Winter Solstice 2008

Today is the winter solstice. Last night marked the starting point of a ten-day transition to the beginning of a new year. For us it is a magical period when each moment seems to stretch and slow. It is a time of reflection and preparation, a time to celebrate and to relax.

On the morning of solstice eve, we wake to find our world obscured by fog. As we allow it to envelope us, whirlpools and eddies swirl around us, much like events of the previous year. Its tendrils caress our faces, weaving masks before our eyes, requiring us to rely on other senses. Its silver spell alternates between a blanket and a shroud, in some moments providing comfort through obscurity, in others an obstacle as we stumble our way through it by feel. Mostly, the fog acts as a veil, concealing what lies before us until we are ready to confront it. In that way, it acts a blessing.

In the translucent air, lily pads float on a glassy lake as unrippled as a pan of mercury reflecting a silver sky. Only the narrow trails behind mallards and marsh hens allow us to distinguish the water from the fog. A thin veil of marsh gnats dance in elaborate figure eights like faeries practicing school figures as they celebrate the air.

Cobwebs form strands of tinsel and dew bejeweled garlands that drape across the cypresses and red cedars, visitors in our home from previous winters that we have set free to take root in the wild for others to enjoy. As we approach, they rise like sentinels from the fog, emerging like monuments on a battlefield, reminders of our past glories and the comrades that we've lost. Upon closer examination, individual pearls of dew transpose the scene behind them, reflecting an upside down world come to rest upon its head.

After a time, the fog rises into a looming cloud in a transition as stark and steady as a gray curtain ascending, an airy barrier between clarity below and obscurity above, with only low hills and shallow valleys providing any topography between the two.

As the day grays, the fog drifts into an overcast of hammered pewter. While we prepare for dusk, distant angels of snow arrive with messages that tickle our noses, reminding us to laugh. Even our elders remember how they once had fun and are delighted to share their antics with us like the children they once were.

By twilight, a high wall of clouds rings the horizon, a seemingly insurmountable rampart. But the sun glints through a chink in its mortar like a brilliant candle blazing behind a keyhole, waiting only for us to peer inside.

On our journey home, an infrequent friend gives us an infrequent greeting, reminding us of another who recently was lost. Were we to strike a candle for every missing friend tonight, we would swim in yellow light. Beyond the windows, we erect a barrier of candles to barricade our minds against the pensive mood that begins to settle as this longest night descends. Tiny lanterns provide a beacon through the darkness as a revitalized mist seeks to infiltrate our musical celebration with melancholy, with marginal success. We leave a single sentry flickering to watch over us as we sleep.

The first day of the winter dawns with the sun capturing the barest shadow of yesterday's fog in its misty rays before they eventually burn away. With clearer eyes, we brew the mead that we hope will decant the light and magic we feel as gift to share with our fellow travelers as we stumble down the road together.

No matter how dark or obscure today might seem, we know tomorrow will dawn a little brighter as we are slowly reborn into a new cycle. Yesterday's fog was like a faerie mist bearing the gift of forgetfulness to everything it touched, unchaining us from the previous year's remembered pain. For a few days, we are light and free. The past is set aside as we focus on the future, until it, too, transitions to a memory as another cycle burns away.

As always, no matter how dim your previous day or evening, I hope your Solstice will be warm and bright.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Expectations

I get the feeling some people are expecting me to say something this morning. That somehow I will be able to capture the historic nature of last night in a way that they cannot.

I hesitate to try. Nothing I say about the election can live up to those expectations. I can bring it no greater meaning than my own.

After the polls closed on the West Coast last night, a friend of mine from high school called me. He was excited that the networks had officially declared the election for Obama. After we had talked for a few minutes, I asked him what his mother, who had died a few years ago, would have thought. He told me that growing up, she used to tell him that while he could do almost anything he wanted to do in this country, he would never be President. Because he was black. I think she would have been tickled to see this day, though perhaps not for the reason you might think.

This was a woman who taught me the meaning of being colorblind. She adopted each of her son's friends as her own. She cared for us, nurtured us. She helped us work through our problems. She protected us, at least where she could. She didn't care about our backgrounds or heritage or skin tones; her son's judgment of our character was good enough for her. She was the village auntie who wouldn't hesitate to set us straight in her own gentle but authoritative way.

I think what she might have been most pleased with out of this election was that for the vast majority of Americans it was not a referendum on race. For most of us, it was about policy, about character, about outlook and direction, whether our candidate won or lost. Race was incidental. As it should be. For that, I think she would have been most proud.

Don't be fooled by the pundits and experts this morning citing how this demographic or that voted by percentages. People are not monolithic, not by gender, not by religion, not by skin tone, no more than by the color of their hair or eyes. The experience of having certain qualities changes us; they don't define us in absolutes. If you don't believe that, have a conversation with a redhead or two some time. Or an Abenaki. Or a Jew. Each has a different perspective on what it meant to grow up in this country, some of which was directly shaped by how they were treated and perceived.

My aunt, who had a double-shot of my splash of native blood, used to get hassled at the beach back in the '50's and 60's because people thought she wasn't white. That experience changed her, just as hearing her retell it years later changed me. She always wanted me to be proud of that sliver of my background. My grandfather wouldn't talk about it, because of his father's and grandfather's experiences I'm told. He lived in New England, not Selma, but his society's expectations still changed him.

As my own changed me. The friend I spoke with last night was once told by my high school girlfriend's parents not to come around alone to see her, at least not to the front door. They were concerned with what the neighbors might think. One member of my own family used to joke that my dark complexion came from all that "nigger blood" in me. This was acceptable behavior at the time. This wasn't segregationist or backwoods Florida. This was an educated suburb in the early '80's, a stone's throw from the Cape. Canaveral, not Cod.

Though they still make me angry sometimes, those memories belong to the past now, not the present. I think we can finally say we've moved on.

Do we have different expectations of this President-elect than of any one previous? I hope not. He is a man, not an icon. He will certainly make mistakes. And we, as a nation, will continue to stumble forward, hopefully toward a better future, for our children or our grandchildren, if not always for ourselves.

Cleo, if you are looking on this morning, I hope you are smiling. For myself, I am content that we have redefined at least one expectation in this country. Though I can see from some of the returns last night that on a number of other issues, we, as a nation, still have a long, hard path ahead.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Samhain 2008

Samhain. Nos Calan Graeaf. Summer's end. The first of winter's eve. The sun descends and the shadows move. Aflame, a chariot disappears beyond the horizon. A pale reflection of her departed brother, the huntress rules the night. Will we pack or prey?

Each day, we play different roles, sometimes changing by the hour. Magician, lover, warrior, king. Ingénue, vixen, amazon, priestess. Father, husband, son. Mother, maiden, crone. Each of us longs to be someone else at times, covets another's life. We wish to pack our cars and move away, to start again, only younger and wiser. Instead, we continue drinking at the masquerade, the music and clinking of glasses covering the agony stalking beyond the safety of our walls.

Tonight, we throw open the gates and pry away the mask. Stringers of adhesive cling to the emptiness we call our face. Peering behind it, we find our subconscious has become an ossuary filled with bones sorted and stacked by function. Deep within the catacombs, we are confronted by a wall of skulls. Dead end. No one gets out of here alive.

We build a bonfire and scribe our names to stones that we cast within to see who will come up missing in the morning. We pacify the tailor lest his silver needle weave a spell within our clothes. We ward ourselves with roses and crushed ivy. Prophetic dreams visit us in the silence of the night.

The deadliest gifts come in small and tidy packages, wrapped prettily with silver bows. Inside the most innocent of children, the bete noire lurks, eager to possess them. Each year, they run the streets in gangs, trapping us within our homes. We bribe them with foolish consistency lest they hobgoblin our distracted minds.

We scare ourselves because we want to be scared. Like a movie whose ending we can predict, or a game that children play, it teaches us and reminds us. Don't look behind every door. Don't wander through the maze alone. Fear the branches scratching at the window. Fear the shadows scurrying across the floor.

Tomorrow, we light the candles in remembrance our hallowed dead. Tonight, we fear the mischief of lesser souls until we know they are safely tucked away.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

The Die is Cast

Or should I say the ballot? By ten thirty this morning, Karen and I had arrived at the early voting station near where she works downtown. About thirty people were in line outside. Maybe another fifteen standing inside the door. And five more waiting for one of the two dozen privacy booths to open up.

There was a good mix of people in line, older, younger, men, women, mildly affluent and working class, all chatting together amicably, their only concern that someone else might cut in line. There was a security guard directing us, and poll workers counting us into the building. There was at least one family represented by three generations, the youngest not quite old enough to vote. Or read. Or hold the pen. Or really do much more than smile at all of us funny looking people and drool. She was a very cute baby out with her mother and grandmother for her first electoral experience. Always good to see them started young even if they won't remember.

Oh, since we're in Florida, perhaps some of you were looking for a different set of demographics? Let's just say that in line I felt like the shirt of a tuxedo attending a formal dinner, by which I mean as an ensemble we all looked good.

The line moved steadily. After they checked my ID, I felt like that dream where I'm back in school again taking a standardized test. Here's your black pen. Don't drop it, don't lose it, don't eat it. Don't take it with you. Here's a sheet to mark your answers. Fill in the bubble completely. Only color inside the lines. If you make a mistake, raise your hand to request a new paper. Don't open your booklet until you're standing in the voting booth. No talking. Keep your eyes on your own test. When you're finished, run it through the scanner to tally your final grade. If everything checks, you are free to go. You should receive your results in just under two weeks.

The only difference was they encouraged us to bring a crib sheet, like an open book SAT. Just beyond the Neutral Zone at the entrance a young woman representing one of the major parties was handing out a substitute in case you forgot your own.

There was an older man in front of me with a discernable eastern European accent. When asked at the registration desk whether he wanted his next ballot mailed to him, he replied firmly, "I don't believe in that. I would rather come down here and spend my time to make sure everything goes right." Everyone smiled at his answer, the poll workers and the patrons. On his way out, the party rep tried to hand him a "good government team" cheat sheet which he casually waved away saying he had already voted, "Only for the main man." "Oh, which one?" Whisper, whisper, mumble. "Oh, great! High five."

We had stickers in hand before eleven, twenty-five minutes tops, line and all. Karen and I made a morning of it, casting our ballots then going out to her favorite downtown deli where we compared notes over sandwiches. We had reached similar conclusions on most of the issues. On one or two, we cancelled each other out. Several local races were contests between incompetence and inexperience. Hard to know which way to lean there, toward the devil you know or the demon you don't. Either one could steal your lunch.

The Supervisor of Elections says we're on track for twenty-five thousand early voters at a paltry three locations. Counties with half our population have double that number of sites. Another hundred and seventy thousand citizens have requested mail-in ballots. Seventy thousand of those have already been returned. That out of six hundred and fifty thousand registered voters broken almost evenly between Democrats and Republicans with a quarter sitting it out in other parties. Historically, we have turnouts like our November highs, hovering near the upper seventies to low eighties. I'm curious whether we see a mini-heat wave this year.

Nothing left for us now but to sit back and enjoy the game. For those of you who know my politics and agree, I encourage you to come out and support my choices. For those who disagree, I encourage you to come out and nullify my vote. For those who are unsure where I stand, swing by the house; from there it should be obvious. Or the more clever among you can puzzle something out of this message.

Remember, it doesn't matter if you see politics like an organized sport or like a crapshoot lottery: you can't win if you don't play. So, get out there and vote. And best of luck to you and your candidates. I think we'll all need it soon.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Witnessing History

There is no joy in Boston; the mighty Nation has struck out.

Full disclosure: I am not a baseball fan. I played one year of Little League when I was six. You would have spotted me immediately, the one in right field, drifting off in his own little world to alleviate the boredom. My father could only hang his head in shame. When I was ten, my grandfather took me to a game at Fenway. A diehard fan, he tried to kindle the spirit within me, but only managed to water the seed of Boston losing. For twenty-five years, that was the only game I'd ever seen, the only one I ever needed to. Sure, I'd watch Boston in the playoffs, expecting heartbreak or worse. Until 2004, I wasn't disappointed.

Karen, on the other hand, is a dyed in wool fan. In high school, she and her friend used to score Red Sox games off the radio. Obviously, she grew up in a small town in western Mass. where there wasn't much else to do when the grass wasn't growing and there wasn't paint to dry. She crochets during games on TV now, while I am forced to watch or abandon them and read. When she travels, she tunes into games she wouldn't ordinarily see; she doesn't care who's playing.

When St. Petersburg expanded with the Devil Rays, she dragged me to a few games. I couldn't even tell you who they played. The Reds? The Royals? The Orioles? After a game we went to last year, I said to her, I think I'd only go back to see the Rays play Boston. When we saw the opening game this year, I amended that. Did I say when the Rays play Boston? I meant when the Rays play Boston in the playoffs. I figured that was a safe bet that would hold me for a hundred years.

So how did I end up at game 7 of the ALCS? It pays to have friends. Or, in my case, to have married someone who does.

Yesterday started with plans for the day, cooking in the morning, reading and napping in the afternoon. I needed a haircut. Had I known what was coming, it would have been a mohawk. At least a back-hawk in my case. In the evening, we planned to watch both of Tampa Bay's games, the Rays and the Bucs, football and baseball, picture in picture, in head to head competition across the dial. The only decision was which one to watch on the small screen and which one on the smaller.

Then, the call came from our friend and neighbor up the road. She started life as a Brewers fan, so we were somewhat kindred spirits. Though we haven't quite convinced her to embrace her inner Buccaneer as yet. That's a work in progress. (And now I know I will never see another ticket in my life, even to a minor league game in Guatemala). She scored tickets through the lottery, and had some extras. Would we like to go? Let me pass the phone to Karen, who proceeded to beat me about the head and shoulders for not immediately saying, YES!

First thing I did was call my aunt in Braintree. She's an old Boston Braves fan, so had been rooting for the Rays from the onset, even before the All-Star break, even when we went to Boston for the final, regular series. When I told her we were going to the game, the first thing she asked was if I had gotten her tickets. I'm convinced that had I told I had four, she and her husband would have been at Logan lining up a flight as soon as a cab could have gotten them there. But, alas, there were only two. She anointed me her good luck charm and sent me out to win.

The next thing we did was head out to Sports Authority and buy some Rays paraphernalia. Karen had converted her loyalties to the Devil Rays when they first appeared. Until this year, she'd had the luxury of rooting for both teams, except when they met, and even then she could hedge her bets. But the only marker she had was an original Devil Rays pin. So she bought us a couple caps, just to make our loyalties clear. And for those who think she might be a fair weather fan, she listened to the early Rays games on the radio while crafting stained glass in the garage. And we actually have more to do down here than watch rust spread across our cars.

Did I mention I'm not a fan? Ok, that was before I saw the light, even if was only the blinding light of a baseball drifting toward light-banks ringing the catwalks in our dome. Now that I've entered the temple and been indoctrinated with the high mass, there's no turning back.

Driving toward stadium, we saw the signs for parking escalate like bids at an auction. $10, $15, do I hear $20? The official lots are full. Sold for $30 to the lot across the street. We passed them all by and parked where Karen works a mile out, and headed for the field. About halfway there, people started gathering like runoff from a hard rain that forms rivulets then a stream and finally a mighty river, some fifty thousand strong. The Sox were well supported but didn't outnumber the Rays fans for a change. Unlike the Fenway Faithful, the Rays fans were laid back, grilling, joking, milling about the parking lot. There was no real tension after the disaster of game 5, or the disappointment of game 6.

We met our friend outside the main gate. She inspected Karen closely for any evidence of red, however well hidden, ready to raise the price or scalp her ticket if she found even a hint of it except her hair. Blue shirt, blue jeans, Rays hat, Rays pin; she was clean. A quick exchange of cash for tickets and we were in. She had gotten two blocks of four seats. We wouldn't be together, she, her fiancée and another couple would be in one block, us and a couple we hadn't met in another, just outside the foul pole on the first base line, about 30 rows up, with a perfect view of the Rays' bullpen.

We got to our seats an hour early. The section was half empty. The Red Sox were at batting practice. When the groundskeepers pulled the screens when they finished, a chorus of boo's echoed around the stadium. Apparently, the Red Sox Nation had instructed the our fans on proper etiquette for greeting an opposing team. A cheer went up when Tampa Bay took the field for their final warm-ups. We watched our pitcher, Garza. He seemed relaxed, as though it was just another start. The outfielders looked unconcerned, not too loose and joking with the crowd, but not intimidated either. Confident, not cocky or cowed.

By eight, our section had filled. We looked at the people around us, all Rays fans, a good initial sign. The four of us started glancing around tentatively, trying to make those eye-contact connections with total strangers with whom you will spend the next four or five hours of your life. The man and his wife who was legally blind, the guy and his buddy completely into the game, the father and his teenage daughter directly in front of us, the woman with her husband and son on the other side of me, the older couple behind us. We were all uncertain at first, unsure whether our support of the Rays was enough to link us. Then the unifying factor appeared behind us.

No, not card carrying members of the Red Sox Nation, not the Fenway Faithful on a holiday from the arctic cold. These were a pair of uber-Rays fans, a cross between Braveheart and Bozo the Clown, blue and white face paint, neon blue wigs, white sunglasses, and horns, drunk as skunks pillaging the cider mash. Did I mention the horns? I can still hear them rattling my right eardrum. All game long, whomever was batting, us or them, whether appropriate or not, like off-key trumpeters at a Roman gladiatorial game.

They started by hitting on the forty year-old woman with her husband beside me as though she were twenty-five, ringing her neck in plastic flowers and telling her she'd been "lei'ed." "Was it as satisfying for you?" That was all it took. Our loose confederation was now a section, our collective attention directed at wishing those horns would silence and that pair would go away.

The stadium announcer asked us to make some noise as TV coverage began. The meter spiked to somewhere between an amplified guitar a foot away at full volume and a plane on an airport runway, all cheers and cowbells, clapping and horns. Ok, for that moment, we were glad to have the horns. The feeling wouldn't return until the end of the game. The stage was set, the curtain rising, the occupants of the erstwhile Thunderdome ready for a classic confrontation: Two teams enter, one team leaves.

Our enthusiasm was silenced in the first inning when Boston's second batter smacked a solo homerun into the crowd beyond the left field wall. The Red Sox fans couldn't resist standing up and waving the crowd to silence as though the outcome were pre-ordained, a move at least one of them would come regret several innings later. The homer was followed by a walk. It beginning to look like a long night. But we escaped the inning without any crooked numbers. At least there was solace in that.

For the first three innings, our batters looked much like they had the previous game, so focused on knocking one out of the park that they forgot everything starts with a base hit. Still, we slowly regained our exuberance, rising to our feet and cheering each time a Boston batter garnered a pair of strikes. I haven't done so much standing and sitting since the last time I was at a Catholic service. There was even some praying, though most of what I heard was for the guys behind us not to spill their beers or hurl. Those damned horns kept blaring, one in my left ear, one in my right. The rows in front of us kept glancing back with an combination of annoyance and pity. One guy tried to buy the horns off of them for a couple beers apiece. They thought about that one a moment, but declined. Another whispered they only had an inning or two left in them before one of them passed out. Midway through the third, one of the guys came crashing down between me and the woman next to me, fortunately without his beer. "I fell down," was all he could think to say as we levered him back up.

I just focused on my Zen, like Garza, concentrating on one pitch at a time. For a shaky start, he kept racking up the K's. One an inning, sometimes two. By the end of his night, nine were on the board.

Things turned our way in the fourth. Between innings, a Rays fan with a Boston accent came over and offered the smurf brothers a quick $20. All they had to do was go up one section to where a Boston fan was sitting by his "daughta" and blast them for a full inning. Someone else would come and show them exactly where. A Jackson flashed and quickly disappeared into one of the conspirator's blue pockets, then these two marched off like a Sousa band redone in plastic, men on a mission. Had we known it was that easy, we would have taken up a collection. Later we almost did.

Turns out that was probably the best $20 this guy ever spent. We kept one eye on the game, and the other on our reluctantly adopted cohorts. There they were, two sections back, right on the foul line, blazing away at a couple of red shirts, who at least initially seemed to take it well. Then the Rays started chipping at Boston. Iwamura singled, then Pena on a fielder's choice, sacrificing Iwamura instead of himself. But Longoria whacked a double into right, bring home our first run. We are all up and high-fiving, building the bonds of camaraderie with our neighbors. Boston hasn't had much to cheer about in a while.

The boys in blue and white keep earning their pay, blowing their horns through the entire fifth on spec. The Boston fans still seemed to be taking it well, chatting with them between innings. Then came the bottom of the fifth. Aybar singled, Baldelli drove him in. Two more on base and it looked like Boston's pitcher was breaking. Francona took a trip out to the mound, but thankfully left him in. He escaped the inning without further damage.

In the top of the sixth, we glance back toward the two-man horn section in time to see security swarming toward the Boston fans like a herd of angry bulls to a red cape. Who knows what happened, other than Boston started losing. One guy decides to take swing at the security guard. The St. Pete cop backing him up set a hand on security's shoulder and shakes his head. He makes a quick gesture to a monster in security blue one row down who distracts the Boston fan while the cop moves in. Next thing we see is red-shirt Boston emerge in handcuffs doing the walk of shame toward a far exit. His friend fades away with him. We relax, thinking our trumpeters have just scored prime seats for the duration. Apparently the Rays relaxed, too, with a lackluster sixth and a low pitch count retirement of the heart of our order. Not what we needed to continue Lester's slide.

Top of the seventh and our frat boys returned triumphantly, hovering in their seats briefly before taking a victory lap around the nearby sections. Garza starts fraying at the edges but gets out of the inning unscathed. Our mascots settle just as we come up to bat. Now people are shaking their heads and rolling their eyes. The guy in front of me who was betting they would fade in the fifth takes it back, saying they are thoroughbreds much to his surprise. With no Boston targets in sight, they start in on a Pittsburg Steelers shirt two rows down. We ignore them and pay attention to the task at hand. Aybar homers to left on a full count. Everyone rises to their feet. Cow bells are ringing, horns are blaring, people are screaming and chipping the railing paint as they pound anything handy against it like a drum.

The tensest moments come in the 8th. Boston up with one out, and Maddon is going through relief pitchers like a fan through a bag peanuts. They advance man after man. One of our would-be Bravehearts passes out and lands on the older couple behind us. They prop him back up one last time. We spend the inning on our feet, which turns into the remainder of the game. Boston loads the bases. It's looking like a repeat of Thursday night only with less of a cushion. The guys behind us start doing beer bongs through their horns. The girl in front of us gives up on standing and starts texting on her phone. But we get out of it, how I'll never know. That's when we get the inkling that winning is a possibility.

Mid-inning, and I look up to see 11:11 on the scoreboard clock. There's a free wish for you superstitious, baseball types. You know what I was thinking. Karen gets "lei'ed" from behind with blue plastic flowers in the form of an apology from one of our aspirant Viking twins for clocking her with his horn. This after the couple we were with had stolen the horn's bell briefly before giving it back "this time" as he blew it in her ear. By now, no one cares about their antics. We are on the brink of history and they are one of us, horns, obnoxiousness and all. Our batters do nothing to advance our cause.

It all comes down to Boston in the ninth. Everyone is on their feet, cheering every strike as though it were the final out. A lead-off walk does nothing to deter us. The Rays are relaxed, doing their jobs. Victory is in the air. One out accompanied by cheers and high-fives, then two. It begins to feel inevitable. A hit toward our second baseman who tags second and the place erupts. The red of Boston trickles out, bleeding toward the exits. We hang around cheering until a round of handshakes with some of our newfound friends who then head off to find cigars. When I turn to the older couple behind us, he high-fives me and says, "we survived them," pointing to where our face-painted pair had disappeared.

And our two mascots? He and his buddy were bragging all night that they have to be at work at seven a.m. I'm betting they are having a long, cruel morning. Though I bet they say it's worth it.

The walk back to the car was briefly tense when a Boston fan didn't know when to shut up, and one of our larger fans was just drunk enough to make him, held back only by his smaller friend steering him away. Not good losers, this Red Sox Nation. At the corner, the firemen are all outside by the engines waiting for what they know is coming. There are cruisers strobed in red and blue at every intersection. The mostly mildly celebratory crowd peels off in threes and fours toward their vehicles. Alone now, we pass a knot of Fenway Faithful hanging by their trucks, but they seem more interested in analysis and commiseration than in us. The last person we pass is a local woman walking toward us who spots our hats and starts a celebration, for both the Rays and the Bucs, who also won that night.

We make it back to the car without incident. At every red light on the way home we are serenaded by car horns and cow bells as St. Petersburg celebrates its first pennant and its first trip to the series.

Of all the playoff games to see, I think this was perhaps the best. We knew something would be decided, and yet had more potential victories to look forward to if we won rather than the mild tinge of regret that accompanies knowing that it's over even with a victory. We're all smiles this morning knowing we have more to come.

It's still hard to believe it was not the Yankees, not the Indians, but the Rays who ended the Red Sox's comeback streak. Ok, Boston fans, I know you remember the line from years of repetition. Repeat after me: Maybe next year.

I kid because I love. Any other year and we would say the same.

Who knew baseball could be so much fun.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Courage

I am Edward Morgan and I approved this message.

Today, I venture into politics. If that makes you uncomfortable, stop reading here and delete this message. But before you do, understand that my intent is not to influence the way you vote. I am not here to define my politics, I am not here to defend them. I am not here to debate. I am not calling you to arms to support one party or the other. I am not here to persuade you that my thoughts and understanding are any better than your own. They most certainly are not. By definition they can't be, not for you. At the moment, it is the tone of our national conversation that concerns me, not its composition. The arrangement, not the orchestra.

Over the past several years, I have been confronted by people on the left and the right. I have been called a traitor for the candidate I support. I have been called a mindless drone for pointing out the other candidate isn't always wrong and, in some things, actually better. I have been told that I have no right to vote because I wasn't in the military. I have been called un-American for either way I see the war. I have been told the 1st Amendment doesn't apply to me because my religion isn't practiced by the majority. I have been called irrational because I hold those same beliefs. I have been informed that the people I claim on the census are nothing but drunks so deserve whatever destitution befalls them. Some of this by family, some by friends and colleagues, otherwise reasonable people, not anonymous operatives for one party or the other.

This must end.

I hear cries from both sides to adopt the tactics of the opposition, meet fire with fire. This is the model of failed states around the world, countries with names few people recognize in places few people can point to on a map with borders no one agrees upon or controls. It is a policy of revolution breeding revolution under which the majority of people suffer and only dictators and demagogues flourish. It is the politics of divisiveness, the politics of demonization. The politics of personal destruction. The politics of fear.

This must end.

Machiavelli says it is better to be feared than loved. Fear is a powerful emotion, more powerful than greed, more powerful than hope. It is far easier to incite a mob to violence than inspire one to build or talk one into cutting down a noose. It is easier to sketch the world in charcoal than to paint it in vivid color. In the real world, even shadows have color reflected by the light. We prefer black and white because it is easier to distinguish contrast. We don't have to think, just react when a given line is crossed. It is the politics of laziness.

In an environment of fear, it becomes too easy to rely on someone else's judgment, to dig in and retrench when someone violates our principles. It is easy to blame the other side, whichever side that is. "They" always started it; "they" always escalated it. "We" have no choice but to respond or appear weak. "We" have been maligned and have no other recourse than to fight.

This must end.

This trend has continued until the most vile slurs and epithets are now shouted at political rallies: Sexist, bigot, baby-killer, terrorist, anti-Semite, communist, Nazi. They culminate with a simple, two word phrase: "Kill him." That utterance marks the end of any rational democracy. It is the voice of anarchy, not the language of impassioned debate. First it is shouted, then whispered, in a theater, in a railroad station, at an exposition, in a book depository, beyond a balcony, in a kitchen just off a ballroom floor.

This. Must. End.

At some point we, the people, have to say enough. We don't have to agree. In fact, we rarely will. Each of us has our own opinions, our own priorities regarding the direction we think the country needs to go. Different experiences shaped each of us and what we value. Our perspective on these experiences is unique. Some have more impact than others, but each has no less value, not to the individual. We gain, not lose, when we pause a moment to consider and draw a breath.

My grandfather's grandfather lied about his age to sign up with the Grand Army of the Republic during the American Civil War. I don't know why he joined, whether he was full of belief and righteous indignation, whether he was full of a childish concept of glory, whether he thought it would be an adventure, whether he thought he had something to prove, whether he thought he could make his name. I don't know what regiment he marched with, he lived with, he fought with, he watched perish. His service ribbon does not say. It only says he joined, he served, he did not die. He returned home a different man, a man who drank, a man who suffered nightmares. A man who died, haunted, I am told, by the history that had unfolded around him of which he would not speak.

Our experiences change us.

My uncle, really my father's cousin, was seventeen when World War II came to this country. I don't know why he entered the army. I don't know whether he chose his duties or someone chose them for him. During that war, he tended the troops who had been injured and transported back to England. There were no med-evacs, no helicopters, no trauma teams standing by to treat the wounded. Antibiotics were cutting edge medicine, as was something resembling modern anesthesia. Day after day, he witnessed the only constant in war, the parade of wounded and maimed returning from the battlefield. He helped the ones he could recover. He has never described his experiences to me directly, only talked about the useless nature of war.

Our experiences change us.

A friend's mother managed an apartment complex in a public housing neighborhood known as "Little Vietnam." It was at heart of a police no-go zone where you regularly heard gunshots on a Friday night. Cruisers might roll up late or never. If they did, they were as likely to hassle the innocent as the guilty. Even knowing that, she drew a line in the sand against the drug dealers in her building, telling them they were not welcome. These men reacted first with intimidation, then with vandalism and finally with threats against her family. From that point forward, she kept a pistol within easy reach of her bed. When I knocked on her door after dark, I knew to stay in the light until I heard her voice, knew that each time I saw the curtain move, there was a gun behind the window.

Our experiences change us.

A woman I know had an abortion when she was fifteen. I didn't find out until many years later. We grew up together, but were not close at the time. I don't know the details of her pregnancy, don't know the details of her relationship with the father. I don't know the details of her decision other than she felt pressured by her family. All I know is that she had chosen a name she still remembers. Thirty years later, I can still hear the anguish and regret in her voice when she recalls that moment in her life.

Our experiences change us.

Those experiences run across the current fault lines of American politics, war, gun control, abortion. Hot button issues where people make snap judgments based on pure emotion. Whether I agree or disagree with the conclusions each of those individuals drew from their experience, I cannot attack them. I can only wonder how being in their position would have altered my life, my beliefs. How can I invalidate an experience I did not have, a memory that I do not share? Should I demonize them for what they learned from a life different from my own? Intolerance breeds intolerance as surely violence begets violence, a outcome as old as obsidian knives, as inevitable as moonrise.

Everyone remembers September 11th, where they were, what they were doing when they heard. I remember April 19th. My wife was on vacation from her job with the federal government. We had slept in that morning. When we got up, we turned on the television to check the news. What I saw was a gutted and smoking federal building, almost identical to the one near the office where my wife worked downtown. The image left an indelible mark upon my psyche. That could have been my city, my neighbors, my wife. All because an individual, a veteran who had sworn to defend this country and uphold its laws, had honed a grudge like a well-stropped razor, then slashed out against the government thinking he was reclaiming an eye for an eye. For me, that morning in 1995 revealed the natural terminus of the politics of hate.

Our experiences change us.

We will take back the tools of democracy not by electing one candidate instead of the other, but by repudiating the tactics of fear, the tactics of hate, by insisting on decency despite our differences, not just for the candidate we support but for the one we don't. Courage is often confused with combat. Courage isn't fighting for something we believe in; courage is standing up to fear.

As most of you know, I spent several months last year hanging around a chemo ward. It is a grim place despite the comfortable chairs, the beautiful view, the kind and helpful nurses. It is a place occupied by men and women, some young, some old, some outwardly healthy, some not, some on their first visit, some on a repeat itinerary. That place isn't about fighting, it isn't about winning; it is about living. The ones who complete that journey, and not everyone does, come out different than they started, sometimes subtly, sometimes radically. The experience shapes them, changes them. Some who don't see the other side show more courage than some who do. The ones who emerge aren't called "victors," they aren't called "winners;" they are called "survivors."

Our experiences change us.

On its journey, our country has survived a President who ignored Supreme Court rulings when they did not suit him. We have survived a President who suspended the writ of habeas corpus. We survived our government publicly blacklisting citizens because of their political affiliation. We survived our government imprisoning citizens based on their ethnicity. We have survived stripping people of their rights and land based solely on their race. We have survived buying and selling individuals as though they were commodities. None of this happened within the past fifty years. We will most certainly survive either of these Senators being elected.

You are not racist if you don't vote for a one candidate; you are not sexist if you do not vote for another. Unless, of course, race or gender are the reason for your decision; then you might have a problem. You are not a terrorist if you don't support a certain candidate. You are not a torturer if you don't endorse another. Anyone who tells you differently is trying to manipulate you. That road ends in totalitarianism, pick your flavor, left or right. In practical execution, they are difficult to distinguish.

Over the summer, roughly half of Zimbabwe, a country of some 12 million people, went out to vote for an opposition candidate. They didn't have the luxury of a secret ballot. They knew their government would never allow their candidate to win, despite public assurances promising a free and fair election. They went out despite knowing from experience that they risked being beaten, risked having their livelihood taken, their property stolen, their homes burned. They voted anyway. These weren't people steeped in centuries of democracy. They weren't people ready to take back their government by any means, at any cost. These were ordinary men and women, just like you and me. They knew what was coming and cast their vote anyway, in most cases in an orderly and peaceful manner, at least where their government allowed it. That, my friends, is courage.

Whatever your politics, I hope you have the courage to defend even those you disagree with from slander and from hate. In the coming election, I hope you have the courage to vote your convictions rather than someone else's fears.

I am Edward Morgan and I approved this message.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Storm Watching

Each morning for days or weeks, the ritual has been the same. Rise at 4 a.m. and check the models, the Nikkei, the Footsie, the DAX, the CAC. Where is the center of circulation now, over Europe, over Asia, headed back toward the United States? What is the downward pressure on the Dow?

The economic forecasts sound like symptoms of a global pandemic: liquidity, inflation, stagnation, Asian crisis, Japanese malaise. It's too late to reinforce the mortgage supporting our home, too late to install shutters of bonds across the windows, too late to bury caches of cash beneath our mattress. We will have to manage with the stocks we have on hand. We track the numbers like coordinates, trying to read the futures like tea leaves lingering in the bottom of a cup or tarot cards spread purposefully across the kitchen table.

The storm approaches rapidly, intensifying quickly as predicted by ancient oracles named Opal and Charley. Technology collapses and the lights go out on the NASDAQ. We light candles from the S&P as short trading is suspended. The storm rages, pounding a hail in letters against the windows, LIBOR, FDIC, P/E, GDP, FMOC. Outside, Washington Mutual saplings snap off at the roofline while hundred-year oaks crack in half from rot or become completely uprooted. Lehman Brothers, Morgan-Stanley, AIG. Can our cherished elms of Main Street be far behind?

Like water, the markets seek their own level, exploiting any uncaulked crack or crevice as they descend. Like storm-driven rain, they flood toward the basement as they run down interior walls, collapsing the bone-white tower we've constructed floor by floor. As each layer of resistance pancakes, we shudder and pray the next support level holds as the Fed shores up its bracings. From pulpit and soapbox and tree stump, our leaders seek to assuage us with readings from the Book of Katrina: "...and, yea verily, none among us was endowed with divine foreknowledge to know whither this storm would strike."

Outside the Great Temple of lower Manhattan, a pitchfork-toting mob gathers to ignite oil-soaked stacks of corporate paper as makeshift torches, threatening to set the structure further ablaze without casting a single pail of water. Do they not realize, or just not care, that half the population huddles inside the sanctuary, mostly elderly, their parents and grandparents? That their communities can no longer bond a promise to repair their crumbling infrastructure, or raise fresh levies of frontline defenders to combat their other, now forgotten mortal fear? That master craftsmen can no longer employ their trades? They content themselves with prying up chunks of broken roadbed to smash the plate glass of other people's houses, as though their own aren't constructed of the same frangible framework of debt.

We cower inside our shelter praying the roof stays down, praying the windows don't bow to the eternal pressure, praying the panicked mob doesn't batter through the door. Why do we always look to the Almighty for salvation from any man-created crisis? Is God fully invested in the market? If so, what would Jesus own? Is that his wrath I hear overturning the money markets in the Temple, or just a tornado peeling back the rafters? Should I dive for the basement and pull a tempered sheet of Swiss gold over my head until the storm abates? Paralyzed by indecision, I clutch a rosary to redeem my financial sins, counting out the beads of my losses one by one as I recite the liturgy: There is no God but Wall Street, and Warren Buffet is its profit.

As if heeding my beseechments, the winds pause momentarily and the markets draw a single breath. Have we found the bottom or is that a second wall of wind and water darkening the horizon? As we wait for the all-clear siren to return to our investments, stormchasers prepare to spin up an H-60 to survey the homeless devastation of stilts and foundations and free-running breaches from the air. In the months ahead, experts will dissect the footage in minute, statistical detail to determine whether retrenchment has spawned recession. Economic psychologists are left to assess whether depression has poisoned the general mood.

Regardless of the outcome, the sun shines brightly this morning. Outside, one neighbor tends his lawn as he does every Wednesday. Another oversees the pavers being set to replace her torn-up driveway. The mail arrives with the same assortment of useless advertisements as any other day. Men and women head to work in the morning, children to school, the elderly out on their walks. Recent rains have revived the grass out front. Hibiscus and alamanda briefly bloom, providing a final splash of yellow, white and orange before the dun of winter sets in. Blue jays and mockingbirds flutter and squawk as they renew their annual, territorial war. Signs of recent excavations to conceal acorns dot the garden as squirrels continue their autumn preparations just like any other year.

Our youngest cat chases a feather on a string for hours before rediscovering the real birds sitting in the birdbath just outside the window, just as we cast our gaze back toward our portal on the real world instead studying the artificial glass that reveals only prophecies of doom from Bloomberg and CNBC. As mourning doves settle back on their perches, we are tempted to interpret their doleful cooing as lamentations for everything we've lost, forgetting that, just as their white brethren, they serve as joyful reminders that all storms pass and life continues uninterrupted just within our reach.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Fall Equinox 2008

One by one, acorns trickle from their parents in a slow, steady hail whose sound is amplified by the intervals of silence. Some fall to the grist of stony ground, some to fallow. Some are scurried away, stored in shallow graves against a dark and needful day, or slumber until awakened by the warming fires of spring.

The first flame of autumn blossoms in a tiny, tangerine rose, its reddish-orange petals curling back toward yellow at their edges. A short-lived, daylight candle echoing the lantern that guides our spirits home.

As evenlight spreads toward evenfall, numina and peris grow restless in their garden. We sacrifice fresh herbs to ease their dreamless sleep and mark that we remember. In camera obscura, their unwinged avatars purr contentedly toward the living, an admonition that darkness always follows evening, a promise morning always follows night.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Digging

I buried another friend this morning, this one too suddenly and too soon. I am tired of digging. The ground is too familiar.

The soil is dry and dusty from a long and waterless summer. The grass is gone, nothing left but desiccated roots and sere. There are too many graves out back now, too tightly clustered around the birdbath. Too many markers for too many names of too many familiars and companions. Jasmine, Felicia, Thomas, Sandy, Sara, Smoke. Tina.

I dig through the strata of memories layer by layer, remembering a new joy at each transition. The way she would run purnting to greet me each time I came home. The way she nursed in my ponytail before she discovered Karen's tresses were more suited to her tastes. The way she curled up defensively whenever I draped a blanket across my lap, daring me to move her. The way we napped together in sunshine through lazy winter afternoons, her body a tiny blast furnace. The way she adopted the bright yellow polyester rag with a knot as her favorite toy, moving it from place to place around the house as if challenging me to a game of hide and seek. The way she would stare at me with a confused set to her ears whenever I tried to purr.

Down to five feet the dirt goes from light gray to charcoal then to tan back to gray and finally to white. The colors of her fur. She was the ghost of Felicia, my first familiar, with nearly identical markings in a nearly identical pattern based in gray instead of black. She died at nearly an identical age of a nearly identical condition, both after an otherwise healthy life.

The ground becomes harder as I dig deeper. It holds moisture like my pent up tears. She was as small as my hand when we first brought her home, taken from her mother too young and abandoned in a box. For the first few weeks, she would stay wherever I left her, crying for permission before jumping off the bed. She would wait until she saw me, then run to greet me when I came in sight. I've never had a creature imprint on me like that before, never felt quite that burden of responsibility. In the end, she looked to me for help I could not give.

Deeper, the hole interferes with my digging. By the end, I struggle like she did. At least I have Karen to ease the final memories away. Through her life she would call out and freeze whenever she woke up from a nightmare. She would wait like a kitten until I called to her or went to find her, greeting me enthusiastically when she spotted me. I wish our roles were reversed, that I could wake from this long, dark dream to the comfort of her purrs.

I carve out the chamber where she is resting now. Karen folds her in her handcrafted blanket, tying it in a canvas shroud with her favorite things, a brush, her rag, some leaves of catnip, a crocheted ball, a string of plastic beads. We add some jade and silver, meaningless to her, but enough to bribe the demon or the ferryman to reach the other side. I sprinkle her shroud with the lavender petals from the final rose of the summer, redolent and just off peak.

There is a hollow sound of dirt hitting canvas, one I hope to forget each time but never do. Each shovelful resonates like the emptiness in my chest. We mound the leftover dirt and cover it with a rainbow of flowers from purple to yellow, pink to purest white.

As the morning dies, we return inside, moving through the empty house in sighs and silence, echoing her missing footsteps, waiting for Mara to emerge to help fill the void she leaves behind.

Pristina Morgan
4/2/99-9/18/08

I miss you, little girl.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Atlanta: The Annual Pilgrimage

We have completed our annual pilgrimage. We have circumambulated the Marriott Marquis lobby the proscribed seven times, and have run the circuit from the depths of the Hyatt gorge to the Hilton Grand Ballroom seven times in a single day. We have climbed the pillar of the glass elevators and stood in contemplation. We have broken our fast on General Tsao's chicken and declared it to be manna from heaven. We have witnessed the multitudes entering Nerd-vana and survived to share our tale.

After seemingly endless preparations and threatened derailing sidetracks, we embarked last Thursday around noon. Our first good omen came in Tampa, where a young TSA officer recognized Karen's DragonCon polo and asked if that's where we were going. She said she would be up on Sunday as she waved us through the checkpoint. We had encountered our first of the 30,000 faithful.

This year, travel was the smoothest it's ever been. We compressed everything into carry-on only both ways. There were no lines at check-in. On the flight up, the captain announced the controllers were hurrying him to Atlanta. Once there, we rolled straight to the gate, first time in history we haven't waited half an hour for ground traffic on the tarmac. In and out, we waited no more than a few minutes for a MARTA train. Coming home, we walked out of the terminal to find a shuttle to the economy lot rolling up, only one other individual waiting. No real traffic in Tampa coming or going. I don't thing we've had such consistent luck with travel on any other trip.

The hotel, on the other hand, was another matter entirely. We stayed in the Sheraton this year, the first it was an official host hotel for the convention, as it was the only room we could find. All the others had oversold their convention rate rooms, by a lot. It seems many people chose this as their weekend to stimulate the economy courtesy of George W's tax rebate. While the official attendance was pegged at 30k, as it has been for several years (for political reasons), the real peak number was probably closer to 50k. The room we had was adequate, if a little small. It had a fridge, a coffee maker and Dragon Con TV, three convention essentials. The neighbors were the problem. The walls were thin and the halls loud. Believe it or not, the convention goers weren't the problem, a family reunion was. The first three nights, the room next to ours was up late in loud conversation (for after midnight), just below the level of understanding but loud enough to be heard easily through the wall. One not it was a 1 a.m. conversation on a speaker phone. It was like being in a college dorm again. Saturday, we enacted our own 2 a.m. revenge, William H. Macy style from "The Cooler." That quieted them down just in time to leave the next day. The final night someone across the hall had a small, yappy dog. The hotel knew about it (even though they have a "no pet" policy) as I heard Housekeeping tell them a couple times there had been complaints. I think they were friends of the employees. I don't think we'll stay there again.

That was probably the low of our experience this year. Two in the morning concerts followed by 10 a.m. panels with time wind down, wake up, shower and eat begins to take it's toll on the best of days if you want to be able to think and follow what someone is trying to tell you. Papa Moogie gets cranky when he doesn't get his sleep. He forgot to take his blue pill. Or was it his red one?

The panels we attended were consistently better than they have been in previous years, though not quite so engaging and inspiring as last year. There were still a few disappointments, but I think I had better luck than Karen did. She hit a couple that frustrated her while I was in a long writing panel. We decided that the problem with art panels is they're run by artists, not the most organized of people on a sedate day. Over-stimulate them and they wander away form the panels they are supposed to be running to go see the parade, well, just because. Artists!

Twenty-two panels, six concerts and five days later, here are our 2008 DragonCon highlights and standouts.

In the Art track, we sat in on a couple good talks on photography, one on Photoshop techniques, another on the Myth of Photographic truth. The latter was the more inspiring as the speaker had an artist's view of the world, which was rich with perspective from well outside the box. One of the important social functions of artists, unconventional thinking. We sat in on a figure drawing demo by a professional illustrator with charcoals and pastels using a live model. He did four sketches, two five minute ones with charcoal, a fifteen minute on with more detail and final thirty-five sketch detailed in color. It was fascinating to watch him layer the colors one at a time, where initially you didn't know what he was after but in the end he had captured the model's skin tones and the radiant color to her hair. More so when we learned the was self-taught. Karen got to play around with some oil pastels. Despite her frustration with the flightiness of the instructor, she came away with a nice sketch. She got a picture of it in case it didn't complete the journey home intact, which it did. She also learned about binding her own books.

We attended three good talks in the Science track, two by the same speaker, a PhD in physical anthropology who teaches at Ohio State. The first considered the question of whether humans are still evolving, which we are though not perhaps in the ways we might expect. He discussed our evolving immune systems and alcohol processing capabilities, as well as the factors which drive them, both gene and allele changes over time as well as environmental and technological influences. His second talk discussed his research in Neanderthals. A very engaging speaker. The final science panel we attended was given by a physics PhD discussing the current state of research in quantum computers. Worthwhile if only for the reference to an article in Science this year, and the implications once their developed for any cryptographic encryption, oh, say, like our current electronic banking system. Cracking codes becomes so much easier when you solve for all possibilities simultaneously. No wonder the DoD is so interested in the field.

I ended up at a couple worthwhile writing panels. The first one was a double session seminar by a former small business consultant turned writer on goal, motivation and conflict adapted from a book she'd written. A clear, well-constructed discussion of technique with solid examples from well-known films. Another tool for my toolbox. Worth it if only because her new publishing company is looking for novel submissions right now. The second panel, the last we attended, was on developing secondary characters, which had some useful tips on dialogue, too.

In gaming, we got to talk to the current driving force behind Aftermath!, a survival simulation we've played since college, on of our staple games. He was demo-ing a new Survivor's Guide with all sorts of useful information in crisis scenarios similar to the ones used by the government for national security training. Fun to get his take on the rules and the direction in which he sees the game going.

Between times, we got to watch talks by actors from movies and series we'd watched being broadcast by the convention wither lived or tape delayed. Some were panels with lines of hundreds of people circling the interior of the Marriott waiting to get in. We got to listen to Avery Brooks (Sisko from Star Trek DS-9), Edward James Olmos (Admiral Adama from Battlestar Galactica) and Sean Astin (Sam in Lord of the Rings) in different panels. All are interesting, thoughtful individuals who were willing to share insights not only into their craft, but their backgrounds, cultures and the societal impacts they see from the fiction they portray.

Finally, the concerts. Here was a bit more disappointment. The drum circle had lost some of it's shine from previous years. We saw none of the more professional level dancers who had hung out there before after last year's disruptions. Thursday was the best day, as there were only a few dozen people there, all for the music not just a place to hang out and drink. They had some good rhythms going. It was fun to watch one of the more experienced drummers teaching a kid, maybe 10, there with his mom and sister, on a big, blue plastic bucket. We did repeats from previous years on the other bands, Abney Park (plugged in and acoustic), The Cruxshadows and Ego Likeness. The vocals was crushed in the concerts in the Hyatt, poor mixing I think. We know the rooms aren't designed with music in mind, but we have heard better in previous years. That didn't seem to matter on Saturday as we heard they shut the doors on the Cruxshadows concert after we got in. When we first saw them 5 years ago, the hall was less than half full. This year, the seats were ninety percent occupied plus the standing room press in front of the stage. There was a line (that we didn't stand in) snaking around the outside of the building as we approached. Maybe 2000 people. Abney Park's acoustic set in the concourse was great, with a couple hundred people packed in. Unfortunately, their music has taken a new turn in direction that neither of us is as fond of. Their new stuff has gone Steam Punk now, which has a kind of Victorian carousel feel to it. But they played enough old stuff to make it worth it. Ego Likeness performed in the Marriott, which had much better mixing though they were accompanied by creepy Extreme Asian independent films for visuals. Definitely a better show even for the smaller crowd and the slap-back echo from the far wall. Worth the late night.

For the first time, we didn't come home with much largess. The Dealer's room and Exhibition halls have stratified into either selling high end collectors merchandise and lower end trinkets or baubles. Part of that is driven by the price the convention charges merchants. We overheard one of the booksellers saying they had only just paid for the booth rental on Sunday morning, over halfway through. That didn't account for wages, transport, etc. We only came home with one new CD single each from the Cruxshadows and Ego Likeness, and two books, one a children's book written by the guitar player of Ego Likeness involving the moon and a coelacanth. Karen picked up some jewelry at the art show. Even there, there were some interesting individual pieces, but no artists that captivated us like last year.

But we did lay out the business cards Karen designed to point people to my writing, and the majority disappeared. We'll see if we note any increased traffic. And as an added bonus, I started and completed the first draft of a story on the trip from Tampa to Atlanta, one I hope to get out later in the week. Karen brought her old camera and took a number of pictures that I'm sure she'll post at least some of. So not a total wash.

All in all, a much needed getaway. Relaxing in that totally frenetic kind of way. Next year, we'll try to make our reservations early to get a prime spot. We start calling in October.

Until then, I leave you with the out of context snippets of conversations Karen wrote down as we wandered from hotel to hotel between panels.

"You seriously need to find some breasts." (a guy to one of the women in costume he was at the convention with. And who says geeks have no social skills)

"Why are all the pirate women dumpy and fat?" (in the concourse between hotels)

"Was that a guy or a lady?" "A lady." "...it could have been a guy...she was really tall." (Marriott lobby, about one of the two 6 foot 5 Amazon women BEFORE you account for their heels)

"If I see a Kzin I'm going to squeal." (on the steps outside after the Cruxshadows concert)

"Was that a mini-skirt or a mini-mini-skirt?" (in the Marriott lobby about a woman wearing an 8 inch ribbon of pink plaid around her hips with black stockings)

"Some women wear their tops so low. And people are on the level above them. Don't they know people can see all the way down?" (To Karen in one of the Art panels by a woman about her age at her first Dragon Con. And, yes, yes they do know!)

"The hallucinations haven't started but I waiting for them." (coming out of a science panel on 2 hours sleep over 4 days)

"I actually woke up in London." (waiting for a science panel to start)

"When I get back, I'm going to tear this (corset) off, rip off my jeans and crawl into the shower to wash off the sweat and dirt and blood." (a woman walking back from the Ego Likeness concert Sunday night to her hotel on the street at 3 a.m. )

© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

The Margins

When I set down the phone yesterday, I remembered the place where I grew up. Not the house where I lived, but the places I went to escape it. As a kid, I spent as much time as I could somewhere else, exploring the wilds along the fringes of suburbia. Most of that land was overgrown pasture broken by a grid of windbreaks on some sides, drainage ditches and dirt roads on others. A patchwork of weed-choked fields interspersed with palmetto brakes and pine scrub forest, all laced with trails worn by the passage of many small, quick feet.

In that world, the children were the natives, the adults the invading Puritan settlers. We blended into our surroundings and watched their continually encroaching world from behind the borders of our childhoods. We were seen only in flashes, heard only in laughter before disappearing deep into our tribal territories where we ran wild and half naked in the sun. We divided ourselves into clans based on neighborhoods whose boundaries in the margins ebbed and flowed with the tides of our interests, ages, explorations and numbers.

Ours was a bright world bordered by darkness. Bright long and wild grasses, bright, hot sand baking in the bright Florida sun, bright green palmetto fronds, all fenced by double rows of dark, Australian pines that whispered in the wind like Celtic spirits singing a lament in a Grimm Germanic forest, and tannic waters that flowed just above stagnation within moat-like ditches patrolled by the alligators and moccasins we thought would defend our primeval world from mass incursion. In winter we kept to the marches close to home, tunneling through seemingly impenetrable saw grass to hollow out natural shelters from the wind. In the summer, we dug like wild dogs, like angry gnomes carving out chambers with sandy gray walls that we would roof with plywood to disguise. The cool pits served as our refuge from both prying eyes and the blazing sun. Each spring and fall, we felled small trees to bridge the ditches after our parent-settlers had cleared them away. We kept our crossings half submerged to conceal them, knowing the Puritan giants didn't like to wet their feet. Beyond the bridges, we built forts and temporary shelters, migrating from isolation to isolation as our gathering places were discovered.

Alone or small bands, we crossed that bridge and explored the windbreaks farther and farther back to the where an earlier generation had sunk a standpipe to free an artesian well rich with sulfur and other elements that trailed in yellow and white streamers flowing along the dark and rotting detritus that had settled from the trees. The windbreaks ran for miles, broken by twin-rutted roads with grass between their tracks and weeds climbing along their shallow embankments. Deeper to the east were the berms, a perfect backstop to perfect our aim with BB guns or the occasional .22 caliber rifle. Some were topped with scrub oak sheltering high and narrow trails rife with rumors of arrowheads and Indian mounds, signs of our adopted brethren.

In isolated stands of woods between neighborhoods along the now-paved back roads and trails we took to school, we found older, abandoned settlements. Rusted barbed-wire lay coiled between rotting posts that once fenced primitive, three-sided barns that had sheltered horses just a few years before. We would seek refuge beneath their corrugated roofs when they rang with the rain that brought out the faint traces of horseflesh still embedded in their dark and deeply-grained posts. We scouted two-story homesteads with collapsed roofs and open walls, complete with moldy furnishings and housewares, the artifacts of failed colonies that gave us hope that a war against progress could be won. To us they marked a high-tide, the wrack line of an unsuccessful invasion into our wilds at some distant point in history. We didn't realize that the nearby orchard of houses were heavy with fruit ready to drop and spread their seed through our demesne.

I haunted that under-populated territory more than most. I spent my evenings, weekends and summers there, sometimes in the company of friends or rivals but more often alone with a book, a gun and some food so I wouldn't have to return home until dinner or dark. The woods and wilds were my escape from the more dangerous, common world safely hidden from view. The margins became my sanctuary.

Now that sanctuary is gone, built up and paved over. Year by year, the bulldozers have uprooted the trees we used to climb, leveled the ditches we traversed and filled in the abandoned quarry where we used to swim. They have pushed the border beyond the interstate into the last stronghold of original homesteaded pasture being sold off by the parcel, places our feet never ran unless they were prepared to dodge rock-salt or birdshot while being pursued by galloping hooves. Soon, that border will migrate to the river dividing one county from the next until the margins, squeezed from both east and west, shoot up along its banks toward the urban sprawl astride its outlet to the sea.

I don't begrudge these new settlers their homes. Progress marches onward whether I approve or not. New families need new places to live. Our families were once the intruders on someone else's sacred childhood. But when events in my life stir unpleasant memories like decay from the bottom of a still pool, I wish I could escape to the solitude of the margins, and the sanctuary they provided.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Feeling Fay

Or is that fey? After this weekend, I get the two confused.

I am waiting here to see what this storm will do, where she eventually decides to go, left, right, near, far, dead-ahead, engines full, damn the torpedoes, full stop. The models are making me dizzy. And does anyone else lie awake at 2 a.m. in mortal fear of being wiped out by the middle name of a notorious tele-evangelist's wife so desperately in need of an ironic queer eye intervention?

For all the blogs I've read, all the models I've studied, and all the analysis and discussion to which I've listened, I've found the experts seem to have missed the most telling predictive statistic of all: the perishable to comfort food ratio.

Before I explain, a full disclosure: This is a personal tracking model, not meant to guide anyone but FEMA and the criminally insane in whatever passes for their emergency storm preparations. This is one in a long line of models I've found to be mildly predictive only to be discarded for an unspecified draft choice at a later date, as I'm sure this one will become early Wednesday morning.

First I had the George W. Bush a.k.a. "Bring 'em on" model. In that one, the probability of landfall is inversely proportional to the individual desire of me and my friends to see what would happen if it did. I highly recommend this model to renters, the very young and anyone who has an evacuation room on retainer and speed-dial in the Atlanta Marriott Marquis and is already on the way. Oh, and the more than adequately insured, if that endangered species hasn't been entirely snuffed out by the good hands of Allstate around their neck as our good neighbors at State Farm enthusiastically cheer them on. This model worked really well at keeping the storms at bay in Florida through the seventies and eighties, at least until they did the transgender surgery that transformed half the hurricanes into him-icanes and David left me without power for ten solid days. Though that did teach me the powerful lesson of doing laundry BEFORE landfall. Key safety tip, half a score of sultry days in un-air conditioned as the natives and settlers experienced it Florida really leaves one wanting for a fresh and clean change of underwear each morning.

Next came the Fools and Small Children a.k.a. "Where Angels Fear to Tread" model. Ok, I never tested this one on hurricanes specifically. But initial results seemed quite promising as I listened at the back door a few months after we'd bought our first home as a freight train rolled one hundred yards behind the house around tree-top level before slamming down into the power substation half a mile away and sending pretty green and pink fireballs reflecting off the low and looming clouds, one of seven tornadoes that spun through the county that day. But once I saw the custom modifications to the house I'd just moved out of with its cinderblock wall bowed out as though following a French curve, and its garage to sliding glass door through the living room now a breezeway with its porch still intact and screened, I set this one aside with a full field testing. Scares me and I'm fearless.

Now I've settled on a new predictive tool, the perishable to comfort food ratio, a corollary of the preparation to paralysis principle. It works like this. You see a storm develop in the basin, so after a few days of constant panic on every station you watch you start tuning in to see where the weather experts think it might go. Or, if you're really lucky, an expert you know nails an e-mail to your electronic door every few hours when you've just convinced yourself after the last one that if you ignore it, perhaps Ms. Martin Luther and her hurricane reformation will eventually go away. It worked for a few generations of popes, didn't it? As you watch the black center line dance just left and right of your current coordinates in a personal cone of uncertainly over the one weekend you'd hoped to kick back and relax before the other four bowling balls you have in the air simultaneously come crashing down on your head, you think, hmm maybe I should do something to prepare. The problem is, you know the more you do, the less likely the storm is to actually affect your location.

This is a model rich in irony. Flood insurance due to kick in next Friday? Oow, three points toward landfall. Hurricane windows ordered but not installed? That's a five point deduction, mister. Have all your wood and shutters pre-cut though buried under the pile of donations to Friends of Strays in your garage, that's one point in your favor. Full tank of gas that you didn't have to wait four hours in line as they raised the prices ten times at twenty-five cents a pop while the state price-gouging inspector topped off his personal fleet of SUVs at a discount? Another point. Larder stocked with military-grade surplus rations designed to survive the nuclear winter? One more against landfall. Have enough camping equipment and shotgun ammo stockpiled in the back closet to turn an Army Ranger green with envy and send Dick Cheney's logistics officer to note your precise location for a midnight raid to restock the Vice President's secret bunker? Sure, take another point. A whole house generator that you had to fight off a pack of eight other rabid homeowners from a co-op and their children Florentine-style with only a bonsai potting spade and a cast-iron garden rake during a hurricane-preparation tax holiday weekend? That's two more to your running total. Finally, spending two hours pulling all the brick-a-brack, whirligigs and potted plants from your porch and yard then digging out your pre-cut shutters from the detritus you've buried them beneath since 2004 instead of watching Olympic sports you didn't know had been invented but are suddenly consumed with a burning desire to see the medal ceremony for just so that you can hear what the National Anthem of Balukhastan actually sounds like nets the same three points you will lose by sitting on the couch until midnight to see if the Tamil True Hollywood Story athlete gains the first ever synchronized shuffleboard bronze for his country in Olympic history despite being afflicted with dengue fever and the overwhelming case of steroid-induced munchies that caused the diplomatic incident with the prime minister elect of India during the opening ceremony that has now led to the inexplicable civil war in nearby Myanmar.

And you can blow that hedge simply by going to the grocery store for a few last minute food stocks, and loading up instead on five pounds of fresh Alaskan sockeye salmon on sale for a tragically deep discount while thinking, what are the odds that we lose power for more than two days like we did after every storm in the 2004 season, even the ones in the Pacific? That type of catastrophic maneuver is only fractionally compensated for by the two jumbo cans of Hormel chunk chicken-flavored meat-like product and the last box of stale Triscuits whose seal is broken that you purchased anyway, you know, just in case.

But the real test comes when you get home with your largess and weigh out the total amount of perishables in your freezer, with double points for steak and any fish for which you paid over $10 a pound, against all the cookies, cupcakes and chocolate you splurged on and started sampling on the drive home to comfort you through the coming multi-day power outage that inevitably comes with any rain more severe than an afternoon thunderstorm, and, you know, to keep your energy up for the ensuing couch potato marathon as you wait. You may add to that the half-gallon of ice cream you just have to eat before the Florida Flash and Flicker melts it to the consistency of coffee creamer perfectly convenient for your cold morning cup of instant Joe from your overflowing supply closet. Bet you didn't know that Starbucks made an organic, free-trade, free-range, freeze-dried blend specifically for the Pentagon, did you?

I'm sad to say that alcohol consumption actually weighs in on the non-hurricane provision side of the equation. The more you drink pre-storm, the more likely it is you will need to stay frosty as the roof peels back from your only retirement investment and your neighbor's garden gnome slams through your front picture window to raid your dwindling supply of D-cell batteries. Though, oddly, the more you've consumed, the more likely you are to survive the Wizard-of-Oz-esque, we're-not-in-Kansas-anymore-but-I-sure-wish-I-was-wearing-ruby-slippers-anyway tornadic event only to be rescued by the Coast Guard three miles out in the Gulf drifting on your neighbor's stained and sagging mattress in your wife's anniversary-only, special black lace underwear with the local Geraldo clone from Fox News covering the event live from Chopper 5 for Bill O'Reilly the full national feed. But that's a whole other formula.

And there lies both the beauty and bliss of this particular model. The more you do, the less likely you are to need it. But count on that, and, Wha-Bam, the next thing you will remember is waking up with Katie Couric interviewing your neighbor's garden gnome who has miraculously carved someone else's insurance claim number into your suddenly overgrown and weed-infested lawn with pruning shears in a crop circle reminiscent of "Signs" while you sleep under a lean-to constructed from the last intact piece of your roof sheathing within one thousand yards until the postal carrier wakes you to sign for the return-receipt final-notice bill from FEMA enforceable by Homeland Security for the truck-load of ice, gasoline and generators they dropped off to your neighbor three doors down who proceeded to black market it at prices that would shame a rogue Halliburton buying agent in the Green Zone under your name.

Yeah, that will probably be me you see in my fifteen minutes of fame next weekend.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Black Fingernail Polish

Today, I'm a bit pensive. Just over a year after Karen completed her adventure and three of the people reading this are having adventures of their own, one today, two tomorrow.

Which has me thinking about waiting in various hospitals during Karen's surgeries last year. Of all the things I remember from those hours, black fingernail polish is the one that stands out most.

It was the day of Karen's primary surgery. I'd been sitting in the fourth floor waiting room since they wheeled her through the maze of corridors on the ground floor of the hospital, you know, the one where the minotaurs like to hang out and have a smoke with their axes propping open the emergency doors. I'd just done a drive-by of the Starbucks clone in the lobby, wondering that if "whiskey" translates to "water of life" from Gaelic, what "coffee" means in Arabic. Probably the same thing.

Waiting is not my forte. I had a book and a pair of earplugs, two essentials in my hospital survival kit. An older volunteer had taken my name and handed me a pager. The first buzz would be notification that the surgery was over, the second that the surgeon was on her way out. The TV's were loud, the chairs uncomfortable. My cohorts in the holding cell were each wrapped in their own individual crises, some major, some minor, some as yet unknown. I'd found an alcove by the elevators where I could hide out with my book and my own thoughts. I was tired and nervous though I tried not to show it. Karen had been more of each when I'd last seen her disappearing into the inner sanctum where the surgeons perform their rites. I still had my game face on. I read but the lines of my book refused to make any fundamental sense.

The first buzz of the pager shocked me alert, the second had me edgy with anticipation. A few minutes later, the surgeon emerged through the backstage doors marked "Doctors Only." She began telling me the details of what she had found.

My mind entered a schizophrenic mode, the one I found so handy in compartmentalizing secure information from unclassified impressions back when I had a clearance so many years ago. The logical segment of my brain listened and absorbed what it was hearing. The emotional portion drifted inward, as it is often wont to do. On one level I noted the information the surgeon related, while on another a memory surfaced of her in an examination room during one of Karen's appointments. It was Monday morning, early. Not 5 a.m., hospital early, more like 8 a.m. first appointment. I remember looking at her hands as she was talking to Karen and noticing her fingernails. Being that she was a surgeon, they were neat and short, shorter than mine generally. They were also painted a deep and glossy black. I remember thinking, there's something you don't see every day, a surgeon with black nail polish. Perhaps that revealed more about her weekend than I really wanted to know.

Oddly, I drew comfort from that nail polish. From that moment on, I trusted her, I'm not sure why. Perhaps because she went from being just an abstract title, a doctor, a surgeon, an archetype or a caricature, to being a complete human being, one with unique tastes not usually associated with her profession. That black fingernail polish was like the device on a knight's shield, a declaration of who she was for all the world to see. Tiny, black enameled bucklers on the end of each finger that would protect Karen while she excised the beast within.

All that flashed through one of my segmented minds as another glanced down at her nails to see that they were still black then back up to meet her eyes while the lowest portion searched them to see if I could trust her, if she was telling me the truth. Of course she was. But the animal mind is always hungry for that confirmation in whatever form it comes. With that need sated, all three of my minds merged back into a unified whole. I smiled and shook her hand as she said goodbye and not to worry. I knew that I could trust her.

So, S. and J. and H., I hope you each find some black fingernail polish of your own to comfort you and shield you through your day. Know that Karen and I will stand beside you each in spirit.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Lughnasa 2008

The year moves in cycles, a wheel with eight spokes, eight standing stones dividing spring from summer, winter from fall. An eight-act play in which we accept the roles for which we read early on and hope our lines make sense, the hero and her fool.

Today is Lughnasa, the watershed cleaving summer and the fall. The first day of the harvest whose bountiful berries preserve a taste of sunshine beyond the bitterness of snow. The last of idle somnolence as the dream of midsummer fades like the faeries whose whispered conversations murmur beneath the rain.

Sprites and water nymphs frolic in the jeweled world of a sun shower encased by tiny beads of glass, fragile. Like iridescent dragonflies, they hover and flit, dodging raindrops above the misty road whose destination they dare not reveal. Their pearls blossom in a grove atop the jungle of grass, casting starburst reflections off a spider's radiant loom as she weaves in omens to snare the Norns. Raindrops echo across the rippled surface of a pond casting uneven images like a hand mirror to the wyrd. As sunlight sparkles upon that dappled water, an empty hammock beckons in a cool but gentle breeze, a foreshadowing the fall.

One year ago we strained to read the oracles thrown at our hero's feet as her long battle waned toward victory. Her sword and banner have been returned to the stones above the watchtower mantle, polished yet stained by weather. Outside the vines have grown thick and heavy with midnight fruit, concealing her former encampment, softening the scars of her erstwhile war as the gloaming slants across the hazy forest path shrouded beyond the wall.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III