gotta write

Doesn’t happen often anymore, but there have always been times when “things” start to overflow, when life just gets too full, when the psychic levees and dikes that I’ve built and maintained over 50-odd (some, very odd) years simply aren’t going to hold.  Y’all welcomed me here….so you asked for it.

Just got off the phone with my brother, elder, smarter, prettier, a master craftsman in any medium you care to choose.  At one time, and perhaps still, he was known world-wide as a ceramicist, for his specialty in raku.  That being more or less an invitation to penury, he made his living as a specialty builder/carpenter/artisan in Telluride, CO:  whenever a job came up that simply wouldn’t cooperate, whether because of design or medium, John got a call.  It didn’t hurt that he was effectively a “City Father”, having moved there in 1972 when it was still a silver-mining town with only a scattering of artist DFHs and, imagine this, practically no skiing.  

He was the guy who could free-hand router an intricate sign that HAD to be perfect, because the restaurant in question had just imported San Francisco’s finest chef; who could do the dry-laid brick vaulted roof of the Town Park’s humongous barbecue oven; who could miter the granite for a corner so it looked carved, not assembled.  His first welding project, upon acquiring his first gas rig, was a one-foot-diameter icosahedron — I still don’t know how many sides the fucker has, but it’s a bunch, and each triangular side…well, I can’t even describe it, far less imagine putting together what must be hundreds of individual, tiny wires; I was down there last winter, and, after 30 years in the weather, it still held my weight (I waited until he wasn’t looking to try stepping on it).  But what really exemplified his craft to me, and will mean nothing to most folks, was his drywall:  I’ve never met a pro at this rather mundane trade who will believe me, but John did smoothwall without sanding.  That, for mere mortals, is roughly the equivalent of flying.

I use the past tense, because John, after nearly 10 years of fighting against an affliction first diagnosed as Parkinson’s, has more or less resigned himself to the new, Mayo-approved, diagnosis:  MS.  His left hand has had a wounded-bird-like life of its own for five years, during which time he continued working, primarily tile and stone work because it’s slow and meticulous work anyhow, so his affliction was less noticeable; and he remained in high demand.  Now, at 61, his right hand has joined the flock, his gait is uncertain, and the face that conquered every self-respecting woman on the West Slope, from 16…oops, 18 to 60 has developed characteristic twitches.  

It happens, yeah, it happens.  The longer I live, the more it is clear to me that mankind really wasn’t designed to live much past 40:  there’s just too many boogers out there, and each year is simply pushing your luck.  Hell, a sister only three years my elder died this time last year of a particularly nasty cancer; and I’m the proud owner of the Philadelphia chromosome, which entitles me to a $100 pill every day to ward off chronic leukemia.  But, damn, Polly had done pretty much what she wanted to do, didn’t have kids or, really, any particular aspirations beyond being with her mate (not a minor aspiration, by any means, but…).  I’m probably just fine until something else (like maybe my Camel straights) carries me off; and I’m resolutely kidless & have helped my mate to establish a respectable nest-egg, so I’m pretty much expendable and, after 25 entirely unanticipated years as a non-drunk, figure I’ve had a pretty good run.

But John, well, it just doesn’t seem right.  This was the top kid at one of the top prep schools in the country, 800 on every test he ever took, still does trig in his head.  A brilliant and beautiful mind that chose, consciously, to forgo almost certain success and wealth so he could concentrate on making beautiful things.  More importantly, a hugely successful father, much to everyone’s surprise, given his pre-nuptual predilections.  And, now, just as his kids are beginning to blossom…..

I don’t tend to rail against “fate”, nor yet pay a lot of attention to the “tragedy” of human existence:  I’ve lived through my share of such stuff, not-infrequently encouraged by my own stupidity/carelessness, and, well, I sort of got over it…no offense intended to true believers in the Obama message, but the corollary of this attitude is that I pretty much gave up “hope” a long time ago and don’t consider it to be much of a loss.  But it terrifies me, now, that John will give up hope:  his hands have been his life for 40 years, by his lights, and they’re gone.  

Damn, I wish I could drink.

a