Caretaking our Memories

This article was published and copyrighted in the Beacher Magazine. www.thebeacher.com/pdf/2017/BeacherMay25

The Caretaking of Memories - Omaha Beach and Uncle Bill

First Wave, 116th Division, 29th Regiment

“Your Uncle Bill was killed on D-Day,” my father would tell us. Curiously, he’d always refer to Bill as our Uncle, not his.

My earliest memories of my father talking about our Uncle were from the 1960’s. The oldest of my siblings were probably seven or eight. We didn’t understand Vietnam then, much less Normandy.

Just because we didn’t understand World War II didn’t mean couldn’t see how dad was different when he spoke of Bill. He seemed more vulnerable. Sometimes, when he spoke of Bill, he’d pull off his glasses and wipe a hand across his eyes.

In the 60’s, we were too young to understand more than that we had an uncle that was killed on D-Day. For a time, dad would spare us from learning more. But the story was there, and it would eventually need to be remembered.

Someday, but not then.

Dad was only eight years old when Bill was killed on that June morning in 1944. At that age, I’m sure he knew nothing of the “liberation” of France; why Uncle Bill and the 116^th Division would be asked to open a path on Omaha Beach. That it would allow for 1.5 million soldiers to move toward Berlin and ensure the end of the European conflict.

He wouldn’t know, until he was much older, about the bodies, like Bill’s, which floated in the French surf. Of the dead and dying that covered every stretch of beach, lying in the sand like broken and crushed seashells and twisted seaweed.

His mother, Esther, or his father John, would certainly not tell dad about what his other uncle, Robert, faced in the Pacific. Robert, Bill’s twin, was the determined and eager one, and he enlisted in the Marines.

Esther and John probably learned later that, in the Pacific, Robert and his Marines would witness unspeakable things - in battles of unspeakable horror.

Only Oppenheimer and the other physicists, working beneath the grass fields at The University of Chicago, would end that conflict. Then, Robert would return home, scarred and “shell-shocked,” as my father described him. With his brother lost, his family changed forever, PTSD likely pushed Robert to his unpleasant end.

Of Oppenheimer’s instruments, Big Boy and Fat Man, my young father would probably think they were comic book characters, not the hydrogen bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not weapons that would end the war and later change the world. Weapons so destructive that when their scientist-creator witnessed their devastation, he felt the need to cite a quote from the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita: “I have become death, destroyer of worlds.”

Dad was an only child. In 1944, his backyard comprised most of his world. In his small, leafy Blue Island backyard, he built his own sort of play-house, cobbled together with scraps from nearby alleys and garages. My grandfather probably helped.

I remember seeing a black and white photo of the play-house, a tiny Kodak picture that was like looking through a keyhole and into the past. A glimpse into his innocent pre-war world. It helped me understand where my father’s imagination was seeded; there, among the dappled shadows of the tall maples on the summer grass.

In that tiny fenced fortress, his Blue Island backyard, our Uncle Bill would visit him.

My father eventually became a sort of caretaker of Bill’s story.

He was a good caretaker, for he was quite the storyteller. One story we especially enjoyed was that of his pet rooster, Blackie. He would describe how he’d ride his bicycle, with Blackie on the handlebars, around the neighborhood; sometimes to the gravel pit, where he’d shoot his BB gun. In one adventure, Blackie’s misbehavior made him crash, and he allegedly broke his nose.

“See, that’s from Blackie,” he’d claim, pointing to the bridge of his nose as proof. But my sister would be born with the same nose, the same bump. Perhaps a Blackie inheritance, perhaps not.

My siblings and I would tease him about Blackie – that the story, while entertaining, was on the edge of disbelief. We considered it more of dad’s creative lore – a kid and a bicycle and his crazy pet rooster. Until the day we discovered a faded photograph in some attic box; that of a child on his bicycle with a large black bird perched on the handlebars.

Like the Blackie story, it was hard to imagine dad’s favorite uncle in the first wave on the deadliest beach on D-Day.

It was just anecdotal. Until a box appeared, and dad began removing items we hadn’t seen before. A purple heart. A telegraph from the War Department, dated June 6, 1944 – August William Diedesch, missing in action. Another telegraph, killed in action.

He told us of the heartache of his grandmother Diedesch, of her worry with both sons in the war, and her unending grief at the loss of Billy.

The rest of Bill’s story we’d have to learn on our own.  

We learned that Bill was the more peaceable of the twins. Robert enthusiastically enlisted in the Marines. Bill didn’t. He would instead go to the Blue Island library and enlist in the Army Reserves. Robert was sent to boot camp and then to the Pacific.

Bill stayed in Blue Island, a twenty-year-old Reservist. But that lasted mere weeks. After basic training, his Reserve Unit was immediately “called up” to active duty. In a profound turn of fate, his unit was placed into the 116th Division, 29th regiment, a unit destined to be the spearhead of the invasion force on D-Day.

Their unit would ride the Higgins boats into the surf - and into history.

Their story was memorialized, in part, in the movie Saving Private Ryan. Its opening scene portrayed the carnage on that infamous beach; in shocking and upsetting ways that most Americans had never imagined.

Before that movie, the reality of Omaha Beach would largely be captured in print. In its November 1960 issue, The Atlantic Magazine published a story by S.L.A. Marshall about the 116^th and 29^th.

It sought to describe the real fate of those caught in the first wave of the assault. Marshall noted that historians had taken great efforts to document what happened to each unit as they came ashore, in detailed accounts from the survivors.

“At exactly 6:36 A.M. ramps are dropped along the boat line and the men jump off in water anywhere from waist deep to higher than a man's head.  Already pounded by mortars, the floundering line is instantly swept by crossing machine-gun fires from both ends of the beach.

The first men out try to do it but are ripped apart before they can make five yards. Even the lightly wounded die by drowning, doomed by the water-logging of their overloaded packs. From Boat No. 1, all hands jump off in water over their heads.”

And that was the fate of Uncle Bill, who was lost departing his Higgins boat, there in the surf.

As I’ve discovered this more complete history of Bill, I’ve tried to keep the memory alive; to share the story more completely than my father would, or could.

When my father passed, he left me a framed collection of Bill’s memorabilia, including the purple heart and the MIA and KIA telegrams from Western Union. And I cannot imagine a more cherished, valued item among anything I own.

Thus, I also have become a caretaker of memories. To remind our family about their famous Uncle Bill. Most years, I’ve posted stories on my blog about Bill on or around June 6^th.

And thus, I come to this. I believe that we are entrusted to keep memories alive - even if we don’t have an uncle who rode a Higgins boat into the French surf. Even if we don’t have a sibling or relative or friend who served in Southeast Asia or Afghanistan or Iraq. 

It’s up to each of us, on this Memorial Day, to remember all of our Uncle Bills, from every family, who found themselves to be in the path of destiny; who would be a part of history.

For we are entrusted to remember the soldiers and families that were willing to sacrifice upon “the altar of freedom.”

In Saving Private Ryan, a letter is recalled and quoted, by heart, from a general. He recalled words penned in 1864 to Mrs. Lydia Bixby, a widow believed to have lost five sons during the Civil War. While it authorship is debated, It reads:

Dear Madam,--

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,

A. Lincoln

The baby, the teenagers and me

My blonde boys were there, in soccer shirts, at their lemonade stand in the bright green summer grass. As were the little leaguers, wearing winter coats in the chill of spring baseball. Dancers. Tutus and pirouettes and bicycles with baskets. Christmas trees and birthday parties. Swimmers. Backyards and baby pools.



These were among the images I saw, sorting through our family's pictures last week; selecting those to be included in the movie - the one that we'd play at the wedding.

There were hundreds - relics of an analog childhood - stored in shoe boxes - in orange and yellow Kodak envelopes. And they reminded me of presents.

For these were the same envelopes that I couldn't wait to open all those years ago - usually in the car driving home from Walgreens.

When the envelopes made it home, some pictures would be pulled from the stack, like the best cards from a deck; intended to be shared or mailed or taped to the refrigerator. Some were destined to become priceless, like the ones I found years later in dad's top dresser drawer, next to his watch and his rings.

Among them, many showed the child who we always referred to as the baby.

In one photo, taken on a Florida beach, the four children all sat in the sand, oldest to youngest. On one end, the baby had his small hand over his eyes, shielding them from the bright sun. On the other end, the eldest, our teenager, looked bored and embarrassed.

"Oh wow," said my friend, looking at that photo in the wedding movie, "I didn't realize there was such an age difference. He's such a baby in that picture."

Indeed, the baby. The one who surprised me the most. For he was the one I thought would be the most challenging - given that his older siblings were so in need of attention.

But he was a blessing, a tonic. He was the anti-teenager. Without him, I wonder if I would have survived the teenage years - the attitudes, the distance. Everything that comes with acne and braces and junior high.

It was the baby. His innocence and wonder. His unconditional love for each and every one of us. Wanting to be held. His love of my stories, my character voices. That he thought my Mickey Mouse Pancakes were still really cool.

And when I'd had enough of teen drama, I'd get down on one knee to be at his level. Or just sit down on the kitchen floor and be right there with him. He'd hug my neck or ask me a question. And I remember thinking, in those moments, "I need to remember this goodness. It's there in the others, their braces are just too tight."

And so, the baby and the eldest. The baby will be in his tuxedo this week. Standing taller than his older sister, the bride.

And, even though I no longer need to kneel down to see into his eyes - to get a hug around my neck - I still feel that way about him.

He laughs at my silly jokes. Shares his deepest thoughts with me. Laughs out loud in his room, chatting with his friends. And, this baby, he recognizes things about me that few people could ever understand. And he unabashedly offers these thoughtful kindnesses that no self-respecting college kid would normally tell his father.

That's why it is important to kneel down, sit down, be still. And appreciate the innocence of the baby in your lives.

Maybe those moments will last forever.  
  

The one that I want

We had tickets to see Grease.

I was the dad-chaperone for Katie and Anne - two sister-cousins, born just a few months apart.

They were seven-year-olds that still loved storybooks and princesses and had embarrassingly early bedtimes.

It didn't matter who was in the cast that night. It wasn't about Sandra Dee. It was the velvet curtains, the stage, the music and the magic that the girls would remember. The wonder of theater.



The sister-cousins wore their winter wool coats, dresses and patent leather shoes. I held their mittened hands as we walked against the icy Lake Michigan wind. It was fittingly snowing, a Christmas powder gusting and swirling around taxis and L-trains.

When we finally reached the theater and the posters announcing Grease, they were giddy.

This was the first of several holiday theater trips for us. And it was as special as Christmas on Michigan avenue could be, among the snow and twinkling tree-lights, the Marshall Field's windows and  green shopping bags and bell-ringing Santas. The honking taxis and madness and chaos of Loop-land.

As we entered the theater and walked down the aisle, I remember how it felt.  I think it was a lot like how boys feel at Wrigley Field when they see the green summer grass and ivy for the very first time.

The dance and the music transported the girls as far from their suburban neighborhoods as Narnia. As far from their second grade classrooms as Rydell High School was back in the 1950's.

Which was the whole point.

Watching them that night was like watching someone cast a handful of sparkling glitter on their souls.

During the musical, they had to kneel in their seats to see. They sang with the cast - Summer Nights, Beauty School Dropout, Hand Jive, Grease, Sandra Dee, and of course, You're the One that I Want. They were wide-eyed with the music, the dancing and the pageantry.

Watching them, I wished that their happiness and innocence, their smiles and enchantment - would never end. That those patent leather shoes would never be too childish, that the plastic barrettes would forever hold back their hair.

That they would never be too old to ask me - to need me - to hold them, higher, to see the stage. To see the dancing and the music.

And while those wishes didn't all come true, some did.

The turbulence of real life was just around the corner then. Pressures and expectations. Junior high. Life would try to steal some of the magic.

Thankfully, Katie would always love music and dancing. Her world was about song. Spontaneous ballet poses. Pirouettes and tumbling.

And everyone knew that Katie's handstand flourishes on piers and backyards and swimming pools were normal. They were so Katie.

Later, in college, she had to explain why she was on the Dance Team.

"They have a team for dancing?" I remember asking, thinking how funny and perfect it was for Katie.

As I write this, I remember the lyrics from this 1970 song:

On the day that you were born
The angels got together
And decided to create a dream come true
So they sprinkled moon dust in your hair of golden starlight in your eyes of blue

For it's the glitter and dancing and dreaming which makes Katie - Katie. It's the essence of her charisma, in so many ways.

It's what draws special people to Katie as if she were karmically magnetized.

To me, to her fiancé, to so many others - we can say of Katie, two decades later -

Katie - you're The One that I Want.

Citations -
from the album Close to You
Released May 15, 1970
Format 7" single
Recorded 1970
Length
4:33 (LP version)
3:40 (7" single)
Label A&M 1183
Songwriter(s)
Burt BacharachHal David
Producer(s) Jack Daugherty

Link
You're The One That I Want

On the Barrier Island

When I Dream of Michelangelo 

I can't see why 
you wanna talk to me

"You seem to need a lot of unplugged time," she offered; a subtle ultimatum.

It was time, I guess, to take measure. As my twenty-somethings might say, to - well, check your junk. Or something close.

It reminded me of a woman calling down into the basement, to her long-estranged husband in his man-cave. Alone with the Bears, working on a paunch and faithfully growing his Blackhawk beard. With 400 channels of hi-def, wife-cancelling isolation - alone with his buzz, his beer and the W flag, deaf to the call from the top of the stairs.



Well, that wasn't me. Mine was a different sort of Walter Mitty existence. It was a love for  escapism - of the word and of the ink, the spoken and the scrawled.

For I was the the writer and the dreamer, working on my blonde-grey stubble on some barrier island.

A barrier of sand, water, and Trumpian walls of isolation. Moody and reclusive. Alone with smoke and the rich and real smells of caffeine and the sea. Shuddering with the hangover of the most recent nightmare.

"Yeah, I've heard that," I said, acknowledging her discovery.

She added, "I need to be around other people; to be close. I'm not sure if this is going to work."

It was part challenge, part reflection. And I understand, I do.

I dream of Michelangelo 
when I'm lying in my bed

If you know me, you might understand. That you wouldn't be kicked off the island; you wouldn't be  asked to leave. You'd just give up.

And I wouldn't blame you... all the smoke and the isolation; the endless days of humid mornings and stormy afternoons. How could I expect you to understand the zen of a horizon filled with anvil-like thunderheads, building and darkening and shifting the barrier world?

She wanted to snuggle and plan and plan. To build a raft of plans and float to the mainland.

I wanted to read, to dream, to think. To meditate my way, Thoreau-like, among the sounds of pond-frogs and summer cicadas - well into the deep night.

I see God upon the ceiling
I see angels overhead

"I think you need something different than what I can give you," she said, slipping some sodium pentathol into the dialogue, as if she were adding it to my wine during a bathroom break.  

"Look," I started, "Sometimes, I just want to be alone - in a place that's safe from all this pain I've known for the last four years. Alone, inside my head. A place that I control. I can't pretend that's not true."

And he seems so close
As he reaches out his hand
We are never quite as close
As we are led to understand

I wanted to tell her that her John was just a confusing string of emojis that only existed on a screen until it was deleted in frustration. That her John might be an oasis without water - an optical illusion of shimmering heat waves. I don't know.

But an answer needed now was an answer already there.

She already knew that.

Here, on the barrier island, there is a kind of existential loneliness; in the dark; in dreams, in shadows and under clouds.

Yet, I can hear my son's voice in my head, telling me about his day, telling me he loves me. My sister calling me, telling me her dog misses me. My daughter is texting me green hearts. My friends occasionally checking on me, having remembered our laughs, my redneck voice echoing in their heads.

And there are those, like her, who need to know if their John is real. Or simply ethereal, like the blowing sand and swirling smoke and warm wind; an illusory oasis, with the promise of drink and water and solace.

Wondering if their thirst, also ethereal, can be quenched there - on the barrier island. Or, if they should start looking for driftwood, other driftwood, to make their own raft.

And float away.

Garuda, the Oak Tree and Me

"What's with the Indian chicken thing?" I asked her, pointing toward the strange-looking Hindu carving on the shelf.

At her desk, the princess laughed; her beautiful butterscotch face upturned, her dark eyes squinting. She always laughed at my antics, endearingly and undeservedly. If not for my ignorance, I would have seen it as a humorously-cloaked kind of pity. Not that she wasn't offended and embarrassed in equal measures.

It's just, well, they didn't teach us about this stuff in the Catholic classrooms just a few miles north at Loyola.

"That's not a chicken, it's Garuda, a Hindu deity." I forgot the Hindu name seconds after she said it. "Vishu rides upon Garuda." Then she stared back down at her paperwork.

I picked up the chicken sculpture and carried him over to the window-ledge, which overlooked the icy, choppy waters of Lake Michigan. Artistically, he was captivating; sharp and complicated and twisted. He contrasted nicely with the endless monotony of the slate winter water that extended to the horizon.

"Although I have to admit that is a cool picture," she said, later, as if trying to convince herself that there was at least one redeeming thing about my disrespect.

I would learn eventually that Garuda was indeed anything but a chicken. He embodies the five vayus within us: prana, apana, vyana, udana, samana - through his five forms: Satya, Suparna, Garuda, Tarkshya, Vihageshwara.

These five vayus, or vital life forces (also known as "winds"), can be controlled through yoga Pranayama - which can lead to Kundalini - the awakening process that leads to higher levels of consciousness. Oops.

Oh Garuda, I'm so sorry.

Perhaps the Hindu deities had also pitied me, which would explain why I escaped existentially unscathed. And why the beautiful princess at her desk still smiled.

A few weeks later, I saw Garuda again. His form towered just past the door, on a plinth overlooking all who entered. This was a much bigger sculpture, with dramatic spikes and sharp feathers. Along with a near-defiant posture of claws and glares. Garuda in his glory - beauty and power, protection and will.

His presence is a reminder of the principles of Duty in the Gita. A Duty to preserve Good over Evil. A duty to take the path of the morally right and just. And Garuda is a reminder that this isn't an optional thing.

The princess asked me to look through the large windows beyond the Garuda plinth and into the forested property behind the house.

"That's the oldest living oak tree in the entire county," she said, pointing out past the sloping lawn.

Even without its sap-green summer canopy of leaves, it was stunning. It's broad trunk was covered with knots and swirls of deeply grooved bark, like the wrinkles on the face of a old man; tanned and tested and wise.

From the massive trunk, branches twisted and crossed and split into more branches, over and over again, until they towered over everything in sight.

Like Garuda, its essence was stirring. It spoke of ancestry and age; of the past and the present. Of permanence.

It reminded me of the picture. The one just past the window, where the princess stopped, looked up, and said, "And this is my family, although there are many more." It was a colorful, bursting collection of genealogy. Rows upon rows of the cousins, aunts and uncles. Grandfathers and grandmothers. A photographic document of the blessings of their generational bounty.

And each of them appeared to be equally calm, content and connected.

She pointed at the picture again. There, high above the colors and faces of the collected family, was a black and white photo of a mother and father. It was the patriarch and matriarch, still remembered and respected. Perhaps like Garuda, the photograph reminded all of them of their duty.

The tree. The one that spread its giant, ancient branches, twisting and growing in the vayu winds.

Garuda. The Hindu deity that I so underestimated.

And me. A freckled, blonde haired guy who would need to ride Garuda to ever climb up that ancient and almost mystical tree.

Like he would let me.

Life's longing for itself - Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

- Gibran (credit) citation

See http://wsimag.com/culture/19455-the-literary-and-art-legacy-of-the-cedars

Stairways to Heaven

Werner Heisenberg, who won the Nobel prize in 1932, is best known as the pioneer of Quantum Theory. His equations pulled back the curtain of reality and began decades of scientific debate and philosophical musing.

The principles of the theory relate to the tiniest of atomic particles, which are the building blocks of our vast universe. And, of course, us.

These particles act in mysterious and puzzling ways. They're unpredictable beyond certain thresholds. In fact, wildly so. And most remarkably, they behave in ways that defy the laws of space and time.

The mathematical Michelangelo of space-time theory himself, Albert Einstein, referred to this quirky Quantum behavior as "spooky action at a distance." Einstein, who knew more than just about anyone about the math of physics, was faced with the reality of something beyond space and time. To him, it was probably frightening.

Frightening that certain sub-atomic particles could be connected to other, separate, atomic particles over vast distances - even galaxies and universes. Even over time. Outside of time. Outside of space. They were connected, "entangled" together regardless of where - or when - they existed.

Spooky.



In 1994, Greg Egan's wrote Permutation City. It included the concept of multiverses and was cited in a 2003 Scientific American article on their existence. That they exist is a widely-accepted construct among physicists. In the novel, Egan reflects on quantum-connected particles:

"Imagine a universe entirely without structure, without shape, without connections. A cloud of microscopic events, like fragments of space-time … except that there is no space or time. ... Just the values of the fundamental particle fields, just a handful of numbers. Now, take away all notions of position, arrangement, order, and what’s left? A cloud of random numbers.

But if the pattern that is me could pick itself out from all the other events taking place on this planet, why shouldn’t the pattern we think of as ‘the universe’ assemble itself, find itself, in exactly the same way? If I can piece together my own coherent space and time from data scattered so widely that it might as well be part of some giant cloud of random numbers, then what makes you think that you’re not doing the very same thing?”

Today's physicists and mathematicians are split into different groups; some seeking to understand the multiverses and quantum connections; others dedicated to the math and computing and evolving quantum technologies.

Of that, I care not. To me, Egan's words say it well. The conclusion is that we are connected and constructed outside of space and time. The reality of what we are, who we are, is especially found in our conscious self, as Egan himself pens in his book. Across multiverses, then, we are connected to ourselves. We are that same person.

Ayahuasca travelers say they have journeyed to these other universes. They come back and find it hard to explain the complexities of what they've seen. Timothy Leary tried to explain it, although only through observation - not through mathematics.

In The Psychedelic Experience, (based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead), Leary wrote:

"the experience is a journey to new realms of consciousness. ... its characteristic features are the transcendence of verbal concepts, of space-time dimensions, and of the ego or identity..."

And so, this seems like a good way to explain why life feels the way it does sometimes.

Why, on a sunny June afternoon, driving with my college girlfriend and future wife, I remember looking at her in the passenger seat. Her window open, hair blowing in the summer breeze. I stared at her face and the streaming sunlight illuminating the soft hair on her forearms.

She noticed, turned and said, "What?"

How could I explain that I felt so happy and yet so lonely and incomplete? Like I already knew the distant chapters of our story, already connected. Already sweet, already sad.

I also recall a winter evening in 1988, kneeling against the tub, giving my first child a bath, amidst laughter and happiness and soap bubbles. Blissful, yes. But inexplicably half-full; a kind of loneliness for others yet to arrrive - but who couldn't share this happiness with us yet. A knowing that, for them, we'd have to wait.

Then, I didn't know of that math that already connected them to me here - and in other places, outside of space and time. I just knew how I felt.

I've hesitated to write this story; worried over its darkness and sadness.

Over the years, I would tell my closest friend, over and over, even in our happiest moments, that I missed her. Even though she was with me. And I couldn't explain why. It was as if she really wasn't there. Or that I knew she wouldn't be. Or perhaps I sensed that in our connected other places, she wasn't there; that our happiness and innocence had aged and ended.



And then there's this. In my life, I have twice sensed a shift, a metaphysical movement to a different place. A sorrowful, lonely knowing things had changed. Things were the same - and not the same.

This isn't craziness or sadness. People who know me, well, they know I think about these things.

And so, thanks to Heisenberg and his spooky theory, I wonder if, when our world changes - when it ends - if it really doesn't end. We persist, we shift, we reassemble. Or we simply reconnect - outside of space and time - to one of our other quantum selves.

Or we go to heaven.

I hope, eventually, it's heaven.

Especially if we can watch Quantum things being created on clouds.

My favorite passenger

Last night, in Michigan's winter darkness, I was making a lonely drive home from Ann Arbor.

My only passenger was a shopping bag of Christmas presents for my children, who would be making their way home over the next few weeks. Home to me.

With a hundred miles to go, my Apple playlist was interrupted by a Bluetooth announcement - a call from Gainesville; from a too-far-away college campus. From my youngest son.

It seems like only yesterday he was buckled into his car-seat behind me. There was no Apple playlist in that car - just James and the Giant Peach, sweetly singing James, James, James, how are you...isn't it a lovely day? 

And in those days, I'd usually drive one-handed; twisting my arm behind me so that the beautiful boy could hold onto my finger while we drove.

But I must have been driving Einstein fast; warping away the years and morphing our minivan into a fancy SUV.  Because it seemed like one minute my passenger had his tiny fingers wrapped around mine and the next thing I knew he was talking to me about anthropology.

"Dad, have you ever looked into a virtual reality display? Once you do, your beliefs about the universe might change. You'll understand how easy it would be to create a virtual life - a holographic version of reality."

This from the same passenger who I just saw sitting in his car-seat, wispy blonde hair gently blowing in the open-window wind. From the same blue-eyed child whose most expressive act was to just smile, showing two tiny little top teeth.

But in those days - that was enough. In fact, it was everything.

"You mean like those big headset things?" I asked, being the hip dad I am.

"Yes, we have them at school. The textures and detail are so real, you would start to question just how real our lives might be. It's like life as a video game."

At 75 miles left, we began talking about music and poetry. The alluring constellations of music and pathos and metaphors. I told him that I could listen to Tupac for hours and hours; how I would become mesmerized and drawn by his lyrical sadness:

Nobody cries when we die
We outlaws
Let me ride
Until I get free... 

Oh, Tupac.

I confessed that it was scary that I could feel such empathy - and even an odd longing - for a place of gangsters and violence and death - a world I could never understand; a world turned hologram by music and art and poetry.

"Dad, don't you see? That's what I've been trying to tell you; that just because they speak of suicide and drugs and death, it doesn't advocate it - it's just part of the art form."



Now, I do see. It's a VR place.

Perhaps the evocative pigment of Monet's Haystacks will one day be compared with paintings of our current reality, where colors are words:

"I got pennies for my thoughts, now I'm rich
See the twenty's spinning looking mean on the six
wearing flags, 'cause the colors match they clothes
They get caught in the wrong hood and get filled up with holes" 

At 50 miles, we spoke of the city, the snow and being together for Christmas.

There, somewhere along the dark and cold shores of lake Michigan, he said, "Dad, I'm counting the days to be home with you." Me too.

Oddly, I don't remember feeling that same way about coming home from school.

And honestly, I don't remember the same kind of personal experience with my own father. From him, I'd learn how things were supposed to be. Sometimes, he'd show me what things could be. I'd watch him paint. Or play the piano. Interact with the world.

But he'd rarely ask me what was inside my head; how I felt about the world.

And with this youngest child, I think I've found that being a father isn't just about being a role model. It isn't just about showing your son what it means to be a good person. It's also about opening his mind wide to a sense of wonder, then questioning and challenging and pushing him into the void of infinite knowledge.

My father was talented, kind and generous. He helped me learn how to be a good person. But I'm just discovering that there are things he didn't do - couldn't do. Insights that I wish I'd been taught - and what I'm just learning now. Maybe they were too Yogi for my Victorian father.

I'm learning from that kid in the back seat. That a mix of the intellectual and the mystical - the lyrical and the musical - is what gives life to the world. And it melts the barriers of our worldview to see and explore a different, infinite galaxy.

At 25 miles to go, our call was almost over. My virtual passenger was going to the gym.

My favorite passenger. The one who always showed us his two top teeth.

Now, with so much more to say, he needed to let go of my finger.

And I can still hear "James, James, isn't it a lovely day?" when he disconnects.

Yep, it is.

An Atlas of Clouds, an Ocean of Poppies

“What wouldn't I give now for a never-changing map of the ever-constant ineffable? To possess, as it were, an atlas of clouds.” - Cloud Atlas

I have this envelope on the seat next to me. I keep glancing at it, wondering. It's addressed to someone who broke my heart. Who changed my future. And my past.

And I can't decide what to do with it.

"Do whatever you can't not do."  It's a whisper in my ear, from my better self.

Inside, there's a bank check and a folded note, written on printer paper.

And it's the note that bothers me most; that it could have been kinder. Could have been written by the better me.

But the pain of a re-written past is too great. And so is its twin, a divergent future. Birthed on the narratives of noble intent, they hide happiness like phantoms and ghosts that shadow the living.

Which is why the note is so devoid of kindness.

But to the thing that I can't not do.

I think about George.

In a scene from Back to the Future, I remember George McFly standing in the diner, bravely, notepad in hand and finally summoning the courage to ask Lorraine for a date.

"I'm George. George McFly," he said. "I'm your density. I mean, your destiny."

In that pity and humor, something can be found. In our density, we sometimes get it wrong. Maybe they're gawky or freckled, skinny or awkward. Perhaps like George. Or maybe so beautiful as to be fatally imperfect. That we can - and do - mistake our density for our destiny is evident everywhere.

And for those, like me, who dyslexically chose density, all is not lost. The universe seeks destiny too, and has unknowable power to force a cosmic do-over.  The process - a collision between the squandered soul and the universe - is not without pain. Everything must be shattered - the atoms of our illusions and dreams - into a million particles.

Once reconstituted, we have the chance to seek a new timeline. To be like George - or perhaps Lorraine, instead, to choose the better of the two.

I believe the universe of souls is like an unending and infinite ocean of poppies; each flower, each petal, a potential destiny.

We must walk among them, searching and believing.

Believing that we can find it. The right timeline. The right love. The right soul.

And as we do, perhaps we'll also discover that there is wonder and happiness to be found in the looking, in the searching. In our time spent among the deep, beautiful  shades of crimson and scarlet; among these flowers of souls.

And since that's where I want to spend my time, I pulled the note from the envelope and tossed it into the trash.

The Way Back

I thought I saw you out there crying
I thought I heard you call my name

It's always there. In our beautiful and mysterious hearts and minds, there is a protective aura, one that is gifted by God.

We need it. It's a force-field, woven in the the naiveté and belief that humanity is good, kind, and noble.

With it, many of us can pass through the time-streams of our lives in contentment and hope, blissfully ignorant to the things in the world that can hurt us.

Things that lurk in the deep water. From pain that hides in the shadows of the everyday world. It averts our eyes from things we shouldn't see. From visions that we are not ready to accept. It muffles words and truths that could harm us, that could reach us, if we get too close.

There are times when we see things that we shouldn't. Times of despair, loss, failure, betrayal. Of mortality. Hopelessness. The very same place that our God-magic tried so hard to hide from us.

And we become so, so lost.

Lost in a place where the light is too bright and the dark is an inky well of black. A place where hearts are broken. In an upside-down, opposite-day world that smothers the self-goodness of our souls. And those who have the most tender souls, the kindest hearts - they are the most vulnerable.

Through the darkness and confusion, we try, blindly, to retrace our path; stumbling on our own sadness, pain, self-doubt, and regret.

We're out there. Crying. Calling. Trying to find our way back.

Back to how our souls used to feel. We long for our lost connections. Familiarity. We want to dream again. Feel the honesty of tender kisses. To float.

We want to hold a warm, never-let-go hand that connects us to the greater elements of the universe. The simplest and most profound of all God-connections.



Will someone show us the way back?

No, but I think I've found the path.

It's a yellow-bricked road of kindness, sweetness, acceptance and truth. When those things find their way back into your soul, you become a bright light in that inky darkness.

You don't need to cry.

Because even though you don't know it, you're shining, calling. Not crying anymore.

And the universe is watching and listening.

And it's there to bring you home.

Inside a Beautiful Mind

Perhaps God - or his angels - plant the seeds of sweetness, goodness and love deep in our consciousness. Or perhaps they are inherent but distant parts of our souls.

Whatever their origin, these embryonic elements of ourselves must be carefully tended and grown.

Perhaps those who show us early love and tenderness play an important role. Or maybe we're on our own. That we must pilot our own path of destiny. We'll never know.

But what grows from those initial aspects of our beings fill the spaces that make us who we are.

In the very special few, it can become a place filled with serenity, patience, oneness and desire. An inner beauty illuminated by something that is hard to express. A light that is difficult to define.

It's inside those beautiful minds where charisma can be born.

We intuitively know when someone has this special kind of goodness inside. It's an unconscious, epigenetic recognition. We look twice. Listen better. Wonder.

We just know it.

It has nothing to do with being beautiful. It is not speech-making stuff. It's a different kind of hypnotism.

It's an undefinable knowing that we all share. We're all drawn to charisma by a powerful longing for our own goodness.

To be near it, somehow, is to also be special. That to be close to this kind of vortex is, by itself, inexplicably fulfilling.

So what is it? It is certainly part soul. But it's also about our ability to live happily inside our minds. A place where we have learned to feel and express love, in our own way, effortlessly.

Within the walls of those beautiful minds - they have discovered who they are. At least to the current way-point of their destiny. Their smiles are genuine. Their eyes sparkle with what lies behind them. They radiate something that is mysteriously compelling.

For others, a space that should have been seeded with goodness, happiness and sweetness - is sadly fallow. Too often, it can only be filled by something else - from the outside. Someone else's thoughts, opinions, and ideas. Physical, material things. Bitterness. Regret. Resentment. A sadness that a person cannot love themselves. That they cannot live happily in their own minds.

But, for those that have this special gift; this charisma; those that shine the most brightly, they may not even know it.

But they do know love.

On the inside.

And we long to be near it.