Beyond Bittersweet

A story grew in my mind while walking last night. I wondered what would happen to a man, were he shown all the hurt he has done to his loved ones, whether or not it was intended, in his lifetime. Could one read the book of his life, knowing the depth of the tragedies that hide in the shadowy depths of that most personal prose, the revealing memoir of a father, husband, and sometime friend, who traveled his life's path, blind to the terrible price of his passage? Will we all be forced to read that terrible tome as we pass that tearful veil? What if my father, seeking only to reduce my pain in the afterlife, revealed to me the awful truth tomorrow?

Would it be the near path to peace, or beyond bittersweet?

Beyond Bittersweet

When I thought I was talking to myself -
An ancient novel, alone on a shelf -
Full of regrets for mistakes and choices,
Written in many conflicting voices,
A sudden, cold draft blew across my spine -
Chilling each page, ev'ry chapter and line.
Then a specter, near silent, deeply sad,
With the low sepulchral voice of my Dad -
Cavernous, distant and unhappily
Spoke as the shade of my father to me.

His words brought no comfort, memories mild,
Or pleasant reflections to his grown child.
Instead he recounted in great detail,
Every time I endeavored to fail
At being a Dad, a husband, a son -
Recounting the battles I should have won,
And then counted up the tremendous cost
Of the useless fights that I fought, and lost.
The ceaseless onslaught drove me nearly wild,
Till he stopped and the spectral visage smiled...

"I've shown you the worst of yourself," he said,
"An accounting any sane man would dread;
Yet, every father since time began,
Whether or not he's a very good man,
Despite his intent and the care he takes,
Will make many thousand little mistakes -
For which, by his cosmic roll of the dice,
His loved ones ultimately pay the price.
A debt to his friends, descendents and wife,
That will haunt his soul in the afterlife."

"I've shown you the worst now," he spoke again,
"To spare you eternal and ceaseless pain;
To open your heart to the damage done -
A bittersweet gift for my eldest son."
Now satisfied with the message he gave,
My spectral scion, silent as the grave,
Like the barest wisp of smoky mist hies -
Except for his penetrating blue eyes
Which bore into mine, with a message clear:
"Feel sorrow for hurting those you hold dear,
Fix what you can, and then hope for the best -
And with forgiveness, you'll find peaceful rest."

In deafening silence, I saw myself -
An old, lonely book, weeping on the shelf...

Mick McKellar
September 2007

Are You a Blue Giant?

I learned an interesting fact today - about stars. Blue giants, the most massive stars, have the shortest lifespans. One would expect the opposite to be true, because they have by far the most fuel to burn. Yet, the truth is so vastly different from one's expectations.

They burn many times hotter than Sol (our Sun), and must create much more pressure from their fusion engine to counteract the mighty forces of gravity than a less massive star. Apparently Blue Main Sequence (the proper name) stars are the "gas hogs" of the universe. After all, a star's fuel is hydrogen gas...

When contemplating huge, burning bags of gas, my thoughts naturally turned to myself and my contemporaries. Why do the brightest luminaries "burn out" so quickly? Is it simple physics? Do they just consume their resources too quickly to survive?

Perhaps the lesson for us all, is that it's better to let your light shine at a comfortable, sustainable rate, and let it shine ten to a hundred times longer. Let your personal power illuminate lives, drive worlds, and sustain life. The blue-white hot beams of the Blue Giant would roast us all, leaving nothing alive to appreciate its beauty and its power. Better normal and with friends than exceptionally powerful and alone in the universe...

Scenic Overlooks

If my life is a highway, I've been spending far too much time in the scenic overlooks and not enough visiting with friends. Before the advent of the limited access Interstate highways, scenic overlooks were a rarity. Oh, there were plenty of roadside stops with grand vistas and interesting sights, but the concept of the "easy-off" and "easy-on," don't even bother to get out of your car scenic overlook came with the superhighways.

Long years ago, before the death of my mother in 1990, I traveled with my parents on a couple of roadtrips -- on motorcycles. It is possible to travel on two wheels on the Interstate, but motorcycles are just made for the curvy, narrow, and vastly more complex network of highways and by-ways that don't sprout a concrete cloverleaf and merging traffic ramps every ten miles or so. On the seat of a cycle, you are part of the journey, not just a passenger in a metal and plastic box.

To avoid the ever-nascent saddle-sores from riding over-long without a break, we stopped regularly and often. It made the journey a bit longer, but it made the journey part of the experience, profoundly to be enjoyed, not merely endured. Besides, riding a motorcycle on any road is risky, even dangerous, and requires constant vigilance and the most defensive type of driving. Breaks just made good sense and safer travel.

I believe that living my life requires the same mind set. I love being able to speed in and out of the traffic in the stream of consciousness that makes up my life. As long as I can, I want my mind to soar along on two wheels when convenient and on the wings of thought when possible. I'm not a plodder, and I don't drive a mental Buick. I like to believe that my mind is perched atop my Candy-Apple Metallic Red 650 Honda Silver Wing, with my hand on the throttle and my feet on the riding pegs. I'm braced for acceleration and ready for the roar of the wind in my face and the rumble of the V-twin underneath.

Alas, it's a dream only. I was forced by lack of cycle parking at work, the very short summers of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and my soul-mate's unwillingness to ride pillion on my saddle, to sell my ride or journey alone when lack of snow permitted it. Still, the dreams are great and the memories are bright and lively, and especially poignant because my parents live on in those dreams. How could I ever forget following the dim glow of the taillight on my Dad's Gold Wing as we fought our way across the mighty Mackinac Bridge in a force-5 gale? Or forget the look on my daughter's face (she was riding behind me) as she discovered not a single dry spot on any of us after the crossing?

If my life ultimately becomes a panorama of such vivid vignettes, a summer block-buster collection of tangible and touching mental high-definition video treasures, I will consider myself a lucky man.

My recent visits to the scenic overlooks near the path of my life's journey notwithstanding, I have plans for more mental pilgrimages and many more long, lovely, and lively stops at all the best roadside rest and re-creation sites along my journey. You can bet I will do my best to avoid saddle-sores!

Mick

Ever-present Shadows

We all dwell on the edge of shadows, even when we get together to share the brightest sunshine on the warmest day on the friendliest beach in the Keweenaw. The cool, somber shadows of the verdant forest loom near, drawing boundaries for our brilliant sun-lit fields and promising respite from the glare. It can sometimes be easier to see the path in the shade, yet the darkness often hides dangers which we must recognize to avoid a stumble or a fall.

The shadows are always darkest when the sun is in your eyes, and it's usually when walking into the sun that I trip over the raised edge of the winter-heaved concrete sidewalk, or the errant tree-root searching for a non-paved patch of earth. There are always shadows and they seem always to be inhabited. From time to time, I dwell there myself -- whether seeking relief from the too bright and too hot sunlight, or just trying to stay out of the searchlights when life is seeking another target for interesting events.

Most people seek to spend at least some of their time in the sunshine of friendship and camaraderie with their fellow travelers on Earth. Some of their time will be spent crossing patches of shadow and traveling in the dark, while seeking the light. However, there are shadow dwellers who never seem to come out of the darkness, whose life is so focused inwards they cannot, without help, move from the twilight to the daylight. They can, perhaps, no longer see the path out of the darkness, or they fear getting lost on the way.

Perhaps, it is a worthy goal to occasionally reach into the shadows and help a darkened soul find the light of life and life in the light.

Mick

Ever-present Shadows

Although life is such a marvelous gift,
Each day sings brightly enough, it must lift
The spirits of even the dreariest,
And dry the sorrows of the teariest
Hiding among the throngs born of Adam.
For those whose smoothest path is macadam,
Instead of finding the journey a thrill,
They complain their paths are always uphill.
Focused inward, they missed the bright meadows,
And somehow ended darkly, in shadows.
They wander and moan in the dim half-light,
And stare from the darkness, just out of sight,
Silent eyes pleading for help and release
From shadows eternal - dark without cease...

Mick McKellar
July 2007

Pierced by Time's Arrow

Is it odd that I ponder a Quantum world:
Einstein's space-time, warped and curled,
With ten or eleven dimensional space
Being "relative" all over the place?
Or should I very Newtonian be,
And use Absolute Space as my theory --
Surrounding Earth, above and beneath her:
Newton's luminiferous aether...?

This is what happens when you can't sleep - your thoughts get deeper and deeper into strange territories - for example, some of my old mental stomping grounds: information theory, quantum mechanics, Newton's Bucket, and the awful reality of Time's Arrow. Although physical laws make no distinctions regarding a temporal direction, only Merlin was said to be able to "remember" the future. Why does information, when incomplete, tend to propagate and fill in the gaps, behaving like an entity as alive as crabgrass, and just as hard to manage? Is a probability wave faster than the speed of light, just like the thought that carried it instantly to the edge of the universe, is it a moot point because of quantum entanglements making us all one, though light-years divide our physical locations? Finally, if all of space and time are relative (thank you, Einstein!), does the idea of "now" even have a meaning?

That's why I think my friends will eventually find me, totally sleep-deprived and pierced through the heart by Time's Arrow…

Mick

Pierced by Time's Arrow

How long can my fragile sanity last,
When stretched and torn between future and past?
How do I navigate life's river run,
When I should be two, but am only one?
You see, what's causing the problems for me,
Are those pesky old laws of entropy.
Specifically, what's caught in my craw,
Is that Thermodynamics Second Law:
Despite my best efforts, I have one fate -
My life moves toward a disorganized state,
And though I try hard to "live in the now,"
That now just keeps moving away, somehow...
Till when I die, in frustration's barrow -
Pinned to the past and pierced by Time's Arrow.

Mick McKellar
June 2007

Circle of Victims

Call it what you will -- downsizing, right-sizing, layoff, firing -- separating someone from their job is a brutal act.

Oh you can try to be compassionate, caring, and controlled during the surgery, but done with a mercifully quick and sharp scalpel or a dull and rusty axe, it is an invasive surgical procedure -- and there will be blood and there will be pain.

As with any trauma, even with compassionate care and treatment, recovery takes time and understanding. There are always those individuals who never quite recover, despite liberal application of TLC: Time's Long Consolation. No amount of consideration or commiseration consoles these souls, and they carry the scars of the sudden surgeries throughout their lives -- they truly see themselves as victims -- no matter how long they cruise alongside Time's Arrow.

Perhaps the saddest reality of this epic, tragic life-opera is the circle of victms created by each and every job separation - whether it be necessary or not; justifed or not; professionally, compassionately, and swiftly done or not. When the military talks about a surgical strike, they also have to talk about collateral damage. By and large, collateral damage is people - a circle of victims that radiates from the center of the strike.

In organizations where job elimination or layoffs occur, there is collateral damage, there is a circle of victims.

Who are the individuals in this circle?

I believe one of the primary reasons so many organizations have changed the name of their personnel offices to Human Resources is the elimination of the "person" in personnel. Resources are things like dollars and widgets and time. You can't hurt time's feelings, or affect the health of a widget, or see a dollar cry. As when bombing from 20,000 feet - the collateral damage is invisible - you cannot see the upturned and horrified faces of the circle of victims. They are just marks on a map or numbers on a spreadsheet. But they are there.

Family members suffer when the wage earner is suddenly no longer earning wages. They see the tragedy written on the ex-worker's face every day, and they have to watch as he or she struggles to cope or fails to cope - crashing and burning in front of them. They get to re-live the tragedy, day in and day out. The family is there for future relapses and flashbacks.

Co-workers are not unaffected by a colleague's sudden disappearance. Workloads shift and other jobs are reassessed. Responsibilities shift and the ground moves under their feet. The thin veneer of security they may have used to delude themselves about the stability and solidity of their jobs has been stripped away and illusions are now shattered. Look in their eyes and you can see the doubt that runs through their veins like a poison. Add a large dose of "survivor's guilt" and they become "unstuck" in the hierarchy. They not only have to think outside the box, they can see the large hole in the bottom of the box, and they are frightened.

Supervisors forced to remove someone from a job, particularly a long time employee, can be victims themselves. The front office may see nothing other than a number bumping against the bottom line, but the front-line supervisor sees a face, hears a voice, and has memories of interactions that will not go easily into any good night. There are many others affected by such changes - customers, friends, volunteers, vendors, clients, and the list goes on. They all have faces and they all have stories.

Speaking of stories...

Let me tell you one about a friend of mine from more than 30 years ago. I was working for Social Security and worked with pleasant fellow I shall call Frank. Frank was a compassionate interviewer and a very good claims representative. On a Thursday afternoon on early spring, he interviewed a young lady for Supplemental Security Income benefits, based on a disability. He completed his interview by informing the young lady that she did not qualify because her living circumstances precluded payment of benefits (she was already being supported by her family) and that she should come back when her living situation changed. She was quite upset, but Frank was a skilled and caring fellow - and he calmed her down.

The next morning we all received the shocking news that the young lady had gone home and killed herself in a fit of despondency. Frank looked sick and turned rather pale. We could all see that her death was affecting him, so we all reassured him, but he was inconsolable and went home for the rest of the day.

Monday morning came, and Frank did not show up for work. He did not answer his phone or his door. When family finally entered his home, they found him dead of a heart attack, apparently on that fatal Friday. Frank's decision was the right one. He handled his interview as skillfully and anyone could. His conscience should have been clear and rationally he was in the right. Yet the rash action of the young lady created a circle of victims that included our colleague, whose heart attack now widened the circle of victims. I don't remember the young lady's name, but I will never forget her face as she left that Thursday. I will never forget Frank's face when he was told of her death. I will never forget the faces of my co-workers when we learned of Frank's death.

This may seem an extreme case, but I can just as easily remember every nuance and every detail of 8:03 AM, Thursday, August 12, 2004. I was standing at the right side of my desk when two Directors walked in, demanded my office key and my ID card, and then gave me 15 minutes to clean out my desk, shut down my computers, and leave. I remember the look in their eyes, the little nervous smiles at the corners of their mouths, and the hollow sound of their empty words. They said it was nothing personal, just a necessity brought about by budget cuts and reduced state spending. Yet, as I write this, the desolation and loneliness I felt rushes back and must be pushed aside once again. After nearly three years, the wound is still raw. I did not believe them then, and I do not believe them now.

I am not a human resource, I am a human being. I live, I feel, I love and I pay taxes. Most of all, I hate feeling like a victim or part of a circle of victims. Though such things are part of daily life, they remain tragic and painful. I only ask that those charged with discharging others from their careers, jobs, and livelihoods, should bear in mind that it is never a good thing, and that they are dealing with people, not numbers - and for that reason they need to be mindful of the circle of victims that may include even their own fragile, flickering flames...

Wearing the Mantle

I wear the mantle of my heritage, although it is not by plan or design. Who I am is here for all the world to see. The history of my life is written in my face; the sorrows displayed in the furrowed brow, the laughter in the creases next to each quiet brown eye, and all the passion for life glimmering from my eyes -- a deep and deathless fire glimpsed only as though it were a candle's flame seen at a great distance. Those witnessing the sudden flare of that fire in those quiet brown eyes, and feeling the heat of the passion surging forth upon need, remember well the surging life-force beyond the heat of the moment's demands and tread carefully when trespassing on that ground a second time. All this is without thought or conscious planning, but is the result of lessons learned as a child, ethics absorbed from parental attention to the details of my life, and the furious love given to me by my ancestors, via my parents, to be passed on to my descendents.

The office I share at Pine Mountain Music Festival has a marvelous old mantle, with mirror and shelves for the icons of my life -- at least, those I'm willing to share at work. The image above left shows the few items I've chosen to bring to work, at least for the moment. We moved into these offices only two weeks ago, and I am still uncertain how much I wish to invest in the space that holds my time and talents for a full third of my life, five or more days each week.

I brought an alarm clock. We occupy the second floor of the Quincy Mine Office, an historical building -- part of the Keweenaw National Historical Park -- which must be maintained as an historical building should be, without driving nails into the lath and plaster walls, and certainly no modern clocks mounted anywhere. So, I bought an inexpensive twin-bell old style alarm clock. It is functional, useful, and fits the decor -- pretty much the same way I do...

I brought a picture of my wife, Marian. A life-partner for over 35 years already, there is little that I say or do, anywhere, any time, that does not cast a double shadow on life's canvas. She deserves to be there, and I need her to be there, silently observing my efforts to provide for us.

I brought images of my children. I can no longer remember what our lives were like BC (Before Children). When younger, their needs ruled my life. Now, of course, I need to make an appointment to see them, because their lives are accelerating rapidly toward the future, and they have less time for quiet chats and long discussions about nothing at all.

I brought a gift given by friends at a job I left a long time ago. It is a reminder that one can really part company with office mates and colleagues, without rancor, pain, and grief. I need that reminder because I was suddenly separated from the job I held immediately before this one. It was snatched out from under me, along with dreams and hopes, investments and plans, peace and a quiet retirement. Poor resource management, bad planning, and "the revenge of the Sea Gull Supervisor," combined to steal away a 17+ year career, and any respect that I had for my alma mater. It left me devastated. Dead to my family and grieving for lost dreams, I plunged into darkness for almost two years. I found work again. I found friends I could trust. I found self-esteem and a way to start again. But so much had been lost, that it took a long time and a lot of prayer to lead me past the shadows, and let me stare past the abyss of 2004 - 2005 and see the happy days past. That's why I need the ship on the shelf.

I brought a picture of the cast of Arsenic and Old Lace. I played Officer O'Hara in the production, and re-connected with my ability to reach out and listen to fellow players, respond to an audience, and feel again. We all play roles in our lives. One only needs to play a role on stage to sense the truth, and to recognize the same feeling when playing a role with friends, relatives, coworkers, and others. I need to remember this, so that I can avoid the role-playing which destroys communication.

I brought a framed needlepoint from my daughter, Heather. It says simply, "Eschew Obfuscation." A gentle reminder that I tend to bury clear thought in dense and expensive language, that phrase is ever with me, and the gift from Heather stays with me to prevent writing and speaking that is "replete with stinkiosity!"

I think I shall bring more. My grandchildren (3 grandsons and I gorgeous little granddaughter) have invaded my heart, and their images should surround me at work. Other memories will come and go, seasonal things, and unexplainable trinkets will likely appear and disappear -- memories on parade and dreams growing anew -- the ever changing icons on the mantle of an old fireplace, reflecting the ever changing mantle of my heritage, once again worn proudly for all to see.