Tens

Tens - a reading (on YouTube)

I’m coming up on a decadal birthday anniversary. These are the ones everyone in our society seems to take most note of, as if reaching a certain age is a major life accomplishment. It beats the alternative, I guess. Though honestly, 13 and 21 are bigger events in most young people’s minds than 10 and 20. But 3-0 begins the first in a series of “big” birthdays.

I can’t say I’m looking forward to this one. Not because I feel old, merely older. It’s like losing my hair, my age is not something I hide, or hide from. More, I think I’m apprehensive because the past has taught me that big birthday anniversaries often bring big changes, not all of them for the better.

Within six months of my turning ten, my parents divorced which pretty much turned my world upside down. By the fall of that year, I had gone from being distinctly middle class to qualifying for free lunch at school. The next few years were the darkest of my childhood.

The day I turned twenty, my father called my mother to try to convince her to cut off what support she gave me for college. Their divorce agreement mandated he pay for half my tuition because of money he’d raided from an educational fund. His call chained to her calling me in tears, and then me calling him to tell him never to call her again when he’d been drinking. But he succeeded in his quest a year later when she cut me off without warning. Unlucky for him, I came up with the cash to hold up my end of the bargain so he was still on the hook for his.

When I turned thirty, I was in the midst of planning a wedding. My wife and I were married a month later, the best day of my life. But six months after that, I learned a family secret that led to arguably the two toughest years of my life, perhaps barring 2007. The scar they left still aches some days and in fact may never heal. My only comfort lies in knowing my reaction may have prevented someone else from sharing her experience.

A week after I turned forty, my wife was in surgery having the last real hope of our ever having children removed. Only a handful of people came to visit her in the hospital, giving me my first real taste of how in hard times, friends sometimes disappear. A few weeks later, an erstwhile friend decided it was a good time to malign her in an email. It didn’t end well for him, or the friendship.

Those were hard years. Against that backdrop, I’m uncertain what this year will bring. I am not superstitious just cautious from my experience. Coincidence does not indicate causation. And the changes those years brought helped define who I am now, much of it for the better.

As I look back, in an odd way I take comfort from the tarot. Okay, first, let’s clear up a misconception. Like the I Ching, the primary purpose of the tarot is not some sort of mystical divination. More, both act as intuitive guides to illuminate sometimes unrecognized patterns. The Major Arcana of a tarot deck track a spiritual journey from the Fool to Enlightenment (the World). The Minor Arcana highlight aspects of the ordinary distractions that crop up along the way.

The Minor Arcana are divided into four suits that mirror the four classical elements of antiquity, coins – earth, cups – water, wands – fire, swords – air, with the Major Arcana acting as a binding Spirit. Together, they create a useful metaphor, a lens through which to view this life.

Similar to ordinary playing cards, each suit of the Minor Arcana is divided into ten numbered cards and four face cards, princess, knight, queen and king. Each ace through ten tracks a secondary cycle of events shaped by the influence of its suit. Where the ace represents the essence of an element, the ten represents its excess, for good or ill. In the case of cups, it’s an overflow of joy. In wands, an oppressive burden. In coins, material comfort taken for granted. In swords, a ridiculous amount of pain. Where the nines truly capture the epitome of each suit, the tens are like that second helping of ice cream you know you shouldn’t eat. Even of a good thing, they are little too much. And of a bad thing, they are overkill.

If you roll all those tens together, you come up with the ten of the Major Arcana titled The Wheel of Fortune. Depending on which interpretation you ascribe to, the Wheel is the random events of life over which you have no control. Or sometimes, it’s reminder that pride comes before a fall. At its heart it represents the constancy of change. If you’ve been cast low, you have nowhere to go but up. If you’ve been raised high, be careful of that next step.

Which brings me full circle to the beginning and what this year will bring. A little bit of everything I expect, some joy, some tears, some success, some burden. In that way, life is a little like the weather: If you don’t like what’s outside at the moment, just wait a while and check again. I’ll guarantee it will be different.

As a friend pointed out to me this week, if we’d had six fingers, or four, instead of five, anniversaries divisible by ten wouldn’t be such a big deal (though I suspect anniversaries ending in zero still would be). The Chinese have such a system, a cycle of twelve years overlaid with a greater cycle of five. As with the I Ching, maybe they see life in broader patterns. So by that thought, in ten more years maybe I get to start again.

But at this point, the best I can hope is that I’ve only lived half my life already. It’s more likely I have less time left on this earth than I’ve already spent. If anything, that’s what weighs on me most about this birthday, what on my list remains undone and whether I get the chance to do it.

In the end, I need to remember to enjoy each season of each year while I’m in it. Winter for its quietude. Spring for its rebirth. Summer for its warmth. Fall for its harvest. And then we start over. Like counting up to ten. After all the events in recent years, maybe a little change wouldn’t be such a bad thing right now.

© 2014 Edward P. Morgan III 

Words (Imbolc 2014)

Words (Imbolc 2014) - a reading (on YouTube)

Years flow by in much the same cycle as nature. Some years, the fall acorns in our front oaks are light, other years heavy. One year, they filled up our neighbor's pickup bed. A few years ago, they were still raining down in December, something we’d never seen before. The fullness of each season is determined by unremembered events many months before. How cold was the previous winter? How wet was the previous spring?

Like those acorns, my writing goes in cycles, some lean years, some fat. Some years, I fill up notebooks and index cards with a bounty of excess, others I’m lucky to post handful of essays. Each time I sit down to create a new piece, the process is the same. After the initial excitement and inspiration, I come to a point where I hate everything I’ve written, where I want to throw it all away, where I think the piece will never come together. Eventually, it does but not before its time.

On days like that, I’ve learned to still my mind and let it wander until over-shy words creep in to fill the surrounding silence. Sometimes they surface in the memory of a long, lost vocabulary word. Other times, in snippets of dialog echoing through my head.

Everything begins with words. They form the rich loam in which I plant my ideas. I spot interesting usages in articles. I run across rich histories perusing my dictionary. I seek intriguing alternatives by consulting my thesaurus. I can spend hours surfing through sources like some people browse the web. Many words, like wine, need to be rolled along the tongue to be fully appreciated. Some words blend and mellow with age while others sour to vinegar if left too long unused.

Words written not spoken. Spoken words evaporate once uttered, scattering like a flock of winter starlings, or sometimes their restless companion crows, a murder or a murmuration. A few stragglers cling to memory here or there, forming a pattern or a stain but rarely a complete picture. Written words develop and endure, comforting me for many years before their edges become yellow and worn with age, and are eventually discarded.

I shroud myself in words. They are my blanket. They provide my warmth, my solace, my insulation from the cold, harsh world surrounding me. Words are my thoughts, my ideas and ideals, my identity. They are the glue binding together the book of this fragile, contradictory personality. Words form my cocoon, my chrysalis as I change and grow beneath them. They protect me at my most fragile. They console me as I age. One day words will bury me. And be buried with me.

The beginning of each new year reflects my writing process. As I impatiently await the first blossoms of spring, I lay out goals and inspirations, map out stories and ideas. Carried with the cold at Imbolc, there is electricity in the air as the energy for new and colorful creations swells the roots beneath the snow. To the outside eye it looks like nothing much is stirring. But like the lambs lingering in their mother’s wombs, unseen words shift below the surface, restlessly awaiting the right moment to emerge. 

© 2014 Edward P. Morgan III

Winter Solstice 2013

"Winter Solstice 2013" - a reading (on YouTube)

We open our eyes to a pale reflection in pink and orange. A long, gray wall of fog looms at the horizon like Hadrian's last defense. As the fog emerges from the soft gray light of dawn, we feel like distant lanterns, tiny candles floating aimlessly across the water.

A gray stillness settles outside as though the world has paused for breath. Through a misty haze, the daylight silvers as the morning ages. A faded white sun hangs motionless against the brushed platinum sky, a sun-bleached sun melting to moonrise by midafternoon.

As autumn deepens into winter, dappled sunlight brushes like mist against the screen until the fog melts into rain, washing the shadow from our minds. Droplets of air condense and run down its surface, filling the spaces in between like a memory of unfallen tears.

Fiery tendrils of the setting sun send steam drifting across the water and smoke swirling among the trees as fog coalesces from twilight. The golden fog burns along the horizon like the beacon of the Hermit's lantern guiding our way forward through another umbrageous day. Come evening spheres of silver, pink and gold hang below the streetlamps and house lights, iridescent ornaments in a nighttime world of fog.

Day by day, our ink fades a little further from the page until, one morning, nothing remains of each line of our lives but the shadow of a memory. This night, we light the sacred candles. In darkness we were born of fire. Small souls, at midwinter we return to ash, awaiting Brigid’s breath at Imbolc to be reborn. Another cycle lays behind us, craggy and arthritic yet complete, even as the next one beckons, her slender finger as pale and unblemished as the promise of the coming spring.

© 2013 Edward P. Morgan III

St. Joseph Peninsula State Park

Just before Thanksgiving, we made the seven hour trek up to Cape San Blas. We'd rented a cabin inside the park for the week. We stumbled into an open block and seized it. Getting reservations up there is always a trick. We hadn't been on a vacation away from home in over a year.

This was our third time staying up there. Since our last visit, they had added some counter space and a dishwasher to the kitchen, expanded the upstairs, removed a skylight and converted the fireplace over to gas. The cabins are a two-story, loft arrangement that sleep seven (as long as you're friendly), maybe 700 sq. feet total, with a screened in porch, a full kitchen and a short boardwalk down to the bay. They are away from pretty much everything, right next to miles of wilderness area that extends to the point of the peninsula. 

In the cabins there is no television, no telephone, no internet, no wi-fi and only spotty cell phone coverage at best. I think that's what we like about it. It forces us to slow down and disconnect. Hiking, reading, walking the beach, watching sunset and cooking become the highlights of our day. In four days, we hiked just over twenty miles. The fifth day was pretty much wind and rain. In our five full days up there, I finished three books (including the Night Circus) plus Beowulf. I sometimes forget how fast I can read when I allow myself blocks of uninterrupted time. We had a fire every evening. We listened to football games on AM radio (we couldn't even pull in NPR). In the past, we've played games. 

The park encompasses some of the best natural coastal complexes I've seen in Florida with white sand beaches backed by 20-30 foot dunes covered with a variety of native vegetation, including tons of sea oats. In late November, that also meant colorful fields of wildflowers in yellow (woody goldenrod?), white (salt myrtle), lavender (Texas sage? a native mint?) and red (holly berries). The wilderness area, which you now need to register with the rangers to enter, has a trail that runs seven and half miles out to the point. That's pretty much a full day. I think we've only ever made it four. For more ambitious people, there are wilderness campsites along the trail (the picture above is the view of the bay from wilderness campsite 3). The sunsets over the Gulf can be spectacular. On previous visits we've seen green flashes. And the nights are dark, dark, dark. As dark as either of us has seen with the exception of being at sea. With no real light pollution, the constellations and the Milky Way pop right out.

On the fauna side, we saw deer, bald eagles, hawks, osprey, herons, egrets, rays, and dolphin. We heard an owl hooting a couple nights in the nearby woods. On one of the windier days, we saw several herons and egrets perched high up in the pines. On our way to sunset one evening, we stumbled across a bobcat on the dunes, only the second I've ever seen in the wild. He quickly disappeared. We saw a kingfisher sitting on a wire overlooking the bay and a salt marsh. We've seen either him or his ancestors in that same spot each time we've visited. On the boardwalk by the bay, we watched several bald eagles calling, and one pair fighting. Another turned his head and banked to check us out more closely when he heard Karen's camera. I've never seen one do that. On the trail, we saw bobcat tracks and what we later learned were coyote tracks. On our last morning, I heard five deer chuffing a warning at a stand of trees beyond the porch. When we walked down to the beach, we saw more coyote tracks deerstalking. I assume he was the object of their ire. 

We drove home on Thanksgiving Eve, relaxed and detoxed in a way only slowing down and immersing ourselves in nature can for us. Unfortunately, we didn't encounter any roadside honey stands. On the last trip, we picked up two quarts of tupelo very cheap. The drive takes us through some of the poorest counties in Florida (including the poorest school district with only a single K-12 school). I think seeing so many burned-out, abandoned buildings is sometimes the most depressing part of the trip. There are days I dream of living in a more rural area that has more green to get some distance from our neighbors. Then I remember what the day-to-day reality of that looks like and think, maybe home is not so bad. 

Find more of Karen's pictures on Flickr (she plans to add more as she gets time). 

© 2013 Edward P. Morgan III

Samhain 2013

Samhain 2013 - a reading (on YouTube)

Towering trees guard the ancient ruins where gods once wept. Only blind men dwell there now, unscathed by its leprous beauty. Wispy, white clouds fly like victory pennants on an azure field. Bushy tendrils of Spanish moss sway in the slightest breeze, swinging like the beards of old, gray men dancing in the trees. From his high presbyterian perch, an osprey dines in silence, dropping piscine morsels onto the congregational steps below.

Soft lavender twilight deepens to indigo as pinpoints of light wink to life and a few become unstable, blazing fiery trails to earth. The night flashes to life, briefly revealing a glimpse of the world beyond the darkened window before settling back to a pale reflection of within. A flickering flame describes an imperfect circle around which tongues of shadow dance and press but dare not enter.

The moon plays hide and seek among the clouds, its light occasionally spilling forth like cream overflowing a pewter pitcher, her light a sparkling, sunlit memory adrift on an otherwise cloud-strewn and stormy sea. Still and unmoving in the silence of the cauldron, water sleeps content in the beauty of her reflection, capturing her in unnatural slumber.

© 2013 Edward P. Morgan III

Fall Equinox 2013

Fall Equinox - a reading

Antique velvet light slips through the window each morning, as soft as autumn rain, as gray and gentle as her age. A smoky orange dawn burns through the eastern sentinels presaging a western storm.

Golden brown cypress stand sentry on the shore, guardians of the changing season set against a verdant army of grass and pine. Pine seeds spiral down with each echo of autumn, embryonic helicopters auto-rotating toward the light of an arboreal dream. A mat of pine needles bakes in the afternoon sun, its resinous scent cloaking autumn in the memory of her secret summer sanctuary.

Eagles perch atop slate-green aeries, guarding the approaches from the teal-green sea. A raptor feigning sleep atop the fence post swivels to study our eyes before ruffling its feathers into flight. 

Summer’s children drift away like dandelion seeds on a spring breeze, settling somewhere distant to sprout families of their own. One by one, they settle on the water at dusk. For some, the journey has ended, while others will continue beyond the horizon, out of sight.


© 2013 Edward P. Morgan III

Kitten*Con 2013

Many people assume that I am the one who drives us going to Dragon*Con each year. In truth, it is a mutual decision. Though in all honesty, I've generally deferred to Karen's preference since 2007. The past two years, getting up there was complicated by Karen responding to storms the days before. Once, her boss almost had to fly her there from the field direct.

This year, she wanted a break from the stress of making the annual pilgrimage. We had a room, though not in any of our preferred hotels. Had we been able to score a room in Hilton or the Hyatt, in all likelihood we would have gone. Alas, that was not to be. Even when I offered a week before to fly us up first class after Karen was having doubts about her decision, she demurred.

So as a joke to cheer her up, on Facebook I posted a set of panels based on the Dragon*Con tracks that our cats might like:

"Since we will be home with the cats this Labor Day for the first time in their lives, Nyala and Mara have asked us to organize Kitten*Con 2013 (though they refuse to stand in line or wear their badges). Here are the panels they'd like to see:

Alternate History: The Day Humans Self-Domesticated
Anime: Hello, Kitty
Apocalypse Rising: Surviving a Vet Visit
Armory: Tooth and Claw, the Only Weapons You'll Ever Need
Art: Live Model
Costuming: Furries!
Digital Gaming: Apps for the iPaw
EFF: Hacking 101: Doors and How to Open Them
Filking: Midnight yowls
Gaming: The Best Die to Steal from the Table
MMEOWRPGS: The Midnight Heat
Paranormal: The Ghosts Your Humans Can't See
Performance: Bell Circle (10 pm - whenever)
Science: Catnip Live: Homegrown or Store-Bought (a paws-on demo)
Sci-fi Lit:: Man-Kzin Wars, a Primer.
Sci-Fi Media: The Red Bird or the Blue Bird, Which Way to Reality
Silk Road: Ripples in the Water Bowl
Space: Are We There Yet? An Explorer's Guide to Napping
Writing: Screen Rubbing and Keyboard Walking for Beginners
X-Track: Schrödinger's Cat"

Karen ran with the idea and created badges. And the inaugural Kitten*Con was born. 

Over five days we watched seven movies and played five games. We hadn't seen any of the movies though they were all in our Netflix queue for one reason or another. Two of the games we owned but had never played. Two more we'd only played once. The last we'd maybe played twice. Friday morning, we setup a card table in the library so we could close off a game midway through if we needed to without the cats disturbing it. We brushed up on rules each morning then ran through each game 2-3 times to see how they played out.

We kicked over the iPod to a grouping called Darkwave with all the bands we'd discovered at Dragon*Con over the years: The Cruxshadows, Ego Likeness, I:Scintilla, Ayria, Abney Park, Butterfly Messiah, Celldweller, Faith and the Muse, Narrator, Spider Lilies, and Distorted Reality (all worth checking out on YouTube or MySpace if you get the chance).

The cats attended a catnip panel (with free samples) and the bell circle (which they ring every night to go out onto the porch). Nyala ran through the hacking session on doors though thankfully, she still doesn't quite have the hang of it. Mostly, they spent their time in the napping demo or advising us on game tactics.  

Here's how the days broke down.

On Thursday evening, without lines or issues, the four of us received our badges (Mara, Nyala, Karen and myself). An auspicious beginning. While we watched our first movie, the cats napped in preparation for a busy weekend. That didn't seem particularly out of the ordinary but Nyala tells me you can never have too much sleep.

Thursday night: Hunger Games (movie, science fiction): I'm not sure anyone would be able to make much sense out of it if they hadn't read the book. Not that I was a fan of the last third of the book anyway.

Friday: Space Alert (board game, science fiction): To paraphrase the board game panel at Dragon*Con (about a different game), "When you lose this game, and you will lose this game..."  Both Karen and I had read the rules but were still having trouble digesting them. Then we remembered the advice we'd heard at the board game panel and headed for YouTube to look for a tutorial. Once there, we ran across a multi-part tutorial and demo on a channel called Two Guys and Some Cardboard. Watching those made it so we could dive right in. A decent game with a lot of multi-player potential. Playing this with 5 players would be utter chaos.

Friday night: Melancholia (movie, science fiction). The more it settled with me, the more I liked it. Not to everyone's taste but very artistically done. You can find my full recommendation here.

Saturday: Race for the Galaxy (card game, science fiction). A decent game, though I'm not sure about using cards for both money and counters as well as play. I see there's an expansion that allows up to 9 players. That just hurts my brain.

Saturday evening: We headed out to the Dealer's Room (aka Emerald City comic shop) and then met a couple friends (who also sometimes haunt Dragon*Con) for some General Tso's chicken, a food court staple for us up in Atlanta. And yes, we wore our badges while we were out. Mara and Nyala said they wouldn't let us back into the house without them. 

Saturday night: Metropia (movie, animated science fiction). Ok, that one was bizarre. Not sure I liked the animation. But there was a Hello Kitty bomb. So there's that.

Sunday: Eclipse (board game, science fiction). We picked this one up based on the recommendation of a friend after Dragon*Con last year. I really like this game. You can find my previous recommendation for it here.

Sunday night: The Road (movie, post-apocalypse). A future so bleak, they ought to wear shades. Based on a Pulitzer Prize winning novel. I suspect the book was slightly better though the movie wasn't bad.

Monday: Illuminati (card game, paranoid): It's not paranoia if there really is a conspiracy out to get you. We spent the morning mounting the User Friendly custom cards for Tech Support and SCO on cardstock then played with the Y2K and Bavarian Fire Drill expansions. As we knew, this one has serious multi-player potential. The two-player games lacks all the deviousness of negotiations, backstabbing and alliances.

Monday Night: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (movie, Swedish). It's amazing how many words we could pick out. Another movie based on a well known book. This one was the best done of the three. Definitely worthwhile.

Tuesday: SolarQuest (board game, science fiction). Think Monopoly in space. With fuel. And lasers. Not too bad once you get past the odd phrasing of the rules.

Tuesday night (1): The Secret of Kells (movie, animated fantasy). Purely enchanting. You can find my full recommendation here.

Tuesday night (2): Ondine (movie, fantasy-esque). A nice way to close out the inaugural Kitten*Con. Even if there wasn't a cat in it, there was a Selkie. Sort of.

We broke down the game table and returned the library to its previous scheduled function (with Mara still sleeping a chair). As we got ready for bed, I couldn't find either cat. When I went looking, I discovered them both in the library/game room, ensconced in the chairs where they perched to watch us play. They don't usually sleep back there and rarely at the same time. I don't think they were quite ready for Kitten*Con to end, either.

Nyala particularly enjoyed having us home. She still sometimes wakes up scared during the day and cries until I comfort her. Each year she looks hurt when we leave and a combination of excited and annoyed when we get home. Hers was a hard, orphaned kittenhood I think.

As with any con, a melancholy settled in the last night knowing that it was over and real life began again in the morning. One of the more relaxing staycations we've had in recent years. For that alone it was a success.

(You might be able to see Karen's photos here)