“Oneness is achieved by recognizing yourself.” So my Yogi teabag told me this morning.
Each December 31st is the time of the year when we collectively look back. When we humans – or at least Americans as I know them, or at least the people whom I know, or at least my family, okay maybe it is just me… -- anyway, so now is the time when I reflect on the year that was and take stock of me and my life. What’s different, what’s endured, and what might I want to consider doing differently. Rarely one to rely on the calendar, the seasons, or the weather to determine my mood or my movements, this year I feel drawn to musing on my ahead based on my behind.
The last year was quite a series of trials for me: the beginning of it was spent hunkered down in a dry docking maintenance availability where virtually all of the machinery under my purview was either out of the water, unlubricated, or otherwise disassembled. Hundreds of hours of complex testing, networking, and constant oversight on the part of painfully few of us got the plants back together and the ship back to sea. Through this and part of the spring I fought and trained to get in shape and run farther and faster than I had done since my left foot had been reconstructed in the summer of 2003. I was supposed to leave sea duty sometime that spring… four consecutive years and multiple prolonged underway periods had taken its toll on my patience, my marriage, my head. Spring became summer and by the end of July, I was finally at liberty to go. Headed to a billet that was the backup to the backup billet, I knew very little what to expect.
As any of you who have been following the episodes of “As the Polygon Turns” since September know, there was an unusual learning curve for me, adjusting to life on a Staff. I’m not saying I’ve got it licked now, but suffice it to say that I foresee the drama of the early Polygon days subsiding. Just this morning I did some kick-ass staff work and I feel I have really made myself indispensible. –but we’re not here to reflect on just today.
Earlier this month, a golden opportunity presented itself to me. I learned of an opening for a speechwriter position for a prominent individual. At first I thought it might be a position beyond my capabilities and one that might involve more working hours than I should reasonably want to accept on shore duty. I asked around, talked it up, and took a long introspective journey back into my files to discover the Me as Writer Past, Writer Present, and wondered if I should choose the dreamy path of the Writer yet to Come. The process involved submitting two writing samples, and as I canvassed my files, I found an array of goofiness, tear-jerkers, poetry, heart-felt letters, and scholarship that probably barely interested my professors but always enriched my own literary soul. I have been really enjoying this nonsensical blog for the past several months, but could I become a real writer… for real? I found my answer in this piece that I wrote over six years ago (entitled ‘Calling’):
“Over the various adventures and travails that have beset me since I joined the Navy, since I was in college, since I was an adolescent, since I was a born, I have labored with language, with writing (maybe I didn’t labor with writing when I was a kid, but I did have a noticeable stutter). My worst fear was for people to define me by a single epithet. I wanted to be more than just a fast runner, a good swimmer, a good base line shooter, an athlete, a person who gets good grades, an English Major, an NROTC Midshipman, a Surface Warfare Officer, a Nuke, a nutcase… Whenever I heard myself labeled as such I would raise my right index finger and say, “but wait, there’s…” some other thing I can do really well that contradicts whatever you just tried to label me as. Through my six years in the Navy and over the past year that I have spent trying to re-integrate myself into academia, I have come to realize that the only single epithet I would be happy with is to be known as a writer.
“I have moved in many circles and have conditioned myself to excel in various, often incongruous, activities; in so doing I have come in contact with all different sorts of people and have gotten along with them marvelously and appreciated their company insofar as it passed the time and made life, living, and working more enjoyable. Beyond such basic and ephemeral intercourse and interaction I have never been intimately bound to any one person (or even one activity). At some point along the road of interaction and experience, people always fail me, connections break, and I am left with myself to forge ahead, light out on another path, with my head in the clouds, ear to the ground, nose to the grindstone, knee to the groin… in search of another connection, another chance to lose myself in a cause, to devote myself to a reputedly noble duty or to answer someone else’s calling.”
That was Me about seven years ago. Not an unhappy Me, just one not fully committed – or maybe one who should have been committed (to an asylum). Since then with the help of those whom I love and a love for what I do, I have focused my heart, my head, and my soul on people and purposes. And I can say that I am proud of what I have done and am, but I still at bottom long to be a writer, an author.
I put my package in for the position. We’ll see if I get it.
If not, whatever! In the spirit of my mother, there’s always room for new frontiers in goofiness. That at least, I recognize.
31 December 2008
20 December 2008
As the Polygon Turns: Dr. Shoess (Episode 18)
If you haven’t figured it out by now, I should tell you that the only other Navy people who work in my office with me are pilots. They all go by nicknames – oh, I am sorry, “callsigns” – like Face, Bingo, Delta, Lou Brock, and Mojo. What I have noticed over my years of observing pilots, is that it seems that they are incapable of socially interacting with (or at least accepting) someone unless they give that person a callsign too. The freakishly large SEAL in the office is now named “Beef,” the Army Major who has a French sounding first name is “Frenchie,” and me, I have been dubbed “Shoe” – short for black shoe. Naval Aviators wear brown shoes, and the rest of us wear black shoes. Per regulation, we all could wear either color, but in the Navy, blood is thicker than leather, so with a couple of exceptions, all of us simply stick to tradition.
The other guys whom I work with inhabit cubicles not directly connected with mine, but close enough so when anyone of us speaks much above a whisper, we can all hear what each other is saying. Like typical pilots, they spend a lot of time sitting around joking while I, the Shoe, am working. When they want to include me, or to heckle me, they speak to me in short disconnected sentences, like in a Dr. Seuss book:
“Shoe!”
“Yes.”
“Shoe, what you up to?”
“Working on a prep book.”
“See Shoe work!”
“Someone has to.”
“Shut up Shoe!”
“Why, think of what we have to get done!”
But I didn’t really want to ruin their fun.
“Shoe, why you so rigid? Quit reminding us about work!” they add with a jerk.
But I just ignore them and smirk.
When leaving the office for the day, they ask me:
“Are you really working on something or are you just being a Shoe?”
“No, I have to get this finished…”
“See Shoe work!”
“That’s right.”
"Work Shoe Work."
One day I got in late and I started complaining about the foul weather and the tardy bus before I reminded myself that at least I wasn’t standing a four hour deck watch in this weather. Giving no breaks, though, a pilot caught me bitching and said:
“I don't know which is worse: hearing Shoe complain about standing in the rain or listening to the fact that she just added 10 and 15 to get 20.”
And I thought, “Here we go again: hear shoe whine, four and five is nine. Watch shoe add, rainy weather doesn’t make her glad.”
Sometimes they don’t want my unsolicited opinion and they tell me: “Shoe, who gave you permission to speak?” This makes me feel like a freak, but I never become bleak because I know there will always be next week.
The other day I realized that I may have been short a uniform item for a function that night and I mentioned this to my buddies.
“You’d better get going, Shoe!”
“I have until 4…”
Then I looked at my wrist,
and pounded my fist,
thinking I had better head for the door!
“Run Shoe Run!” I heard the boys cheer,
as I put it in gear.
I changed really fast,
and was off with a blast.
“Watch Shoe go!” they cried,
and out of the door I flied!
I ran through the rain,
bypassing bus and train.
In no time at all,
I was at the uniform mall.
The pin of a Shoe’s heritage I bought,
and as I left the store I thought,
“Now my wardrobe is complete, thanks to this Shoe’s fleet feet!”
The other guys whom I work with inhabit cubicles not directly connected with mine, but close enough so when anyone of us speaks much above a whisper, we can all hear what each other is saying. Like typical pilots, they spend a lot of time sitting around joking while I, the Shoe, am working. When they want to include me, or to heckle me, they speak to me in short disconnected sentences, like in a Dr. Seuss book:
“Shoe!”
“Yes.”
“Shoe, what you up to?”
“Working on a prep book.”
“See Shoe work!”
“Someone has to.”
“Shut up Shoe!”
“Why, think of what we have to get done!”
But I didn’t really want to ruin their fun.
“Shoe, why you so rigid? Quit reminding us about work!” they add with a jerk.
But I just ignore them and smirk.
When leaving the office for the day, they ask me:
“Are you really working on something or are you just being a Shoe?”
“No, I have to get this finished…”
“See Shoe work!”
“That’s right.”
"Work Shoe Work."
One day I got in late and I started complaining about the foul weather and the tardy bus before I reminded myself that at least I wasn’t standing a four hour deck watch in this weather. Giving no breaks, though, a pilot caught me bitching and said:
“I don't know which is worse: hearing Shoe complain about standing in the rain or listening to the fact that she just added 10 and 15 to get 20.”
And I thought, “Here we go again: hear shoe whine, four and five is nine. Watch shoe add, rainy weather doesn’t make her glad.”
Sometimes they don’t want my unsolicited opinion and they tell me: “Shoe, who gave you permission to speak?” This makes me feel like a freak, but I never become bleak because I know there will always be next week.
The other day I realized that I may have been short a uniform item for a function that night and I mentioned this to my buddies.
“You’d better get going, Shoe!”
“I have until 4…”
Then I looked at my wrist,
and pounded my fist,
thinking I had better head for the door!
“Run Shoe Run!” I heard the boys cheer,
as I put it in gear.
I changed really fast,
and was off with a blast.
“Watch Shoe go!” they cried,
and out of the door I flied!
I ran through the rain,
bypassing bus and train.
In no time at all,
I was at the uniform mall.
The pin of a Shoe’s heritage I bought,
and as I left the store I thought,
“Now my wardrobe is complete, thanks to this Shoe’s fleet feet!”
07 December 2008
As the Polygon Turns: Less Than "Great Expectations" (Episode 17)
If Dickens had worked at the National Polygon, he would have written about the happenings in the basement; for it is the Underworld, the slums, the debtor prison, the orphanage, the milieu of the vagabonds and unsavory misfortunates of the Polygon's wretched side. Whenever I find myself down there I recall his words: “A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.”
I traverse through the basement when I want to make best speed from my office to the PAC (Polygon Athletic Center). Monday I miscalculated (which is a nice way of saying that I just plain wasn't paying attention) and got off the escalator on the mezzanine. Mezzanine mezzanine – sounds so glorious: the mezzanine, like the sun deck on a cruise ship or the really choice seats at a sports stadium! But no, come now. This is our National Polygon. Still, it is one step above the basement – or at least one floor. Anyway, I walked about half a corridor over before I looked up and realized that they had not cleaned up the walls and relocated some reputable offices in the basement, but rather I was off course. I was at the wrong latitude.
After regaining my track, I found my way down one more level and began to wend my way through the thoroughly confusing but always amusing circuitous corridors of the ‘B’ ring of the ‘B’ level. As I approached the first blind intersection, I saw that my path was inexorably blocked by a large grey cart straight out of a Star Wars movie. Strange it was to me that driver of this six foot by four foot gray rectangular bucket didn’t pause at intersections; when I had a chance to get a look at him, I realized that neither caution nor anything resembling responsible adult behavior typically occurred to him.
That was fine. Although I had been eagerly speedwalking to get to my workout, I was so intrigued by this creature, I had no problem waiting for him to pass by at his parade-like pace. He looked to be no more than about seven and forty years old, but was probably actually ten years younger still. Within the maximum height restriction of 5'5", he was as challenged as he was proud of the garbage car he wheeled with such dominance through these corridors: never once careening it off of the walls as seems to have been the fate of so many to have come before his. English was clearly not this man’s first language, but his senses (and sense of his surroundings) seemed alien to my most vocal body language – which is not to say that I was farting; just that I was practically doing the Heisman to get around his cart and executing a veritable game of red rover to safely get to the next corridor so I could continue on my way to workout bliss. I made a point of breathing like I had a cold since my nose was pretty much level with the contents of his trash bin during this whole encounter. Providence saw it fit on this day for me to make it past this Quasimodian garbageman, and I safely made it to the PAC without further incident.
Upon my return to this particular section of the basement, the bowels really, where the elevators terminate, there were three people lounging on tall boxes, mocking a fourth who was attempting to sweep the floor near their feet. The latter fellow – a bent over Mexican-looking man, younger than the others, looked to be annoying the ring-leader of the trio a great deal. I am sure there was some history behind the angst he was causing Ho-Chi-Mihn (who kept snarling and sucking like his dentures were in backwards), but damned if I could see what he was really doing wrong at this instant.
“You need to shhiitt down-- oveah dare-- go ova dare and shhhittt… Nooooooah! You go shhhhiiiiitttt ovah dare! I can take no more. Schtopp!”
Jose almost seemed to be enjoying the rage he was inciting because he just kept sweeping. I chuckled to myself – or at least I thought it was to myself. The pair of people behind the ring-leader, a yoda-like man and a woman who looked like a telly tubby, regarded me curiously as I paused for a moment to take this scene in before I rounded the corner on my journey back to civilization – or at least militarization. And again I heard dear Dickens: “In any of the burial places of this city through which I pass, is there a sleeper more inscrutable than its busy inhabitants are, in their innermost personality, to me, or than I am to them?”
I traverse through the basement when I want to make best speed from my office to the PAC (Polygon Athletic Center). Monday I miscalculated (which is a nice way of saying that I just plain wasn't paying attention) and got off the escalator on the mezzanine. Mezzanine mezzanine – sounds so glorious: the mezzanine, like the sun deck on a cruise ship or the really choice seats at a sports stadium! But no, come now. This is our National Polygon. Still, it is one step above the basement – or at least one floor. Anyway, I walked about half a corridor over before I looked up and realized that they had not cleaned up the walls and relocated some reputable offices in the basement, but rather I was off course. I was at the wrong latitude.
After regaining my track, I found my way down one more level and began to wend my way through the thoroughly confusing but always amusing circuitous corridors of the ‘B’ ring of the ‘B’ level. As I approached the first blind intersection, I saw that my path was inexorably blocked by a large grey cart straight out of a Star Wars movie. Strange it was to me that driver of this six foot by four foot gray rectangular bucket didn’t pause at intersections; when I had a chance to get a look at him, I realized that neither caution nor anything resembling responsible adult behavior typically occurred to him.
That was fine. Although I had been eagerly speedwalking to get to my workout, I was so intrigued by this creature, I had no problem waiting for him to pass by at his parade-like pace. He looked to be no more than about seven and forty years old, but was probably actually ten years younger still. Within the maximum height restriction of 5'5", he was as challenged as he was proud of the garbage car he wheeled with such dominance through these corridors: never once careening it off of the walls as seems to have been the fate of so many to have come before his. English was clearly not this man’s first language, but his senses (and sense of his surroundings) seemed alien to my most vocal body language – which is not to say that I was farting; just that I was practically doing the Heisman to get around his cart and executing a veritable game of red rover to safely get to the next corridor so I could continue on my way to workout bliss. I made a point of breathing like I had a cold since my nose was pretty much level with the contents of his trash bin during this whole encounter. Providence saw it fit on this day for me to make it past this Quasimodian garbageman, and I safely made it to the PAC without further incident.
Upon my return to this particular section of the basement, the bowels really, where the elevators terminate, there were three people lounging on tall boxes, mocking a fourth who was attempting to sweep the floor near their feet. The latter fellow – a bent over Mexican-looking man, younger than the others, looked to be annoying the ring-leader of the trio a great deal. I am sure there was some history behind the angst he was causing Ho-Chi-Mihn (who kept snarling and sucking like his dentures were in backwards), but damned if I could see what he was really doing wrong at this instant.
“You need to shhiitt down-- oveah dare-- go ova dare and shhhittt… Nooooooah! You go shhhhiiiiitttt ovah dare! I can take no more. Schtopp!”
Jose almost seemed to be enjoying the rage he was inciting because he just kept sweeping. I chuckled to myself – or at least I thought it was to myself. The pair of people behind the ring-leader, a yoda-like man and a woman who looked like a telly tubby, regarded me curiously as I paused for a moment to take this scene in before I rounded the corner on my journey back to civilization – or at least militarization. And again I heard dear Dickens: “In any of the burial places of this city through which I pass, is there a sleeper more inscrutable than its busy inhabitants are, in their innermost personality, to me, or than I am to them?”
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