Hardwired

 “I will finish it by saying that you should resist letting self-analysis become self-abuse.” John Steinbeck

That’s good advice from John Steinbeck, a writer who had a deep understanding of human psychology, and something I frequently violate to my detriment. I am my harshest and most consistent critic. I need a certain amount of order and predictability to feel balanced, a trait I’m not proud of because it can easily lead to falling into a rut and a lack of spontaneity, which makes one dull and rigid. Sometimes the set of my ways, my habits of mind, make me feel closed off, isolated inside my head. Staying in the moment is as challenging as ever. 

Full, leisurely retirement here in our delightfully comfortable bungalow on Milpas Street has been wonderful but I know for the health of our bank account that I have to transition to semi-retirement before long. Today my wife looked at me and said, “I’m a little worried about money.” So, this pleasant run we’ve been on will soon come to an end. I expected this, and planned all along to find part-time work within a few months of bidding the school district goodbye. This will hopefully mean a reasonably tolerable part-time gig of thirty hours a week. I don’t want to do much thinking, I just want something I can do primarily on my feet, even if it’s repetitive, in exchange for time to write, think, and breathe. Thus far, Trader Joe’s has rejected me twice, not even an interview to look me over, see that I’m ambulatory, pleasant, and capable of doing the job. If I’m honest with myself, and I usually am, I admit that my job hunting efforts to date have been scattershot, not even classifiable as half-hearted. I don’t want to surrender the slow-paced, completely free hours spent writing, reading under the market umbrella on the patio, afternoon naps, training sessions, drinking wine and sleeping past six a.m. Not yet. Part of me wants to hold on to this luxury as long as possible. 

Dissipation and dissolution are for the wealthy. I’m just a working-class guy. 

My daughter started her first post-City College job today, at a local sandwich shop. It’s an entry-level gig, part-time. She was nearly a half hour late because she mixed up the start time, but she made it and put a full day in, and came home smelling of salad oil and bemoaning the math involved in making change. She’s had this awful phobia about numbers for years, it’s her academic Achilles Heel. She may return to school in the Fall, but she doesn’t yet have an idea where. On the other hand, she’s not yet twenty so I refuse to push her faster than she can go, not as long as we can afford it. No rent, no chores to speak of, a car to get around. My daughter’s best girlfriends, her posse, have returned to their colleges and universities, one at Cal Poly in San Luis, and two at UC Berkeley. Smart girls, but goofy as hell. They start laughing for no reason. Why does Ally titter when I ask if she wants a glass of water?

My wife and daughter rarely read this blog, but somehow always react if I mention them in a piece. I’m making an effort to bring the lens closer to who I am, although any regular readers of this thing I created in 2004 and have obsessively kept going since should have an idea. My politics lean left and have since I had a brief fling with the GOP in the mid-80’s. My preoccupation is with the balance of power between citizens and their government, between the wealthy and the many, between corporations and consumers, and between humans and the planet. Our economic system works too well for the few and is too hard on the many, and is making the planet sick, and in some places unlivable. The resources America hands to the military-industrial-security-intelligence complex at the expense of the welfare of the nation’s citizens is obscene. The War on Terror was a misguided delusion that I opposed from the outset. Ditto the Patriot Act. Serious shit is happening on every front, but if it’s not unfolding before our eyes every day we lose interest, until the next flood, fire, mudslide or hurricane. Human nature, hard-wired. It’s like Robbie Robertson sings, “Hardwired for war, hardwired for sex.” 

The only book I’m reading now is The Road Home by Jim Harrison. Nearly done with it. Harrison’s writing gobsmacks me. I love this tale about the Northridge clan on the American Plains. It’s a story of land and cattle and rivers, of lost brothers and a long absent son, and his mother, Dalva. Harrison gets the tone right, and the reader always knows the season, the temperature, and what flowers are in bloom or lying dormant. But Harrison also gets his characters right, builds them with insight and detail and humor. Like some people are taken with certain painters, I’m taken with Jim Harrison, though I feel like I’m late to the party, having intentionally immersed myself in his writing only in the last two years. 

We’re taking a road trip to San Francisco in a few weeks for our kids’ birthdays. Our son Gabriel lives in the city again, so we’ll see his neighborhood and do some wandering. No idea what the Covid situation is up north at the moment. In the third week of September I will travel to Oregon to visit my brother in Tillamook, our annual get together. Whenever we spend time together I realize how similar in temperament we are. We’re both obsessive, neat, and practical, and born fretters over the mundane details of adult life. I was mulling over a road trip, sort of a repeat of what I did last September, hopefully minus the wildfires and closed freeways and smoky air, but have decided not to risk getting stuck somewhere and will fly to Portland and rent a car that will sit in my brother’s driveway while we head off in his Jeep Cherokee with bikes on the rack and a cooler full of snacks in plastic bags with twist ties. Granola bars, crackers, cheese, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Green pastures, dairy cows, rivers, trees. I hope to once again look upon the mighty Columbia.