John Swinburn

Television news in Europe differs from U.S. television news in many ways. It’s not just the language, but there’s that, of course. Aside from that, there’s the unvarnished stories, the facts clear and undistorted by concerns about upsetting sensitive viewers. The world, in its ugliness and horror and agonizing beauty, is presented for all to see. There’s no careful scrubbing of unpleasant reality, at least not that I’ve seen. Reality is presented as reality. Fearful possibilities do not fall under the skillful surgical knives of cosmetic editors, trained to carve away reality too brutal to see. It’s all there. Here, the prospect of horror is not an abstract concept of something that might happen somewhere else; it’s real, it’s here, it’s actual. Amid the glorious landscapes and fabulous buildings older than even the seeds of our democracy, there exists reality we try hard not to see. I suppose that, once seen, it’s impossible to unsee.

The next three weeks, more or less, promise opportunities for new experiences; diversity of thought, perspectives, and attitude. If I am the man I hope I am, I will absorb disparate viewpoints, treating them as the beacons of wisdom they might become. My appreciation for open-mindedness is anathema to some people, especially people running for President of the United States. And adherents of some of those people. As much as I value tolerance and broad-minded approachability, I find myself incapable of finding value and decency in people who assign value to others on the basis of units of self-serving productivity.

I may be naive; but I think there’s a huge and unappealing difference between European and American definitions of morality and values. I suppose the only way to explore that is to…well…explore that.

I’m not sure whether I’ll be posting here for a while. I hope to, but I cannot predict the availability of technological capacity, nor of intellectual capital.

I asked Father Facebook (not to be confused with Father Google) whether I should let my hair continue to grow in spite of its annoying habit of getting in my eyes, thereby driving me crazy, or cut it. Fickle Father Facebook gave me answers ranging from “cut it” to “pigtails” to “braids” to “man bun.”  One or two responses suggested a clean shave; I am afraid to do that, as the science of phrenology might reveal latent criminality I have heretofore successfully—more or less—hidden from public view.

The absence of uniform advice leaves me in less of a quandary than I might have expected. Instead, it gives me reason to believe I must make up my own mind. That, in turn, suggests my self-determination quotient remains relatively high, especially for an old man with a history of quibbling with himself over meaningless trivia. So the decision is, as it always has been, mine. The decision was made early yesterday, even before I queried Father Facebook; I would have my hair cut, feathered to keep it out of my face, but remaining long. Yet, by beseeching Father Facebook for an answer, I gave myself an opportunity to reverse the decision. And so I did. As of this very moment, I have decided to allow my long locks to grow even longer. When the hair on the side of my head grows two or three more inches, it will be long enough to gather the entire mass of keratin into a tail of some sort. What I will do with it then is anyone’s guess.

Yesterday afternoon, during a conversation with a friend about her interest in pursuing an advanced degree in fine arts, I had an epiphany of sorts. I came to realize I am not satisfied in retirement. I am not ready to experience a lifestyle in which my only concerns revolve around staying healthy and keeping occupied. In my mind, since yesterday’s visit, I have returned to an idea I had many years ago; it involves opening a restaurant/food truck/pop-up restaurant/something. I have no experience. That does not deter me. I may be deterred by something else, but my lack of experience does not do it.

I had a conversation today with a retired teacher who also seems not ready to call it quits, but I don’t know if she knows it yet. What she needs is an epiphany. I may give her mine when next we meet.

We’re taught to live by the rules. We observe as society sanctions people who break them. We watch those who deviate from the course judged appropriate by society suffer the consequences of nonconformity. Parents and teachers and churches and friends and employers collaborate to mold people into ideal models with only slight variations between them. Rules are necessary; not only to a civil society, but to a mentally healthy individual. Up to a point. Rules set parameters so we know what to expect from others (and ourselves), but they can crush creativity,  smother joy, and limit the questions we are willing to ask ourselves and one another.

We intentionally send mixed messages about following the rules. Films and books and stories we tell to one another often champion rule-breakers, individualists who refuse to conform; people who not only test the limits of acceptable behavior but rip past them with abandon. Rule-breakers simultaneously serve as heroes and villains, models of self-determination or selfish and immoral, self-absorbed egotists. Messages of caution usually accompany those tales. “Rule-breaking has consequences.” Serious consequences.

We dance so deftly on that fine line between condemning and condoning rule-breaking. I think the concept of rules, how and why we break them, and the inconsistency of the consequences of breaking them form an interesting topic for exploration. At the moment, I’m thinking of exploration in the form of essay, but perhaps it can take the form of fiction; maybe fiction can more easily show the inconsistencies.

Today, I will think about the rules I have broken—am breaking—and will  consider whether the topic really merits attention beyond a surface look. And that’s all I have to say about that. For the moment.

Imagine, if you will, that your life took a radically different turn years ago. Imagine how the arc of your existence would differ had you chosen a different path. Let me be clear, though. I am not asking you to consider how your material wealth might have been different; I am asking you to ponder how your internal life would be different. Since we’re talking impossibilities here, I also invited you to consider how you might be different if you had lived in different places in different times in history.

How would your perspectives on climate change differ from the viewpoint you hold today if, as a youngster, you moved to the Solomon Islands in the Pacific, to an island that since has either sunk beneath the surface of the sea or is in imminent danger of doing so?

Would your take on poverty and race be any different today if you had grown up on a cotton plantation in Alabama in the 1850s to a wealthy family? Would you,  a child to parents who viewed the destitute as lazy and personally responsible for their poverty? Would you have viewed black people simply as property, as if that’s just the way the world works?

From whom, or what, do we learn empathy? If your mother was highly empathic and your father was cold and callous, how did your capacity for empathy evolve?

I imagine a set of triplets—boys—separated at birth; one adopted by an Asian couple, Buddhists; one by a white atheist couple; and one by a black Southern Baptist couple. Do each of the three boys, when they reach adulthood, view the world through their brothers’ eyes? Or do they carry the baggage of the culture from which their maturity emerged?

Ever since my first sociology courses, and probably before, I’ve been fascinated by the ways in which individual human beings develop their unique outlooks on humanity and the world in which we live. For a time, I was of the radical opinion that society (meaning all of us, collectively) should try to inculcate in every individual fundamental values that would inform the person’s interactions with others. And, then, I realized that’s exactly what society has been trying to do for as long as societies have existed. The problems, of course, are legion. First, society’s attempts often fail; deviant behavior is and will be a fact of life in every society. Second, fundamental values differ by “tribe.” Third, internal and external forces on individuals and on society at large tend to change what constitutes fundamental values.

If I had been alive—every cell in my body, every element of my DNA exactly as they are now—and living in colonial Massachusetts during the time of the Salem witch trials, would I have been outraged at the injustice? Might I have been a man who aggressively prosecuted the people accused of practicing witchcraft?

These “what ifs” that involve me, personally, prompt me to ask very difficult questions about myself. Am I a product of my own making, or does my “self-determination” owe its existence to the trickery of socialization? Is the “me” I recognize in myself a creature rooted in my DNA or is that beast simply a manifestation of what I’ve been taught and what I’ve been fed (intellectually)? And, back to the original point, was the path I chose (or, I should say, the one thrust upon me with little to no objection) truly a choice? Had I chosen to be a stockbroker, might my ideas about the value and worth of integrity have gone far afield of where they are today?

The unfortunate aspect of being our own Petri dishes is that we cannot compare the cultures that grow in the dish we inhabit against the cultures that might have grown in a different environment. We cannot take that different turn, the one at age eight or age twenty-seven, that might have led to a radically different outcome; or that might have proven the immutable nature of our natures.

So, in the end, we can only wonder. “What if…?”

My plans for Saturday—just two days ago—were dashed when I awoke and picked up my eyeglasses. Actually, I picked up only half the pair; the other half remained on the bedside table. The metal frame had broken at a weld in the bridge, the piece connecting the two parts of the frame that hold the lenses. My immediate thought was “procrastination does not pay.” You see, I had been planning to order a backup pair of glasses ever since I got my new prescription lenses a few months ago. Planning and doing compete with one another. They are incompatible behaviors, controlled by parts of my brain I do not understand.

At any rate, my plans for the day were dashed. Instead of finally re-hanging the pot rack above the kitchen island (the rack I removed not long after we moved into the house because it was improperly anchored), I drove to Little Rock to spend $300 on two new pairs of glasses. At least I now have two operable pairs of glasses, including lenses and frames.

While we were in the big city, I took advantage by visiting department store shoe departments. I have been delaying shopping for shoes, one of my least favorite endeavors. But, the outcome of my procrastination in the eyeglasses department reminded me that bad things can happen to those who wait, so I searched for walking shoes, comfortable shoes I can wear during our upcoming journey, one that will involve a lot of walking. Score! I bought a pair of lace-up leather walking shoes. They are suitable footwear that will go with jeans, khakis, and slacks.

Had I not committed to other plans Sunday, I might have hung the pot rack yesterday. But I did have other plans yesterday, so I did not. And I have plans for today. And I have plans for tomorrow. And I have plans for Wednesday. Thursday may be good for pot rack hanging, but Robert Burns’ pondering about the plight of a mouse leaves me looking backward at what might have been and forward at what might yet be.

This is a revised version of Cameron Bay, a short story that won some contest or another a year or so ago. I was generally satisfied with it when I wrote it, but I am not a fan of love stories, so I modified the original to more closely mimic the real world of emotional upheaval.

Casey climbed the dimly-lit staircase slowly, laboriously, deliberately, the way men do when they reach their mid-sixties. With each step, his feet found purchase in shallow footprint-shaped indentations in the hardwood treads, worn smooth over the course of the eighty-year life of the house. At the top of the steps, he unlocked the trap door and pushed it up and open to the deck above.

As he swung the hatch open, early-morning light and the aromas of the ocean-side morning flooded the staircase. The early morning brew of seaside scents—salt water and seaweed and sea oats and fish—filled his nostrils. He climbed onto the deck, gripping the creaky paint-chipped railing with this left hand, then reached back to close the trap door behind him.

He slowly made his way to the far end of the deck, the end closest to the water, by holding onto the railing and shuffling along gingerly. He winced as he bumped against the railing with his leg. God, it’s been five months and my knee still hasn’t fully recovered from the surgery. He had left his cane below, so he dared not try to walk across the broad expanse of wooden planks. Supporting himself with the balustrade, he edged himself out to one of only two pieces of furniture on the deck, a pair of old green Adirondack chairs, and sat down.

Squinting against the early morning sun, he watched as four brown pelicans crossed in front of him, gliding effortlessly a few inches above the mirror-like surface of Cameron Bay. The water would awaken soon with the heat of the sun and the attendant wind current soon, but for now it was like glass.

Casey squeezed the arm of the chair with his left hand, wiping away welling tears with the right sleeve of his tattered fleece sweatshirt.

This will be the last time I sit on this deck, the last time I’ll see those birds scanning the surf for a meal. I never realized how much this place meant to me; this is so much harder than I expected.

His wife of thirty-one years, Alicia, had died four years earlier. He kept their seaside getaway partly because it had been her idea to buy it. Her motive had been to get Casey a place to relax, a place to unwind from the stresses of a struggling business. That had worked, beautifully. Though business had been hard and money tight, the house on the water had been cheap enough and sufficiently therapeutic to warrant the expense. But now, he had decided, it was time to move on with his life, time for a new chapter without the baggage of the old one. Jim, a real estate agent friend, had agreed to put the place on the market for him.

“Honey, are you up here? Casey?” He hadn’t heard Lina open the hatch behind him.

“Yeah, I’m here,” Casey said, wiping his dripping nose with his shirtsleeve, trying to erase the evidence that he had been crying.

Lina looked ten years younger than her fifty-six years, her youthful appearance helped along by good genes, hair-coloring, and clothes that flattered her buxom figure.

“I brought you some coffee, sweetheart. Thought you might like to sit up here with a cuppa before we get going.”

“Thanks, hon, I appreciate that. Yeah, that’s just the ticket.”

Lina handed Casey a mug, then sat in the chair next to him, her hands wrapped around her own mug for warmth.

She looked over at him and studied his profile. “Are you okay, honey? It looks like you have tears in your eyes.”

“I guess it’s just hitting me, is all. I didn’t expect to get all emotional over leaving this place, but I suppose that’s to be expected. I mean, I’ve been coming here for a long time. It’s been the place I’ve really been able to unwind and decompress, you know? But don’t worry, I’ll be fine. It’s just a little nostalgia. It’ll pass.”

Despite his best efforts at stoicism, Casey’s eyes flooded with tears.

“Aw, honey.” Lina took Casey’s hand and held it tight. “Are you sure you want to leave this place? You love it here. I love it here. I guess I don’t understand why you decided you have to sell it.”

“My time here is filled with memories of Alicia. I don’t want you to be forever in her shadow. It’s time for me to move on, for us to move on.” Casey’s eyes again flooded with tears.

He had wrestled with whether he would keep the place ever since things got serious with Lina. They met while Casey was undergoing therapy for his knees, before the orthopedist finally recommended he have knee reconstruction surgery.

Lina had been his therapist. As he sat on the deck with her, he remembered his first therapy session with Lina.

“Mr. Traeger, we’re going to try to make that knee work for you,” Lina said, “and you need to know the therapy’s going to be a little painful from time to time. But don’t worry, the doctor will prescribe an analgesic if you’re in too much distress. Do you have any allergies?”

“Pain.”

“Excuse me?”

“You asked if I have any allergies. I’m allergic to pain.”

His deadpan look did not appear to faze Lina. “Ah, I see, well we have ways of taking care of problems you might have with pain in your knee during therapy. If it hurts too much, just tell me and I’ll take care of it with a double negative.”

Casey took the bait. “What’s a double negative?”

“A double negative makes a positive. So if you’re in too much pain in your knee, let me know and I’ll punch you in the gut. Two negatives make a positive, right, like a double negative? That’ll make it all better, right?” Lina smiled.

“Hmmm,” Casey muttered, “I prefer a little morphine with my agony.”

“Honey, is that it? You think I’ll be forever in Alicia’s shadow?” Lina’s voice brought him back to the present.

“Well of course I’ll be in her shadow, and you’ll be in Ben’s shadow! I lived with him for twenty years and there’s no way that disappears. Look, if we love each other, and I think we do, we’ll adapt and adjust. I think you should wait on selling this place. You don’t need to prove you love me by erasing the memories of Alicia. I know Alicia is here. She’ll always be here. But as long as you’re here, I’ll be here, too.”

Casey turned toward Lina and saw that she, too, had tears in her eyes.

In the few minutes they had been sitting in the Adirondack chairs, the sun’s heat generated a slight breeze and the still waters of the bay had begun to respond.

Casey listened to the gentle sound of water lapping against piers, the call of gulls seeking their first meal of the day, and the growl of forklift engines in the marina across the bay. The far-off sound of a distant freighter blowing its horn as it headed for the open ocean added to the cacophony of noise, music to Casey’s ears.

“No, Lina. I’m afraid there’s too much baggage for both of us. Both of us say we’ll leave our spouses’ memories where they belong,  but neither of us is strong enough to do it. As much as I love this place, I have to leave it. Because I am afraid if I don’t leave Cameron Bay, I’ll leave you, or you’ll leave me.”

Lina’s eyes, suddenly wide open and dry, blinked.

“What the hell makes you say that? Why would either of us leave?”

“Lina, you’re not Alicia. And I’m not Ben. That’s why we’re leaving Cameron Bay. “