Dear Bright House (an open letter)

It's been 3 days since message 2A2010VXZAAGP and I have heard only silence. A full month since I first reported the problem with my cable.

A month of football inspired by Picasso in his cubist phase. A month of television broadcast by Salvador Dali. A month of dramatic dialogue interpreted by Porky Pig. A month of psychedelic pictures affecting one end of this node to the other.

A month of customer service Machiavelli might describe as Byzantine and internecine. A month of each call being treated as a new problem rather than an ongoing issue. A month of problems so layered that a diagram would look like an onion with no apparent center. A month of right and left hands not exchanging handshakes. A month of interdepartmental Darwinism.

By the time you get a tech out again, it will have been another week with no one addressing the problem, no one ensuring it's been resolved, no one taking ownership.

Soon, it will no longer be my problem. And I won't wait another month.

© 2010 Edward P. Morgan III

Myakka River State Park

To cap off Karen's extended holiday break this year (after missing Thanksgiving), we took a two night diversion down to Myakka River State Park, about an hour and a half south. After enjoying stays in the more modern cabin accommodations at Saint Joseph Peninsula State Park, we've been wanting to see what the cabins here were like. We stumbled across two open nights on short notice.

Each of the five cabins in Myakka was built in the 1930's by the Civilian Conservation Corps, one of FDR's most successful and enduring recovery programs from the Great Depression. The cabins are small, rustic, palm log construction that have been added on to at least once and modernized to include a fully-electric kitchen, an indoor bathroom and a window unit air conditioner. Kind of like camping with hot water and a microwave. Our cabin had a fussy fireplace, perhaps meant to cook in originally, where the firebox and opening were just a fraction too large for the length of the chimney.

We arrived around 2:30 the first day but were able to get into the cabin early without a problem. Normally, check-in is at 4. We wandered around a bit, finding a trail by the river that we followed for a while before the light started to fade and we headed back. We watched a spectacular sunset over Big Myakka Lake from the frigid birdwalk that evening before heading back to warm up and make dinner, then settled in for the night.

The days were cool by Florida standards, the nights cold. Highs were in the 50's, lows somewhere near freezing. We brought enough wood for the fireplace, though it was a bit less seasoned than we'd been led to believe. As I mentioned, the fireplace was fussy. Even before we lit a fire, the room had a smoky scent to it. We learned why when we inadvertently set off the smoke detector that first night. The trick, we learned, was to keep the fire small, very far back and have the screen in place to provide just that tiny bit of extra draw. Otherwise, smoke tended to just roll out under the mantle. Personally, I think a stonemason could close in the sides and drop the opening about eight inches to fix that problem, but given the budget for parks in this state, that is unlikely to happen any year soon. So, mostly, it was fire for effect.

Both nights, we ducked out onto the back porch to look at the stars, which were bright and clear to the horizon, something I haven't seen inland in this state for almost 30 years. In the clearing behind the cabin, we had a beautiful view of Orion, Taurus and the Pleiades. Betelgeuse was a noticeable orange-red, as was Aldebaran in Taurus. Sirius was an almost arc-welding intense blue as it rose. Mars, also on the horizon, was just as fiery. Karen spotted a green meteor that first night, which had us both thinking this would be an ideal spot to reserve for any of a number of meteor showers throughout the year. There was a nearly clear horizon to horizon viewing spot just up the road by the river, with a pull off just perfect for some chairs.

Even with the fireplace going and the heat on full, we could only get the temperature inside the cabin up to 55. Not a problem as we'd brought sweaters, hats, gloves and other warm clothing. Luckily, we also brought warm bedding, too. The cabin came with sheets, towels and light, light, light blankets. Each morning, the temperature inside the big room was 40 degrees at dawn, 37 in the bathroom. The second morning, we could hear the frost/ice from the trees melting and dripping onto the roof. The second night, we could hear owls calling to one another in the nearby woods. Until the moon rose around midnight, the inside of the cabin was as black as a cave.

We spent the second day hiking around the park. First, we did the canopy walk and nature trail, both of which we'd visited on our previous day trip. The canopy walk and tower were chilly as it was still in the 40's and windy, but a pretty view out over the river, lakes and prairie. The adjoining nature trail has a secluded boardwalk, conveniently in the sun that morning, where we could sit, watch the marsh and warm up. Later, we hiked a loop out of several of the numerous hiking trails which mostly run through the open prairie beyond the oak and palm hammocks closer to the river.

For our geologist friends, there is a great rock near the entrance with a memorial plaque for the park's dedication. The park was donated to the state by a rancher's family in the 1920's, which is pretty amazing since the pasture land by the river is considered to be some of the best in the country east of the Mississippi River. But the woman whose children donated it was known as an innovator and a maverick. The rock itself is about eight feet tall, just as wide and a mixture of limestone and quartzite with some interesting nodules, inclusions and fossils. No idea if it is local, but I suspect it is. I had to pull Karen and her camera away. Another geology note, the sand in the park, Myakka fine grained sand, is the official sand of the state of Florida. The visitor's center has a wide core going down just over six feet, which breaks down the layers that are amazingly similar to the ones in our backyard. Though their sand is definitely much finer.

For wildlife, we spotted deer, black and tan wild boar, osprey, red-shouldered hawks, kingfishers, wild turkeys, wood storks, flocks of swallows, Carolina wrens and blue-gray gnatcatchers, plus the usual herons and egrets. We had two memorable encounters, both on the last day as we made a final circuit through the park. The first was with a red-shouldered hawk sitting on a branch by the road. Karen has an uncanny ability to be able to spot a bird of prey from a moving vehicle whether at 15 or 50 mph. When we first pulled over, the hawk was still in the shade, but sat watching us as Karen snapped pictures until he was in a narrow beam of sun that had moved through the trees. We must have stood fifteen to twenty feet away for fifteen minutes as he posed.

Our second encounter involved playing tag with two pair of crows on a path by the Clay Gulch stream in the north of the park. Some time ago, we had heard a story on NPR about the different calls crows make, from warnings to friendly invitations. While we were out hiking the prairie the day before, we'd run across a murder in an isolated tree who called all manner of raspy warnings as we approached. Several members retreated to the nearby tree line before we passed and the lookouts called back an all clear, while occasionally squawking encouragement for us to keep going at our backs. That day, I heard the more friendly calls up on the trail and went to check it out. I found two pair of crows sitting in a tree overlooking the river. I know they saw us, but they continued with their friendly calls as first one then the rest moved past our position in the direction from which we had come, like they were playing tag. They played this game for fifteen minutes, one moving past us, the others following as we trailed behind until they settled in a tree astride the path where they could look down at us with curiosity. Not once did they issue a warning cry, just their friendly, playful calls. We sat for 5 minutes examining each other before they retreated up the trail laughing. That encounter made our trip.

Definitely a getaway we would repeat. The nice thing is these cabins are so much closer than the eight hour trek to St. Joe's. They are a bit more rustic, though less isolated at the same time. There are a number of other places we want to check out nearby, including the Gamble Plantation, the Mary Selby Botanical Gardens and the Ringling Museum. Who knows, we might even do the airboat or tram tour (where we spotted a group of Amish tourists?!), or rent a kayak one day. As the brochure says, this is the Real Florida, the one I still love, not the Disneyfied version you find along the I4 corridor.

© 2010 Edward P. Morgan III

Winter Solstice 2009

Winter Solstice 2009 - a reading (on YouTube)

Tonight is the Winter Solstice. Today we gather all our candles and prepare to set the house alight.

Each year, the day begins with preparations. Like the night before a camping trip, we review our equipment, noting wear and patching holes. We wash the glass covers, add oil to the lamps, trim the wicks and clean the candle lanterns. Some only emerge from storage for this one night of the year. There is the one my mother gave us, the one from my grandmother, the ones from Karen, her friends and her sister. The one we light whenever necessary to guide wayward souls back home.

We arrange candles in clusters on counters and on tabletops, hanging lamps and lanterns from the ceiling, gathering flames anywhere away from inquisitive paws and whiskers. Candles float in a bowl in the kitchen. A few cat-proof globes adorn the dining room, others are scattered across the coffee table. The surviving Wolford from our wedding is perched atop the stove. We stake candle sconces along the front walk, a trail of flames to guide any visitors to our door.

This night from dusk to dawn no incandescents will glow within our home. No lights, no television, not even the memory of a fire we have captured on DVD. The stereo is the only electronic compromise as it cycles through a cappella music from a darker, more medieval age. There is a haunting, simple beauty in an anonymous quartet giving voice to carols and motets, chants and polyphony in soprano Middle English and alto Norman-French.

We brighten this longest night of the year in the manner of our ancestors, with candles, flame and oil. Our tradition began just under a score of years ago on a whim, an idea adopted from a more creative writer in a book no one remembers. These days, Karen has become more orthodox, more militant, unscrewing even the bulb in the refrigerator. Women are the keepers of our faith, the enforcers of our traditions.

We prepare the mead, anymore our lone batch of the year, mixing water with honey while it's still light enough to read the measures, adding the yeast before the night descends. For many years, we poured the ingredients in near darkness with only candles to light our way. Later, we will share a glass by the fire table, always sampling the fruits of the last year's tradition.

Even dinner is prepared and eaten before sunset. It was harder when we had to rush home from work to make the house ready. When we first started, we made sure we had something simple to prepare or reheat the moment we hit the door. Now, it's become a personal holiday, a festival, a feast, a celebration like any other. We roast a lamb shank with all the trimmings, a real holiday dinner, clearing off the remnants while it's still light enough to see.

At dusk we will wander out to the lake to watch the sunset. We will stand at the rail, comparing the sun's position to the other Celtic holidays throughout the year, reflecting on events that have filled the intervening spaces. We will head home at twilight, take up the matches and stick-lighter, and begin our ritual of candle lighting as soon as we return.

With all the preparations finished and the candles softly burning, we will finally have a chance to relax and reflect. A chance to breathe after another hectic year. Later, by candle-fire, we will exchange a single gift, always related to the holiday, a sconce, a lantern, something Celtic, something living.

Some time ago, we discovered that our neighbors of a more than a dozen years, who have since moved on, always thought we were Jewish. We are judged by our lack of Christmas lights, and the darkness of our home. We have no flashing icicles, no sparkling reindeer, no lighted plastic nativity, no inflatable Rudolph or Frosty or Santa. No tinny carols emanate from our yard. But every year, a wreath from Karen's sister adorns the wall beside our door. This year, another fragrant evergreen arrangement is ensconced on a table on the porch. For many years, a tree was visible in the library, lighted and shiny with antique tinsel, though it has since moved farther back in the house along with the all books. For half a dozen years, we donated our live tree to the community to be planted the park. Live, as in still living, not live as in freshly cut. And each year on the Winter Solstice, the blinds remain open as the house burns against the night.

Like every Solstice, eventually the darkness will return. One by one, the candles will be extinguished and we will be left with little but each other and the night. I do not fear the darkness; I embrace it in a way. I am more comfortable roaming thorough the house in winter than in summer, at midnight than at noon. The night is my advantage, the cloak of my disguise. I am used to seeing shapes and motion in place of clearer images. In darkness we are all once again created equal: none of us can see.

Some years, I sit down to write this message thinking I know exactly how it will end. Some years, something happens that changes that. This year it was a name, one resurfacing after more than a quarter century, one I hadn't heard since high school, contained in a brief message saying that a man my age had died, his family's holiday turned from joy to sudden grieving. All of our plans for light come to naught when a candle burns out prematurely.

Our kind thoughts to all of you no matter your holiday traditions, whether re-enacted in joy or private sorrow. However long the candles last, may they keep your Solstice warm and bright.


© 2009 Edward P. Morgan III

Earl Morgan, a final note

Earl Morgan - a reading (on YouTube)

Today, I feel alone and untethered, like someone has cut an anchor line and suddenly I'm adrift.

Last Sunday morning, I received a phone call, one I'd been expecting for some time. Charles Earl Morgan, Jr., my uncle, my friend, had died the previous evening around 8 o'clock.

How do you explain a life, an individual, in a way that will make any sense to someone who never met him? I could say he was a WWII veteran, that he treated the wounded returning from the front, that the experience affected him deeply. I could say he was once a steward for Eastern Airlines. That he had an interest in biology and genetics, and thought, one day, science might neutralize humanity’s aggressive tendencies. That he suffered from depression. That he was fascinated by our family’s genealogy. That he always wanted to visit the south of Wales and was so excited when we toured the north. That he read science fiction, Asimov and Herbert. That he liked Impressionist art. That he had a collection of African woodcarvings. That he enjoyed the Winter Solstice. That he fed the cats he found outside. That he was the kindest, most understanding, most generous soul I’ve known.

None of those things mean much out of context. They are just facts and information, pieces and fragments. They are pale pigments that only paint a watercolor of the individual I knew. They don't encapsulate a life.

In the end, I cannot introduce you to him. I can only say what he meant to me. I’m not certain I will succeed but at least I have to try. I wish I could paint a beautiful picture or utter some memorable turn of phrase. But I can’t. This week, the words have failed me.

By the time we met, half his life was behind him. By the time I could remember him, he would have been about the age I am now. The last time I visited him, I was a teenager. The last time I saw him might have been at my grandfather’s funeral, but I cannot say for certain. The last time I heard his voice was a phone call over the summer. The last time I heard from him, a letter just a couple weeks ago.

We kept in touch through letters. We didn't talk a lot about the past. We talked about war and peace, life and nature, people and the world around them. I shared with him things no one else in my family knows, no one but my wife. Some family secrets, some observations. That was the type of friend he was, the type you could confide in without receiving any judgement, the type who always had a word of encouragement or support. The type you could trade letters with every few months and still feel completely connected with, as though you picked up the conversation just where you had dropped it off.

Recently, I sent him the things I'd written, essays and stories. He was one of the first people I’d shared them with, and seemed to enjoy reading them a great deal. For the past three years, I sent him a packet after each of the Celtic holidays. I’m told he saved every one. He was one of a smattering of people I knew was reading what I wrote. Part of the reason I started posting daily lines was to have something to share while I was restructuring the novel. I wanted to have something to give back as I knew he had been going through a difficult time. The last package went out a week before he died. His sister read him the final essay, for which I am more grateful than she knows.

I have a stack of almost fifty letters that I received in return, dating back just over twenty years. In his last letter he told me how much he appreciated me sending the essays and stories, how they had helped him through some very hard times. That’s the highest compliment I’ve ever been given, being told that something I wrote had helped someone else in some small way.

Like his final letter, now he, too, has gone missing. In a similar way, I keep searching for that letter in the last place I saw it but in my heart, I know it's gone. Lost, misplaced, perhaps never to resurface again, though I desperately hope it will. Just like him.

Last night, I had a dream, a nightmare. I was with Karen in a doctor's office. The doctor, an older woman who reminded me of a close friend's mother, was going over her blood counts, commenting that they were the highest she'd ever seen. My biggest fear these days is that I'll find myself back there, sitting in that chair, holding her hand while someone utters that fateful word again as I stare back into the maw, not of my own mortality, but rather of the potential loss of someone I care so much about. I woke up terrified of having to continue on alone.

There are only a few people that I care that deeply for, companions I am that connected to on the journey though this life. My wife, an aunt I write to every day, a series of familiars. A handful of others once upon a time, most already lost to circumstance and distance. There are people you meet in life that you can't explain why you're drawn to. For me, Earl Morgan was one.

When many animals are born, they imprint on the figure taking care of them, whatever species that individual might be. Humans are just as instinctive, only slightly more complex. Some people are lucky enough to be born into a family that provides all that they need, love and support, acceptance and understanding. Others have to look elsewhere. If we don't find what we need in the people at hand, we continue searching. Sometimes that search lasts all our lives. Once that bond has been established, no matter how late, it is inviolate and unbreakable. When it is severed, it creates an emptiness, a void where something existed a moment ago that has suddenly been removed. Spouses know this, as do parents who have lost a child. And children who have lost their parents.

Last Saturday, I lost more than a man I called an uncle, more than a friend, more than a mentor and a kindred spirit. I lost an individual I'd imprinted on, an individual I'd come to see as a constant, like air or food or water, noticed only when they disappear. A man who was warm and supportive and wise, a man with unique experiences that somehow resonated with my own, a man with a unique presence in the world, and a view of it I often shared.

How can emptiness feel so heavy, so wearying to carry? But still I stumble forward, more alone now, hunched under the weight of the man gone missing.

There are people who say they know what happens after death. Some go so far as to declare it with certainty. I know that no one can be certain, at least until they stand ready to cross the threshold from this life to whatever happens after. That is why our beliefs are titled faith.

What I do know is what happens on this side of the veil. We grieve, we remember, we are saddened by our loss. All grief feels selfish. We mourn what we are missing, what we no longer have, and sometimes forget to honor the life that was lived.

Earl, I am honored to have called you my friend. Wherever your ashes settle, whether in a National Cemetery or in the waters off your home, I hope you will ease the way for those of us left behind who wonder what awaits us. Whatever you discover on the other side, I hope it brings you peace. Godspeed and good journey, my friend. I hope one day we will meet again to resume our conversation.


© 2009 Edward P. Morgan III

The Day of Peace in Flanders Fields

"The Day of Peace in Flanders Fields" - a reading (on YouTube)

Ninety-one years ago, at the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the Western allies signed an agreement to cease hostilities with Germany, putting an end for us to the Great War. Around Europe and parts of North America today is marked as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day. Independence Day for some, Veterans Day for us. The following year, we signed a treaty formalizing the end of the War to End All Wars.

Or so we thought until we finished off a two-front war twenty-six years later that saw more civilian deaths than military and whose carnage was four times greater than its predecessor. This time around we decided not to tell ourselves quaint lies about the future as the ashes and rubble cooled and settled into a Cold War between erstwhile allies. This time we didn't feel the same need to remember so much as some of us felt the need to never forget.

Thirty-eight years after that war ended, I met a former Marine in a hobby shop who had fought as a young man on all the islands that still ring through our country's collective memory, Tarawa, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, Okinawa. For decades, he had been unable to share or even understand his experiences. He never told anyone what he had seen, including his wife and children. He suffered nightmares and anxiety attacks.

Then, he met a group of veterans who reenacted the battles he had fought with miniatures. Suddenly, he was able to understand the reason his friends had died here or there, and why his commander had insisted they advance to take this or that position against seemingly impossible odds. He could see the battle from a higher angle, one reserved at the time for men with stars on their collars not stripes on their sleeves. He understood why the sacrifices of the men around him were necessary, men he'd lived with, talked with, eaten with, gotten to know, many to like. He could see the lives of other men in other units that his unit was saving through their actions and loss.

His anxiety eased, his nightmares went away. He found he could talk with others about what he had seen and been through, even non-military people, even strangers like myself, at the time a young man perhaps a few years older than he had been when he was sent away to fight. After decades of silent suffering, he had found a measure of peace through comprehension.

War changes every man and woman who survives it, directly or indirectly. While I am unlikely to become a member of that fraternity, someone did try to kill me once with their hands, up close and very personal. That experience changes the way you see the world from that day forward. It is not an experience you easily forget.

We tend forget that the objective of any war is peace, as lasting and sustainable as humanly possible. War should always be a last resort and kept as short as possible. There is nothing inherently glorious in weapons, nothing to be celebrated in taking another's life, no matter how justified, no matter how necessary. To paraphrase Lao Tzu, we should enter battle gravely and treat even victory like a funeral.

In my family, funerals involve either praying or drinking, usually one or the other to exclusion. I was never very good at either but more tolerable at the latter. So to any veteran reading this, I raise a sober glass in acknowledgement and remembrance of your service with a fervent hope that your experience only changed you for the better. To those still in uniform, if you cannot be safe, be well on this and every day. May you and all of us celebrate another day of peace sometime in the near future. The Day of Peace in Flanders Fields.


© 2009 Edward P. Morgan III

Samhain 2009

Samhain 2009 - a reading (on YouTube)

Half the year we spend in darkness struggling to find the light. The night is not evil, only mysterious and unknown, unilluminated.

Unblinking eyes embrace the darkness tonight, glowing in the shadows, some friendly, some not, some merely mischievous. They look out from behind the masks of archetypes, the stories we tell each other gathered around the harvest fire to remind ourselves that danger is ever present and all around.

We tell tales of the horned god who is the hart bounding through the forest, darting into shadows to keep the wolves at bay. Like him, we fear the onset of twilight, the hunting hour for wolves and panthers. We sense them stalking us from a time when a flash of eyes provided our only warning before a scream heralded that one of us had gone missing, disappearing behind a trail of blood. The stag serves as the guardian of the forest deer, a reminder that if we are quick and willing to confront the circling pack in our fastness, our children will survive and prosper. But to him, we are just another set of eyes in the night, another predator darkly desirous of his flesh.

We speak of the great mother, the black soil beneath our feet from which life springs, as dark and mysterious as a cave. Sometimes cruel, sometimes gentle, she nurtures her better children and grinds the rest to nourish the next generation already stirring in her womb. She is the dark earth goddess we appease with blood, bone and flesh to keep the land fertile and the harvest towers full. After the sickle falls, she embraces our dead, still her children, whose eyes make our spines tingle in the night when she sends them out to play.

We whisper of the old crone, our ancestral grandmother, toothless and bent yet bold and unintimidated, reminding us with her cane when she thinks we've gone astray. She is the good witch whose identical twin lives deep among the trees luring children into her lair with sweet promises before devouring their innocence, baking them into men and women in her oven before offering them as sweetmeats to her pets, some of which have learned to walk on their hind legs among us. Their hungry eyes follow us while she hums through her preparations, devising a cunning plan to separate us from the shepherds and woodcutters so they can dine on lamb come spring.

Finally, we utter stories of the goblins, the thieves that live among us, miscreants of mischance that pilfer our good fortune. Hardship and misadventure waiting to steal our cache of luck, they are the mischievous spirits lurking near our shame. Once, they were simple village numina, kobolds and tomte easily appeased. Outcast from our homes like demons, now they gather in clans and tribes, packing up like wild dogs to hunt, setting camps deep inside the forest to brigand the unwary and unsuspecting. Their eyes shine beyond the windows tonight, casting back red or green reflections as they call for treats in small, high voices.

Half the year we spend in darkness struggling to find the light. Tonight beyond the harvest fire, eyes embrace the darkness, tracking us through the night. We must be careful not to hold their gaze or we will be spellbound by our own reflection.

© 2009 Edward P. Morgan III

Many Paths, One Mountain

Both of my eyes are not the same. Each perceives color just a little differently. When I look through one eye, I see slightly more red, the other slightly more green. Not enough that my brain has trouble integrating the two, just detectable if I allow myself to notice.

In my mind, if my own two eyes can't agree on how to see the world, how can I expect anyone else to agree with the way I see it. Each of our perceptions, memories, life events, manners of viewing and processing the world, are different. They become our touchstones on the journey, the markers that guide us along the way.

We walk together on our separate journeys, supporting each other when the path gets steep, finding water when one of us is thirsty, sharing our food with anyone who is hungry, sheltering together when there are storms or danger, tending the sick and the wounded until they can continue, laying our companions to rest when they cannot. We do these things because they are the right things to do, without asking whether our companions are Jewish or Muslim, Christian or pagan, Hindu or Buddhist, atheist or Daoist. It is enough that they are human.

Many paths, one mountain. I hope you find the one that is right for you and gets you where you want to be.


© 2009 Edward P. Morgan III