'll be back. I remember how I would grab my key to my apartment and just close the door and walk out to my car and go forward until I had to come back. There were days when I left to go on the road and wouldn't come back for weeks at a time. There were days when I came back and stayed in my apartment for days on end without leaving, too. I stocked up on what I needed and shut the door and talked to myself and watched my television and kept relatively quiet.

But my life had no harmony back then. I was a single-note run on a page of staff paper bouncing up and down in a chaotic rhythm. Trilling, slurring, sustaining, resting and running up and down the scale to the highest shrill peaks of the northern ledger lines and down to the lowest bass notes the human ear can discern.

I was one little note on a musical playground with nobody watching and no one to play with.

And then my harmony showed up and everything changed.

Thirds, fourths, and fifths rang out and vibrated the air. The counterpoint developed into a celebration dance that would make Scott Joplin proud. The rests had a reason to be where before they would come and go at odd times and with not a lick of reason.

The high notes had a partner below to gauge how far they had climbed. The bass notes had a sensible confidant who could keep them from turning into a long muddled mess of a rumble. There were pleasant intervals that made us smile and giggle, and minor ones to match the solemnity and sadness of the inevitable seriousness of life. And even when the action slowed and there were long passages of quiet they had each other to watch the measures go by in time and with ordered insistence.

And so it's strange to be here at my house by myself, just one little note bouncing around the rooms on both floors, resting on the patio before bounding back inside to grab a seltzer and a handful of cashews.

The cars go by past my house. Most of them have just come from the bank. There's a "right turn only" sign that isn't really legally enforceable but most cars do it. And so they drive by me constantly in the afternoon and into the early evening on a Friday like today.

But it's still quiet here. My ideas come and go, and I have to restrain myself from texting my girlfriend. I have to will myself to just keep the endless stream of manic only-child exaltations to myself. I watch the sunlight ooze from room to room and make every attempt to keep the shades drawn to keep out the heat. I wait for the mail that hopefully will bring my paycheck and maybe a powder-coated catalog from a store that knows my weaknesses. I see the sample soaps gone from her side of the medicine cabinet and the second-tier shoes that, even in pairs, seem lonely and withdrawn and definitely not left behind by chance.

I go upstairs. I go back down. I tend the grill. I pay a bill or two. I straighten out my office area and stock the envelopes for future use. I make the bed even though I'll be back under the same covers in not too long from now.

I add to the laundry.

I stare out the kitchen window.

I see a little bird I hadn't seen before.

I watch the bicycles go by.

I think about taking mine out for a ride.

And all the while it's just me here in my little chair.

Just a lonely little note.

He's high.

He's low.

He's running up and down and all around.

And soon enough there will be harmony.

The sound it makes will have an effect.

It will color the world.

But for right now it's just one independent note with everywhere and nowhere to go.










Thanks for reading.


~FAJ

Day one thousand five hundred and ninety six . . . The meaning of life

It's raining here.

Last couple of years we had droughts. It got so bad they put a ban on excessive water use for gardens and car washing. I never noticed too many dirty cars, though. And the grass is always kind of mottled around these parts so I don't think any lawns knew what was going on anyway.

But the clouds have come in force. It's been like this for a long time it seems.

I like it. The rain, that is.

But despite the water--the food for plants and animals alike--there sure has been a lot of dying going on.

I rarely believe adages and I'm not superstitious. That said, I always knock on wood if I happen to elicit an overly positive proclamation. It's easy here in New England. This place was built with wood.

But, man, oh man. We're having some dying going on.

  

I just attended a funeral for a friend last week. He met a sad end for such a happy person. And I say that he was happy, but my last conversation with him was at least twenty years ago. We were in a band together. We dreamed of stardom together. We learned how to expand our minds together. We had some of those life-changing laughing sessions where you almost can't breathe together. We worried our parents sick together. 

And then we moved away and both got swept up in the rigors of adult life and the seemingly never-ending process of procrastination. 

And now he's gone, and dammit do I feel like a jerk for not keeping in touch. But I guess when you're both in your forties there's a semblance of that bullet proof-ness that remains from your twenties. You kind of forget there's a clock ticking in the background. And either you just don't think of them or you do, now and then, and before you pick up the phone you say, "maybe he should call me," when you think how long it's been. You say that until either you break down and call, you meet by accident, or they finally cave in and call you.  

Or you get a phone call from one of their friends with the bad news. 

Johnny, you were a great guy. I loved you very much and I wish I could have helped you. You will be missed.

There are the recent deaths of celebrities: Maurice Sendak, Junior Seau, Adam Yauch,  Carl Beane, Levon Helm, and Vidal Sassoon. That last one doesn't even seem real because he was just kind of one of those names you think are made up out of thin air. There can't be a real Vidal Sassoon.

But I guess there was and now there's not anymore.

I have never had the pleasure of getting close to any celebrities. I don't have any childhood friends who became internationally famous yet. So those deaths usually kick off a thought process that goes something like, "Hmm . . . that's sad. Did I like them? If I liked their work had it run its course? Was there any more to come from them that I wish hadn't been cut short? Did I ever see them live? Was it good? Did they do this to themselves? Will this change the course of entertainment?"

And that thought process usually takes all of about fifteen seconds, and then I check Facebook for clips for their life's work.

This is how life goes by now. It's different--very different--than when I was younger. But I didn't turn 42 right from 18. It happened little by little over a long, long time.

And I turned 42 just yesterday. 

I had an amazing birthday. Jodi made sure of that. I had breakfast in bed like I remember from my earliest days as a kid when my mom would bring me in eggs and toast, milk and juice, with a candle and a little present and sing me Happy Birthday and Sto Lat, the Polish birthday song. Jodi did this for me because she knew it would make me supremely happy. This is one of the many reasons I love her so. 


Her and I spent the whole day together, like we do most days. But today was a little different, her stealthily hiding a present right in plain sight every few hours so that I would turn around and legitimately exclaim "Wow!". And then we'd have a special few moments together while I opened it up. 


My mother, Judy, had a way of building suspense by insisting on using scissors to carefully cut the tape at each corner and on both sides of every package. 


Recently, I--much to Jodi's dismay--have adopted this way of building suspense, as it were. It's more of a tribute to my mom than me actually changing my ways. But you should have seen me when I was five. Total mess of paper, tape, bows and ribbon shreds. Like a wrapping massacre. 


The "Happy Birthday" on this plate in this picture is spelled out in chocolate chips. The "A" and the "Y" of "Birthday" are being held on with frosting to combat the curvature of the plate. 


I love this so very much. But I can't admit to eating all the chips. We're on a diet at least sometimes. 

Later in the day I found an old picture of me from a birthday past. I think it's from about 1975, and I would be all of five years old. I may have been the only kid in Fall River, Massachusetts to have chosen to wear a giant, psychedelic bow tie with a brown and white striped polo. But my mom always told me that I picked out my own outfits. It was her way of dealing with my usual question later in life of "how did you let me dress like that, Mom?"

The cake is topped with a crazy bird marionette. They were the style at the time, all kooky and googly-eyed. The cake is sponge cake--my favorite--and I'm certain my mom made it for me. And on top of the cake are these very unique candle holders. Camels, tiny birds, and little rosettes. I've never seen anything like them before. Around the edge of the cake are other little animals in various colors as well. Very cute and special. Because my mom never did anything just plain. Everything was special. 

I also like how my hand is on the fork, ready for the flash to go off. Because that boy right there is a hungry boy. Doesn't matter if we just ate a big meal of spaghetti, Ragu and boiled hot dogs (my favorite). I was never fully full. 

So, I posted this pic on my Facebook page. Even made it my profile pic for the day.

It got a lot of comments.

After I put up the picture we went to the spa and got pampered. I got my free birthday facial and languorously allowed a student esthetician to exfoliate my skin. We got my free ice cream sundae from Herrell's ice cream shop. We had coffee downtown. We came back home and Jo surprised me with more presents. Then we went to dinner for spaghetti and meatballs--the Wednesday special which I've watched climb from $2.99 in 1993 to a wallet-busting $5.50 today--and they even gave me a free cannolo. And when you've been to Italy you can come back and call it a "cannolo". Let the rest of America ask for the plural "cannoli" when they really just want one and see who laughs. Well, nobody laughs, really, because this is America and I'm actually the one who looks silly. So I guess they just laugh at me. It's fine. I don't really mind. 

Then we came home and I listened to the last birthday song my mom left on an old answering machine of mine in 2006. I saved the micro cassette, thank God. And while it is one of the most heartbreaking two minutes of audio I can ever imagine owning I'm ever so glad I have it. It's pure emotion. Happy, sad, terrified, hopeful, eternal, love.

I'll listen to it every year and then I'll put it away in a safe spot. I have more of them now than ever. Safe spots, that is.

I was politely asked to leave the room and went upstairs. I heard the rustle of paper and the clink of plates. I was asked to come downstairs, and as I made my way down the short flight I swear I could hear the running of an old Super 8 camera. I even thought I saw a flash of the light from the beast of the old movie machine that used to blind me every Christmas, Birthday, Easter and Halloween. But the flash was really the candles on the cake. And the candles were lit for me. The candles were lit for me and placed inside . . .  tiny candle holders made out of camels, tiny birds, and rosettes.

They were the same exact ones from 1975.

And while I had randomly selected the picture from hundreds of birthday pics from over the years, it just so happened that the last time we were back at my mom's old place Jodi found a small bag of these special candle holders amidst the multitude of items saved over the years and brought them home to use for my birthday.

And though it may sound gross they even had tiny bits of cake left on them from 37 years ago.

I have no idea how these things happen, I'm just glad they sometimes do.

We had our cake. I opened a few more presents. We watched American Idol curled up on the couch. We brushed our teeth, Jodi wished me Happy Birthday one more time and then we went to bed.

It was a very good day.

But people around me are still dying.

And though I woke up to the rain, it did go away for a while. It's supposed to make a comeback for a bit tonight and then it should leave us alone for the weekend. This is good, because we're going back to where Jodi is from--West Seneca, New York--for Mother's Day. I'm really looking forward to it and so is she.

Oh, and I realized what the meaning of life is.

I know it sounds strange, but I think I figured it out.

And it's really different for everybody, of course. But, at least for me, the meaning of life is only revealed when it's all over. And that's not to say that we are granted eternal consciousness. We don't get our wings or horns and then an instruction booklet. No, what I mean is that as we develop and grow though our time on earth we make choices and experience the fickle hand of fate. And the sum of all of these happenings are averaged out at the end of the equation and our answer is unique to each and every one of us.

We become people from nothing. 

We develop an identity. 

We meet people and make connections and change through the course of time. 

We acquire items and we sell or give them away. Sometimes they're stolen, sometimes they're won; sometimes they're lost forever . . . and sometimes found after years of indifference.

We send out cards and buy presents. 

We write thank you notes. 

We ask for favors. 

We make friends. 

We make enemies. 

We have great periods of self-consciousness. 

We have moments of daring--unrivaled and ferocious. 

We run screaming. 

We run, arms open, into each other. 

We laugh at ourselves. 

We laugh at each other. 

We laugh because crying won't come anymore. 

We get beaten up. 

We fight for our lives. 

We're late for the five hundredth time. 

We show up early and make others feel like they're late. 

We dress up. 

We dress down. 




We can't find our clothes.

We sleep all day. 

We stay up for three days in a row. 

We pass. We fail. We cheat. 

We cancel plans. 

We get stood up. 

We make up stories. 

We become legends. 

We have too much to eat. 

We get so hungry it hurts. 

We go to jail. We go to church. 

We get married. We have children. Sometimes they outlive us, but not always.

We visit. We talk. We shrug our shoulders and wonder if so-and-so will ever change.

We get sick.

We have visitors. 

We get healthy.

We leave balloons in the corners of rooms.

We go home. 

We live on fumes for weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds.

We die.

And then we are remembered.

And I believe that everything is revealed in that process. The meaning of life for each of us becomes apparent in how we are remembered. Because not all people are remembered fondly. Some people who are very bad people cause happiness when they leave this mortal world. That is a sad way to go but it happens all too often.

There are plenty of people who die before they've lived much of a life. I don't have an answer for that one. I can only speak for the way I feel about the experiences I've had. And up to now I've had enough to realize that if one makes it past certain benchmarks then things may start to make sense. 

And they're making sense to me amidst all of this death because I'm remembering the people I knew who have gone. I'm remembering the people I knew of who are gone. I'm reliving the works of artists I liked who have gone. And I'm thinking about what the hell I'm doing and what I've done.

And this idea--my idea of it all--is pretty oblique. It's not fair, that's for sure. Because if you can only truly know why you're here after you're gone then it's tough to gain any perspective of how you're doing. It's hard to look into your life and see what color it is. It's maddening to think that I may have cleaned up my act over the last few years, but to somebody who I insulted in 2003 who may not have known me after that point may someday--when I'm gone--have only that memory of me and not know what progress I've made. 

But none of that really matters. All that really counts is that it's not over until it's over. And having a definitive end is all one can either expect or hope for in this life.

My mom's 71st birthday would be this coming Monday, May 14. She had a definitive end, though I wish it hadn't come so soon. But she lived her sixty five years of life making each event singularly special, whether it was a new book she bought for me which she would ceremoniously cover in contact paper or finding a new place for lunch that gave out free carrot cakes with the bill. 

She was the best person in the world. I can safely say that now that her life has been over for a few years. Looking back and remembering her gives her life meaning for me even though I was such a big part of it. This is what I mean when I say the meaning of life will come when it's finally all over.

Some people have accused me of being overly accepting of myself. I have often done a job poorly and then chalked it up to just the way it went. I freely admit that. It's the way I am. My clean and sober self has fully come to terms with it.

And I think I am this way for a reason. 


I am this way because I never stop believing that that thing that didn't go so well will be forgotten about in time. Because the next thing that happens will be new and different and potentially life changing. Because the fire that burns in me has such a short attention span that while it may light an errant curtain aflame, it will surely be doused with the water from the rain storm that just came through out of nowhere. 

And if I can juggle all the hazards that come with an acceptance of everything then maybe I won't feel so self-conscious. 

Maybe I'll discover the next great thing. 

Maybe I'll just take a nap.

And so it goes into another evening. The dust got a break today. I just couldn't find the time to clean.

The camel, little bird, and rosette candle holders sit in a plastic bag in the other room shocked at the use they found after 37 years. They've even earned a couple more smudges of cake which I think I'll leave on.

The pictures Jodi printed of the two of our lives together are carefully stacked on the table. They'll find their way into a scrapbook soon. The colors and shadows from them make it look like clips from a movie. But it's all real. These pictures don't imply, they proclaim.

We'll scramble our things together and get ready for the big journey out West tomorrow for a nice weekend with the family--my new family, and a beautiful one at that.

And the furniture will sit on the uneven floors. The refrigerator will keep the food comfortable. The newspapers will stack up in our box and give us the straight scoop of our little town while we go to another one where the accents are different, but in equal measure to mine. 

And the meaning of life keeps changing for me every day.

It gets clearer. It gets foggy. It gets scribbled over. It gets a rewrite.

It seems like it goes on forever.

And then . . . it does.

Thanks for reading.

Happy Birthday, Mom.

Happy Mother's Day, moms.


I love you, Jodi. Today, tomorrow, forever.

All the best,

~FAJ 

Day one thousand five hundred and fifty three . . . No reserve.

We send out a lot of packages.

My mom and aunt were, how do you say . . . collectors. And as such when they died they left me with quite a collection of items.

Furniture, fine china, regular china, mirrors, dolls, toys, scarves, coats, gloves, hats--oh, the hats--tchotchkes of all shapes, sizes, colors, make and likeness, Polish folk dolls, German swizzle sticks and so much more.

I think you get the picture.

Well, it turns out that some of these things people are actually willing to buy from us. Not in a store mind you. No. They want to buy them on eBay, that veritable cornucopia of everything and anything the world has ever made.

The value of these items is not really a surprise. One of the many reasons these things were collected, as it were, was to some day sell. But we've been on a roll lately and it's always amusing to me how just about everything holds an interest to somebody.

Now, I'm sure that in 1973 when my Grandmother was haggling with one of the nuns at the rectory flea market over a set of mid-century modern carving utensils (new-in-box) she had no idea how the internet revolution would change the way we exchange money for goods.

And when my mom was buying me set after set of G.I. Joe Adventure Team figures complete with one of four different dress uniforms in blue with square snaps--not round--that she couldn't have really been aware that some day it would be worth about a shopping cart full of groceries.

But the years roll on and these things inevitably develop a special value all their own. Older people want to fill their china cabinets with the set that they grew up with--the one that their parents had to sell to put food on the new, much less expensive Corelle--the one with the green, lacy flower pattern. And for that they turn to eBay.

And middle age men like myself want to remember what it was like to be six again playing with their manly action figures dressed in hand sewn clothes complete with sixteen different types of molded plastic machine guns. They want to take care of these things like they never did when they were younger. They want that chance to care again. They want to feel that sense of wonder and innocence and it's-time-to-eat-dinner-so-you-better-stash-your-stuff-so-mom-won't-yell-like-she-did-yesterday--like she did everyday you didn't do what you knew you should. Because kids sometimes never learn. And when they grow up and finally do get some sense knocked into them--hopefully not literally--it's far too late. And that rusty can on a string turns into a cell phone blaring its hit song snippet from a hard-to-access coat pocket with the prospect of important news--news about things you may not want to hear, because it means you, young man, are now responsible.

And if I remember correctly, I couldn't wait to grow up so that people would stop telling me I was too young to handle that kind of responsibility, whatever it was.

Well, at least that's why I think grown men collect the dolls they had as kids anyway. I have my own issues, but hoarding, thankfully, isn't one of them.

But what I do know is that we sell a lot of stuff. We need boxes for all of it. We need bubble wrap for most things. We save our newspapers each day to stuff in said boxes so the Miss Revlon 18" "Big Sister" doll that I currently have for sale on eBay and is up to $75 doesn't rattle around too much on the trip to wherever she's going.

And we go through a lot of packing tape.

The rolls and rolls of tape we use is dispensed on the traditional hand-held device.

It's sharp.

It's effective.

It's made in Italy.

And the sound it makes is loud and very obnoxious.

To me the sound of the clear packing tape coming of its spool in one foot lengths is somewhere in the vicinity to the noise made by two or three sick and angry goats bleating in unison no further than four inches from my ear. Each pull from the highly effective tape dispenser sends shivers down my spine. Now, I realize that the sound is a good sound. It means that we're selling things. And selling means we're sharing what we have with the world. It signals that we are finally helping spread the items that one family curated for their own enjoyment over perhaps 100 years out to an untold number of people, not only all over this country but worldwide, too.

It sure beats getting a visit from Dr. Robin Zasio or Dr. Melva Green from Hoarders.

We sell stuff almost every day. And that means that we ship stuff almost every day. And, of course, that means that almost every day I get to hear the two or three sick and angry goats bleating in unison no less than four inches from my ear.

But today was different.

Today I realized that, once again, perspective is everything.

I realized that when Jodi is packing up her wooden Polish Easter eggs to send to a little old lady in Lake Placid the sound of the tape drives me crazy.

But when I do it I don't even realize it's there.

Interesting.

I realized--or moreover Jodi deftly pointed out to me--that it's the fact that I don't know the sound is coming--that I'm not the one doing it. It's only then that it annoys me. But when I have the tape dispenser clenched in my chubby little hands and I'm the one pulling it across a box filled with Old Mill Tap pencils from 1952, it's only then that it becomes almost imperceptible.

And there's so much I can take from that realization that after almost three months of not having anything to say on here that I had to share.

Because this relates so much to my life and the way I see the world.

When I try to get my point across and wonder why the other party doesn't see it my way, it's because they're not seeing with my eyes.

When a comment gets misconstrued and taken in a way I never intended it to, it's because they're hearing it through their ears, not mine.

When I wonder why it's so much easier then I thought it would be to just stay clean and sober and think how many lives in disarray could be turned around, it's because my life is mine and mine alone and as much as I try to shed light on where I've been and what I've learned nobody shares my experiences. Nobody.

And when we tell somebody we love them and we wonder why the smile on their face isn't as bright and eager as we had hoped for, it's because as much as we feel like we are one, and as many times as we almost say the same stupid thing in haphazard unison--as often as we reach for each other in tandem, giving credence to the idea that we are so perfectly meant to be together and there has never been anyone else in this gargantuan world out there for us, and we shall someday die together because life cannot hold a melted confederate penny's worth of meaning without one or the other--when the dust settles on the half-open bedroom blinds morning after beautiful morning we can only love through our own heart.

And that takes some getting used to.

I have to look at things with a new perspective. I have to see now that the things that ruffle my feathers--the petty comments and rude and inconsiderate behavior--these things that happen on the other side of my body that annoy the crap out of me I may in fact be doing myself and thinking nothing of it.

It's going to be a process of undoing some well-tied knots. I've come into my own over the last four years of sobriety. I feel like my life now is similar yet wholly different from the one I lived for the 20 years I used and abused. And while that time that's passed from my first day clean--the time that can really be qualified as the time contained in this blog from day one to today's one thousand five hundred and fifty third--that that time is in and of itself a lifetime to me. The things I've accomplished, the people I've met, the music I've made, the bridges I've built and the ones that have sadly and sometimes quietly washed away, and most importantly the true love I've found has all arranged itself into such a compact portion of my life that if it didn't come with such awful connotations I'd happily call it my baggage.

I like to travel and sometimes live for weeks out of a suitcase. It's not the most elegant way to be but it does teach what one really needs to survive away from the comforts of home. Every time I go away and come back I like to make note of which articles I took with me that I didn't use. I try to remember this for next time so I won't take them again. Sometimes it's a long sleeve shirt that I brought to the tropics; other times it's a pair of flip flops that were meant just for the pool when my everyday outdoor sandals did both jobs just fine. Either way I always bring a couple things there and back that I didn't need. So I guess it's not really a matter of what to bring but what to leave behind.

So in living this new life I have learned so much. Every day, for real, I find something new that amazes me and makes me want to wake up the next.

Today it was packing tape. Tomorrow it might be potting soil. Next week I may find illumination in a box of my mom's dance card pencils. I don't know.

But the thing that I think will always stick with me is to remember that this is my life, not yours. It's not the neighbor's life. It's not the life of the guy serving 10 years at Bridgewater for wire fraud. It's not the couple at the shelter's life. It's not the A-lister's life. It's not the cop that gave me a speeding ticket's life or the one that let me slide though that yellow light, either. And it certainly isn't my mom's or her mom's life even though I have almost everything they ever collected minus a few Hummels and Roseville vases.

This is my life.

This is the world as I see it through the two eyes in my head. My hands touch my world. My feet walk my path. My shoulders bump my walls on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. My ears hear my voice, my lips say my words, my brain understands what it can in the world that it floats along in in the head on my shoulders.

And my heart feeds my love for my girl.

I rarely had to use it for these purposes and I'm glad that it still runs after all these years.

But when I finally realized that my life is not yours. It's not his or hers or theirs . . . it was then that I could finally understand that I wasn't the only one here.

And that thing that bugs me to no end--that little pet peeve of mine or that sound that drives me crazy--once I understood that it's only because it wasn't me that was doing it that it affected me, it was then--or really it was today--that I think it started to lose its power over me.

And that's a heavy duty box of understanding right there, taped up on all sides and ready to get shipped out.

Now if I could only get those people who still haven't paid me for my mother's favorite doll to see it my way . . . .




Thanks for reading, as always.

It's good to be back.

Cheers,

~F.A.J.