Old Photos

I returned to Oakland today after a week in Ojai, where I lived with my wife for 20 years. We raised our two children there, and lived in the same house which over those two decades we remodeled and expanded, making it entirely our own.

Now, after almost 30 years of marriage, Stephanie and I are in the midst of a divorce. It was a long time coming, and we both worked very hard to reconcile. At times, it felt like we might succeed. Ultimately, we didn't. That's why I live in Oakland now, 350 miles north.

But I still have close friends in Ojai, and it's a lovely place loaded with good memories for me. The house, too, is loaded with good memories, and also with stuff: everything a family accumulates over a lifetime together. Well, half of a lifetime anyway, at least as far as my life is anyway.

Among all that stuff, of course, are a lot of photographs. In total, I suppose there's a good-sized trunk full of them. On this trip, I brought back a couple of small boxes. When I got "home," (Oakland is, for the time being, "home;" not simply home) I put myself to the task of putting away the photos.

There are a couple of problems with that task. First, compared to the house in Ojai, I have a tiny amount of space. I don't know where I'll put any of it. Second--and this is the larger problem by far--I had to look at the photos. There's one, taken on a camping trip with my son, Drew, who was 4 at the time. We went backpacking in Yosemite with three other dads and their young boys. We're all perched on a huge granite boulder overlooking a pristine alpine lake.

Another photos was taken in Paris. Stephanie and I went there with Drew when he was just 11 month old. He took his first steps in Paris. There's Stephanie, smiling in front of some great stone building, the stroller at her side. She's beautiful, and fit, and happy.

There were other photos of Stephanie. In one, taken in our first house in Santa Monica, her face is covered with white cream--I think this is called a mask among the cosmetically informed--a not-unfriendly "why are you taking this?" smile on her face.

There is a photo of me and Stephanie together, taken when we were both teachers and had chaperoned the prom. We were in formal attire: me in a tux, of course, and her in a slinky black gown with see-through netting about the shoulders. She looks very sexy. As neither of us went to our own proms, we always referred to this as our prom photo, and at the time it was taken I remember thinking that this completed a portion of my life that felt undone. With Stephanie, my life at that time felt complete.

There are many pictures of my daughter, Kelsey. In one of them, taken when she was about two, she wears a little purple dress, and on a chair she is posing her cloth doll, who is wearing a dress that's the same shade of purple. She is every bit as purposeful as the photographer.

Photos of my mother were in the box, too, including her high school graduation photo, taken in 1935. She has short hair in tight curls, and by contemporary standards looks more like someone in her mid-twenties than an 18-year-old. There's a photo of my father, taken when he was perhaps 50; 10 years younger than I am now. The photographer captured a moment when he appeared to be about to break into a laugh.

Sorting through all of these pictures, I couldn't help but be overcome by nostalgia and sadness. My dad died in 1984, my mom in 2007. My son is off in New York. My daughter, who lives in Emeryville--just a couple of miles from me in Oakland--will in September head to France to complete a Master's Degree. Stephanie and I are in the midst of divorce. The house is for sale.

How swiftly things change. How brief is our time in this life. I think and hope that at the times they were taken that I appreciated that moment for all of the richness that it possessed. I hope I looked through the lens when taking a picture of Stephanie holding our infant son, and savored how blessed, how truly and remarkably blessed I was to have such a beautiful wife, and such a beautiful son. But every moment is not captured in a photo, and every moment is equally rich, really; even the most mundane one. This afternoon, rain was pelting down. I stood under an awning, talking with Drew on the phone. He's shopping for an apartment in Brooklyn and wanted my advice on it. As we spoke, there was a flash of lightning, and thunder shook the clouds. "Did you hear that! My god!" I said.

I'll forget that moment in a day, or a week, or a month, or a year, and there is no photo of it, but in its totality, it is magnificent, a moment in which I knew this: I'm close to my son. He seeks my counsel. I desire to help him. I'm proud of him. He has accomplished so much, and has so much to look forward to in his life. The weather holds forth, a glimpse itself of the magnificent forces at work in the world, a backdrop to this small and meaningful exchange between the my son and me, 3000 miles apart.

When my mom was living in Kensington, an assisted living place, I drove up from Ojai to spend a couple of days with her. Neither I, nor anyone else, suspected that she had only a couple of months more to live. She was active, and in good spirits. She had made interesting friends at Kensington. Her apartment was tidy, but small. I slept on the sofa in the living room that looked out into the garden. I remember lying there and reflecting on how grateful I felt to be able to visit her, and how happy it made me that she was doing well, and was at 90 just as bright and good humored as always. I have no photo of that time. Sorting through all of her belongings only a few months later, after she had passed away, I would be almost overcome by the volume of it, by the depth of it, by the time it chronicled which was now, with her loss, all gone.

I have wonderful memories of my life with Stephanie, and of raising my children. We traveled, we had parties, we entertained friends, we helped each other through struggles and sickness, we had setbacks and victories, disappointments and surprises... it was all so beautiful and so much more vast than any collection of photographs could ever capture. These few that I looked at today are hardly a glimpse of what has been a very good life that I'm extremely grateful for and proud of, my many missteps and failures notwithstanding.

Number Four in the Trilogy

I am struggling--struggling, I say!--with the fourth installment of my Chronicles of Huttle trilogy, Huttle on Fire. Yes, I know that when it's done I could call the collection a quartet, but that sounds like it ought to have a standup bass and a snare drum in it, so it will remain a trilogy.

This is humor, people.

Anyway, my struggle is this: I don't know how to define or describe the central conflict of the book! In The Spy Who Loathed Me, FBI Agent Terrence Tillberry is in love with KGB Agent Petra Tarasova. There's lots of intrinsic conflict there, and when you throw in the fact that Petra couldn't care less about him, and that everything he does to get her attention only makes him look like more of a jerk, well, there's plenty of space for humor.

Sometimes, the central drive of the story is apparent from the beginning. Arguably, that's an easier course to take. However, I enjoyed no such luxury with the first two books, In Huttle We Trust, and Huttle to the Rescue. I started with a character, Tom Huttle, who had a quest. In the book In Huttle We Trust, he wanted to complete his first book, titled Garbage.  In Huttle to the Rescue, Tom wanted--and believed he was poised to receive--a prestigious writing award. In both cases, severe and myriad complications arises as Tom sought his goal.

So far, Huttle on Fire has not revealed to me a concrete goal for Tom to seek. I've written fifteen chapters, and Tom done a number of things, and been tested to some degree or another in each chapter... yet the core; the thing that is driving him--remains elusive.

However, without revealing the plot in any way, I have been circling around some tantalizing themes, which I will expand upon at the end of this post. You see, humor is not just pies in the face and slipping on banana peels--though that is a good and worthy brand of it. Humor is also the human condition; sharp truths revealed with wit, so they cut deeper. Ultimately, the humor of a piece has to inform not only the plot, but the theme of the book. So, below are some of the areas I'm touching on. As the character develops and learns, the themes emerge. In the end, if I've done my job correctly, both the character and the reader have a little more knowledge about themselves, and about life.

Here's what I'm playing with.

THREADS & THEMES:

1) TOM BELIEVES HE MUST ENDURE PAIN TO BE A MAN OF VIRTUE. (He learns that sometimes, pain of some type is a consequence of remaining true to yourself and to your aspirations, but that pain itself does not impart virtue.

2) TOM BELIEVES HE IS UNIMPORTANT AND WILL BE IGNORED, EVEN WHEN HE HAS A SOLID CONTRIBUTION TO MAKE. (He learns that he must have faith in his own qualities and step bravely forward day-by-day and hour-by-hour. He will be heard how he’s heard—not exactly as he might like in any given instance—and he must calibrate his actions accordingly, or not. What others think of him is none of his business)

3) TOM BELIEVES THAT THE WORLD IS ONE OF THREAT AND STRUGGLE. (He learns that the world is neutral. There are good people and bad ones; fewer bad than good. Everyone is struggling in some realm or other.)

4) TOM BELIEVES THAT THE ONLY TYPE OF PERSON WHO CAN OVERCOME THE NATURE OF THE WORLD IS REALLY NOT HUMAN AT ALL. (He learns that to be human—experiencing the full range of sorrow and elation available only to people, in the moment and in all its dimensions—makes the world a place to treasure and be grateful for.)