The Gift Horse’s Mouth – R.E. Smith

R.E. Smith – no info on this author

A nice grisly story about summoning the intestinal fortitude to carry out a task beyond what you yourself could ever imagine doing.

You know, like cutting the head off a horse.

It’s amazing what a person can transform themselves into when a loved one is injured or just slighted.

I don’t feel the need to relate any stories of past cases where I have undertaken a deed thought to be “unsettling” one moment and completely within my realm of doing the next. – It has happened quite often with me. –

-Well not cutting heads off horses.

The Power of Language is Such That Even a Single Word Taken Truly to Heart Can Change Everything – Alvin Greenberg

Alvin Greenberg - May 10, 1932 – Alive and still writing

Wild pigs and the slight possibility that they have the ability to write.

Hummmm- OK, I’ll bite, chew and yup – I like it.

I have a problem. I have the strong suspicion that I sound crazy when I speak.

Crazy, stupid and not “all there”.

I’ve run this thought across M, and she assures me that in fact, I’m mistaken, and that I don’t sound like an idiot 99.99% of the time that I open my mouth.

Even with that assurance, I am very self conscious about the way I use words even if I think I use them correctly. But, I don’t think I have the ability to put them together correctly. I think that I have them in my basket; I just can’t sort them out into a sentence or thought that really conveys what I want to say.

In short – I don’t like the way I talk, and I think I sound unintelligent.

I’m about 3% away from actually being labeled intelligent...but not quite there. And I’ll never gain that mysterious 3%.

How do I listen, or interpret what is said to me?

Well, I do take about everything that is said to me to heart – at least for the first few seconds that it bounces around in my brain. I pass it though a filter, and I am able to distill out what I need to hold close and what I need to let go (which I can never really do).

Not all that surprising- I take a lot to my heart. I really value what a person says to me, and I feel that my reactions to what was said are solidly based on their utterance – rather than my own well developed opinion.

It takes a good while for me to develop an opinion. I need time to really absorb all the information that I can and to put it into my crazy order – only to, yet again, sound stupid.

I hear others in my circle of acquaintances speak, and they are very well spoken, and I just don’t match up to them. This intimidates me further.

So, words that are spoken to me or about me are very important. I give them great weight.

I don’t think there are enough people that truly take what is said to them to heart.

It’s unfortunate – but makes life interesting - maybe.

The Café de Paris – Roberta Gupta

Roberta Gupta – Found it difficult to find ANYTHING on this author.

The one little nugget that I did find gave further weight to the selection process that was “undertaken” by Gardner when he bore the weight of making selections for the BASS 1982.

The shot below is from the book – “Conversations with John Gardner” and is from the Washington Post profile of Gardner by Curt Suplee in 1982.

So, another “Gardner Person” neatly tucked away in the collection.

Fine.

I know I may seem to be going beyond being obsessive concerning this whole affair, but what I have done, is created this wonderful little game for myself where I simply have to find the connection between Gardner and the current author that I’m reading. It’s really not that difficult but as I mentioned in a previous post, I doubt the casual reader in 1982 would be able to make the connections that I have today (thanks Googles!).

The story-

This one took a few pages to get into, but once I did I found it quite readable.

I was almost in a position similar to the narrator of this story. Fortunate enough for me, I didn’t have to return to the Café looking for a love that I had discarded only to find that love missing.

I lost my mind for about a week back in 2000. I bailed out of “my reality” for awhile and part of bailing out was to discard the woman I loved and to tell her that what we had was finished.

I was under an extreme amount of stress, and the only way I was able to deal with it was to sever all ties to the life that I had been living.

I had every intention of walking away from a very important stage of my life.

I was one sentence, one signature from ending something that I knew I had to finish...but I just couldn’t find the strength to.

It was through the guidance of a good friend and a caring supervisor who calmly laid out the repercussions of what I was about to do, and in doing so, they talked me away from the edge.

Once away from the edge, I needed to decompress, and that took about a week. In that week, I found within me what needed to be done to complete my work.

But I had left someone very important to me crushed and bleeding in my wake.

When I returned to “my reality”, I was able to resume my life pretty much as I had left it. People who were impacted were told to “understand”...and they did.

Except for her. And, I can’t fault her for that. We were involved in a different way.

I walked back to that Café, and she was there. She waited for me. But the damage I did will last a lifetime.

I imagine that from time to time she wonders if I’ll ever check out of “my reality” again. I left a scar on her that is quite visible and a little deviation in my behavior can cause the old pain of that scar to flare up.

I think back to that week from time to time and wonder what would have happened if things turned out differently. I know for a FACT that I would not have the life that I do today.

It saddens me to think of what my life would have been...because I doubt that I would be as content as I am now.

I’m a lucky man to find a woman that waited, and one that waits for me day after day.

The Continental Heart – Lissa McLaughlin

Lissa McLaughlin – alive and doing quite well.

Well, it appears that we have a story from someone who is not a “Gardner Person”.

In his introduction to the BASS 1982, Gardner states that this story could be classified as unconventional fiction and as “powerful”.

I had a difficult time with this story when I first read it. Even after a re-read, it still leaves me a bit perplexed. This though is a beautiful thing. We don’t need to understand everything on its surface. Sometimes meanings come to us between the lines.

I think this is another story that was perfect for its time (1981). I’m not saying that it’s not relevant today...I’d argue that it can stand stronger today... in our world –.

2010

There are times, and these occur pretty often in my life, when the sun is at a certain angle in the sky, or the wind hits my face from a certain direction at a precise temperature, and a distant sound, or a shadow on a patch of dirt or grass catches my eye, I find myself transported out of my physical world into that of my memories.

Standing at a train window, in 1993 looking across the endless fields of southern Russia wondering if this is “home”.

Standing at another train window in northern Romania in 2000 wondering if running away from the woman that I love was the right thing to do.

Glancing out the window of my dorm room in Negresti and seeing her walking to me.

Sitting on a shady park bench in Romania in 1998 where I struggled to put my feelings into words in a letter home as tears welled in my eyes.

Watching a bee work from clover flower to clover flower as I sit on that same park bench in 1999, and knowing everything is going to be OK.

A dog barking in the distance – a cow mooing- as I sat on a hilltop in 1999 overlooking Negresti as the sunsets contemplating my worth to this world.

Staring into the mirrored wall of a bar at 3:00 a.m. in 2000, smoking my last cigarette and drinking yet another glass of Vodka and wondering if she will ever love me.

Sunlight shinning through the grape leaves on a cool morning in the spring of 2000, onto the table between us as I stun her with news that will change our lives forever.

A quiet morning on the banks of the Susquehanna River in 1994 – wondering what my future holds – and if I’ll ever amount to anything after a multi-year failed endeavor.

A Sunday afternoon sitting in my bachelor’s room in 1997 drinking my 8^th beer and wishing I was anyplace but there.

Hearing the Blue Danube Waltz played as “hold” music as I call my father in 1998 to tell him that I will be leaving in a few months...for a long long time.

Sitting at my desk at work in 2005, looking at the sun shining outside my window and wondering if the last 4 years here was the right thing to do.

The memories are stirred so easily in me, and these images will never be written over, and when, or if I ever, have my life flash before me in an instant – these are the visions that will appear.