Month: January 2020

31
Jan
2020

On the Houston Ass-tros

Dunkirk NY – The fallout from the Houston Asstros sign-stealing debacle has been extensive. As spring training approaches, it will be interesting to see up close the fan reaction to the whole mess. So far we haven’t seen that, and won’t see it until we see the various signs that will appear in stadiums across the country as the season begins. The Asstros have hired Dusty Baker as their damage-control expert (can’t really call him a manager, since Houston is managed by analytics) to protect their players and re-build the team’s reputation. As of now they haven’t hired a GM.

I’m in the camp that believes the Asstros have been punished enough. There are a ton of “unwritten rules” in baseball, and this particular caper violated a whole lot of them. There will be things going on behind the scenes that the average fan will never see. Endorsements may be lost. A lot of the swagger may be lost. Anyone who ever pitched against the Asstros might be doing a little headhunting. All of this may possibly take its toll, and that is punishment enough in this game. We shall see.

I wish I knew what drives already talented and elite athletes to cheat. What is it about the makeup of a competitive pro athlete that makes winning so critical to their personality that they feel they have to cheat to get there? Why is the fun of the game, the love of the game, not sufficient? Why are the multi-million dollar salaries not enough reason to play the game fairly? I mean, essentially these are young men making shit-tons of money playing a sport, a game. Could it be that the values they learned while learning the game have warped them so badly that they feel no personal self-worth unless they win it all?

I do think our sports subculture (and by extension our American culture) of winning it all is probably at the root of this scandal, as no doubt it was during the steroid era. Getting an edge by any means possible simply seems to be the prevailing thought process. Morality and a sense of ethics does not appear to have any meaning at all in the 21st century. A generation of ballplayers (and again, by extension, American youth) has been raised, not with the notion of “do your best fair and square”, but rather “win at any cost, with any edge you can get.” This particular scandal is another one of those road markers that has as much to say about where we are heading as a society as it does about the game of baseball and sports in general. At this point in time, I think anyone who watches any sport at all has to assume that someone, somewhere, somehow, is cheating. It’s the new normal.  -twl

Posted by poorplayer in All Posts, The Joy of Baseball
28
Jan
2020
National Haiku Writing Month

National Haiku Writing Month

Dunkirk NY – Recently I made the decision to join the Haiku Society of America. I was hesitant to do so for two reasons. One is that I am not much of a joiner. The second is that, when I join organizations, I have the unfortunate tendency to be someone who finds faults within the group. I think this tendency comes from being a lifelong teacher. When you teach, you spend an inordinate amount of time finding and correcting faults and flaws. I always liked to offer positive feedback, and made a point of doing so when warranted. But on the whole, my job consisted of trying to weed out flaws and bad habits in young actors and replace them with more useful and positive techniques.

I already know what makes me hesitant about joining HSA. Its members, from what I can gather from photos and pictures and writings, tends to consist almost exclusively of older, white, well-educated people. There appears to be little diversity within the organization. And, to be as blunt and fair as possible, this description of the overall membership demographic fits me to a “T”, with the only exception being my Puerto Rican heritage. I do not wish to make this appear to be a judgement against the organization, just an observation. I could very well be wrong. But there is little external evidence to the contrary.

It is my misfortune to have come to a place in my life where my sense of my personal spirituality has intersected with the “mindfulness” and “minimalist” movements in modern culture. Since my 20s I have been drawn to eastern thought and philosophy, heavily influenced by my reading of the works of the Catholic Trappist monk Thomas Merton. Merton stands at the apex of the synergy between Catholic mystic tradition and eastern Zen Buddhism tradition. My interest in haiku is, at least in my opinion, a natural outgrowth of this aspect of my life. It’s something I have carried with me for more than 40 years now, not something that has sprung up from the current fads.

This is why I am so hesitant to join and share my haiku with others. I fear that a lifelong interest in eastern/western spirituality will be mistaken for having jumped on recent trends. I’ve actually little doubt that other haiku writers are good people – they are probably fine and wonderful human beings, and not trend followers. It’s also clear that many of them have been writing haiku for much longer than I have, so they are committed to the form and the “lifestyle” (for want of a better word). And haiku writing is not exactly a popularized method even of writing poetry. I’ve read a few anthologies, and there are a few names out there that are considered prominent in this arena. I’ve also read much of the Japanese masters such as Basho and Issa to this point. I’ve even read a small anthology of baseball haiku. So, despite my misgivings, I feel I have to take the jump.

What is most interesting to me is the current state of haiku form. Adapting the Japanese form of haiku to English has apparently been fraught with cultural baggage when it comes to form. There has been much discussion on this point. Essentially speaking, form comes down to a question of the amount of sound in a haiku, whether that sound is called on (in Japanese style) or syllable (English style). As I read about the discussions surrounding this point, it seems to me that the question at this point should be moot. I think what should be discussed more is not how English haiku compares to Japanese haiku, but rather how traditional forms of English poetic style can inform English haiku and work to make it independent of Japanese haiku. In this regard, I think the early sense of English haiku taking on a 5-7-5 format of syllables has more promise than people may think.

In my reading and research, I read this article by Michael Dylan Welch, who appears to be a pretty well-known haiku poet. I wrote this article on Medium in defense of the 5-7-5 format, which I happen to like. Mr. Welch is apparently the one who designated February as National Haiku Writing Month (“because it’s the shortest month”), and he discourages people from writing 5-7-5 haiku. If I participate in NaHaiWriMo, I think I’m going to write a lot of 5-7-5 haiku just to be difficult and different. It’s in my contrarian blood. I’m also going to write a post here at some point detailing a bit more why I think English haiku writing should lean more on English poetic traditions rather than lean on trying to imitate Japanese language style with English. If I am going to join up here, I might as well start on the “wrong” foot.

I should make clear, though, that I may not have time to write a haiku every day. A lot depends on how caring for Mom eventually turns out in February. So if I don’t get a haiku in every day, no big deal. I’ll do what I can, and perhaps here and there post something I’ve written in the past as a substitute for the day. Since I don’t have Facebook, I can’t post to the NaHaiWriMo FB site, but that’s of no matter to me. One does what one can with the moments presented. -twl

Posted by poorplayer in All Posts, Haiku, North of Sixty
27
Jan
2020

A Break in the Action

Dunkirk NY – Due to dental and doctor appointments I have a small break from taking care of my mother. One of the major things we did get accomplished was getting overnight help for her. This should take off a lot of stress from everyone, as having someone in the house from 10pm-6am will allow people to get a decent amount of sleep. This was really the major issue apart from the stroke-like symptoms. So now she has assisted coverage on an ongoing basis. This could mean that I might be on more of an on-call basis for afternoons and evenings. It might also mean that I’d be living in my parents’ condo in Amherst, which is about a 40-minute drive from my brother in W. Brookfield. That would allow for all of us to have some space instead of being crowded into his house. We are going to give this a try, and perhaps in March I might even be able to come back home for extended spells. The situation is very fluid at the moment, so everyone is sort of playing the hand as it’s dealt. The night aid starts a week from today.

It is somewhat difficult to put into words what it takes to do this kind of work. I find that the physical aspects of it are not so terribly difficult. What does wear on you is the emotional side of it all. While my routine is not all that changed (I still have to find things to do during the day, just in a different location), there is always that Sword of Damacles hanging over your head, in that any minute she might ring her assistance bell, and you have to drop everything and attend to her. Getting good solid sleep is also an issue; you’re always slightly tired. Everything in the house sort of revolves around her needs. Her needs are not that much: a change of undergarment, from bed to chair, from chair to bed, feeding, assistance to the bathroom. Her world is small and getting smaller, but even in that small world she needs help. Her sleep patterns are erratic. All of this impacts your own daily routine. Whatever you’re doing, in the back of your mind there is always the thought that the bell will ring any minute.

I have so many thoughts about the process of aging that my mind is having trouble sorting it all through. I’ve developed a sense of urgency about trying to make sure all my affairs are in order and that my planning for my own aging is as complete as I can make it. And yet, I still know that all the planning in the world can’t account for everything. But I feel I have to have all the backstops in place to handle all the inevitable losses before I can even begin to think about enjoying any gains. As always, the best approach is to take the day you have and do with it whatever needs to be done. Somehow, though, it gets more challenging to stay in the present when you can see the future ahead and even begin to make out the details.  -twl

Posted by poorplayer in All Posts, North of Sixty
11
Jan
2020

The Seventh Age

W. Brookfield MA – My life has taken a new turn. My mother’s health has been a concern for the past year or so, and to this date my brother here in MA has been the one seeing to her care. However, it’s now to the point where having just one available caretaker is no longer sustainable. So my wife and I have made the decision to shut down our own house and move in with my brother to offer him some assistance. It is not going to be easy; a week has gone by and already her need for constant attention has taken its toll on sleep.

I don’t intend to offer a blow-by-blow narrative of what she’s up against. Right now the two greatest challenges are her dementia and some mini-strokes she’s been having. Her sense of day and night is almost non-existent, and she has no set discernible schedule. All she wants to do is sleep, and it is hard to get her to do much of any activity. She has clearly slipped into Shakespeare’s seventh and last age – “second childhood and mere oblivion; sans teeth, sans taste, sans eyes, sans everything.”

I suspect I will be a different person at the other end of this. Where the other end is, is impossible to tell at the moment. My mantra has become the Zen mantra of a statement that, every time it’s spoken, it’s true – “This, too, shall pass.”  -twl

 

Posted by poorplayer in All Posts, North of Sixty
01
Jan
2020

Not So New Year

Dunkirk NY – I tend to feel the spirit of a new year more when the spring comes rather than in the dead of winter. Nothing really feels like it can renew itself in winter. We celebrate a calendar changeover with the naming of a new year, but then we plunge back into the depth of the cold. Winter continues unabated, and January and February in fact turn out to be the two coldest months of the year. It’s a little depressing to spend an evening celebrating and then wake up the next morning to realize you’ll still be freezing your ass off for the next couple of months.

There is some logic attached to celebrating a new year in winter, though. When connected with the solstice, the ongoing return of more light brings a bit of relief. Groundhog’s Day (Candlemas, Imbolic, mid-winter) brings a sense that the end of the dark season is near. But it’s not until I can hear more birds sing, the snow melt for the final time, and the temperatures warm to above 60° that I feel a new year has come. Around here, that’s around April.

This coming year, for me, brings with it a lot of unknowns. In a few days I’ll be heading to my brother’s house to help out with the care of my mother. I’ll be staying out there for an indefinite period of time, as long as she needs assistance. My brother and I intend to get more professional care in for her to attend to everyday needs, but she needs someone 24/7, and as I’m retired with nothing on my plate, I’ve decided it’s best to go out and take some of the burden off my brother, especially during the night. Her eventual passing is really an unknown at this time, because although she is losing strength, she has no particular condition or disease. So it’s mostly a matter of time, and while I will miss the comforts of my own home, my brother has a large house located in a very wooded area, and it’s just as easy to sit most of the day there as it is here. I suspect that life will become a day-to-day matter; no planning for the future.

In terms of how retirement is going, I believe I am discovering some things about retirement that are difficult to prepare for. One is simply this sense of having to watch over and care for people. Last year it was Jenna after her car accident; this year it’s my mother. Many other people spend their time watching grandchildren. I’m sort of realizing that all those plans you think about – wintering in Arizona, extended RV trips in the fall – are plans that life often squashes. My own parents had to spend time as caretakers for their families until into their 70s. You’re not really as free as those glossy AARP bulletins would have you think you are. I’ve only been able to execute one or two small trips so far. And I have done a few shows, which takes up time as well. And have had my knees repaired.

All of this has been more or less going with the flow, taking what’s offered, and reacting to what’s happening. My initial three-year “wait and see” period comes to an end this April, but that’s really an artificial deadline. If 2020 is to be any kind of “new year,” it should bring with it some new purpose and a more defined sense of how I spend my time. I’ll get back to you come May 2020.  -twl

Posted by poorplayer in All Posts, North of Sixty