Nathaniel Sewell's Blog, page 21

Today, in St. Petersburg, Florida

I am quite fortunate to have lived in many interesting places, but now, I think l enjoy living in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida, the best.

And not because of the obvious reasons, but because it’s sort of an artists paradise. And it has a day-to-day small town feel.

On the weekends, I can roam the city streets and visit galleries, or museums and the like.

I have to admit, I love being anonymous in a crowd, and listening to the comments from patrons looking at a piece of art.

Many times, at first, I’ll hear a comment along the lines of, “what in the world?”, and then, the docent explains the artist’s intent, and the years-and-years it took the artist to work through the creative process, and then they say, “I had no idea!”

At which point, some people get it, some people don’t.

That’s life.

My point:  IF you have read this far…

Don’t give up on your dreams.

Whatever that dream might be.

It’s your dream.

It’s the easy route to be a critic.

No one has the right to take away your joy, no one, whatever that joy might be.

It’s your joy.

But keep at it, keep at it, listen to that joy, it’s right there with you.

I think art comes in many forms, creating food, growing crops, painting, photography, writing, or athletic, anything with individual expression that blooms from hard effort.

For example:

I can’t ride a horse, but I can marvel at a rider with the courage to encourage a huge horse over a jump.

The reason being, I know that rider has fallen off a horse.

The trick,  he or she, got back up, and he or she got back up on the horse. It’s not a they moment, it’s specific, only to that rider – he or she.

Consider that last 2 sentences for a bit?

I think getting back up on that horse, that’s the moment when God talks to us.

It’s not a loud, showy thunder-clap, it’s a quiet, humble nudge.

The nudge at only you, a joy that causes only you to smile, or simply, to feel that singular thought, “I can do this.”

For example,  from my artistic journey.

It only took me 3+ years to get the below opening for 5th&Hope, right.

I think I re-wrote, or re-worked the opening over 25+ times.

I have gone over every single word, again, and again, and again, until a little voice in my head said, “that’s it, that’s it”.

And yes, the red-tailed hawk is not by accident, there is a good metaphorical reason for the hawk.

It’s not just a hawk, it’s specific.

In truth, I never write and share anything without it having layers of meaning.

It’s my secret sauce, you may or may not like it, but I know it’s there.

It’s my joy.

NS

5th&Hope

As I stood near the jagged cliff edge the news I had been expecting for years had unexpectedly come on a rapturous Carmel Bay morning. My sister had told me the facts during a brief smartphone call. She was one of the few that had my personal phone number, she was one of the few that I had always accepted their incoming call. She was one of the few that I suspected I loved. I was not sure what love meant, but I had a vague notion because of her, and our maternal grandparents. Her low-whispered voice caused the back of my throat to burn. It was as if I had known the news, before I had heard the news. Maybe it was her tone, perhaps from within her hesitant breath I had heard finality. I had. My mother was dead. I shut my eyes as I flipped the ubiquitous device onto a repurposed cast iron table. If it shattered, it could be replaced.

Even though I had not spoken to the woman in decades, I wanted to cry. I thought it was what I was supposed to do. But I suspected my emotions were just connected to a myth, and not reality. As if I had symptoms from Stockholm syndrome. My grandfather Stephen would not have cried. At least he would not have cried in public view. It was not his way. And he was never called, Steve, he was always, Stephen. But just as I thought of him a red-tailed hawk shrieked down at me, as if my grandfather spoke down at me through the wild animal to buck-up, and to get right with the Lord.

It was perched high above me in a mature live oak defending its nest intertwined with dry vegetation as its newborn chicks chirped for breakfast. As our routine, this was our favorite spot to watch the daily human and animal goings-on. It offered beautiful ocean views of the frigid Pacific currents. I gripped the warm coffee mug. The black coffee tasted bitter, as if it had been brewed from bourbon barrel char, but I liked it. My mother was dead. I nodded acceptance back at a God hidden within the wind, hidden by a perfect pale blue sky, a God I didn’t believe existed. My preacher grandfather would not have been pleased. But it was a fact, she was gone. My sister was not the type to play horrible practical jokes. I leaned back against the table. I sucked in the salty air as I looked up at the predator bird’s dark eyes. I wondered if it sensed something permanent had happened.

It had.

For several minutes I watched along the pastoral white frothy beach line as a blond-haired boy menaced a golden retriever with a driftwood stick. I wondered what it would have been like to have been a parent. My only attempt had been reduced to ashes now contained inside a cypress box. I had no idea what it all meant, to love a human being you helped create, to love them beyond reason. I sipped the warm coffee, I shrugged as the thunderous sounds from the ocean reassured me like a mother’s hug. But my mother had never been the hugging type. And I had always wondered if she even wanted me. I was not sure I felt anything as I strolled back across the stone walkway and back inside our kitchen. I told my wife Rebecca the news with a simple sentence, as I stared down at our butcher block counter top. She hugged me as the house staff disappeared from my view.

With her encouragement, we journeyed back to Kentucky one last time to pay our respects. Respect was an odd sentiment for the funeral. I twisted the SUV’s steering wheel a bit to the right as I gazed up through the panoramic windshield. It was a resplendent fall afternoon. The oak, sycamore, and maple leaves were dying from thirst as the trees prepared for another harsh winter. But the tree family had shared one last stunning color palette of yellows, reds and oranges that blanketed the dense Appalachian forest.

We drove past the tiny town of Jackson beneath the natural canopy along the twisting two lane road toward my grandfather’s white chapel. The moist roads were rutted with the concave imprint from the heavy wheeled coal truck traffic, traffic that splattered coal dust across our rental. It sounded like the truck drivers had thrown wedding rice at us. But we drove toward the past, and not toward an abundant future. I glanced over at Rebecca.

 

End.

A Fresh Candle For…

I wrote this poem thinking about someone special to me.

They are gone, but I would like to think they have folded into another existence that we cannot see.

I suspect everyone has someone they light a candle for, someone they hope to remember. If you take 2 minutes to read this, I would ask that you think of that person, first…

A Fresh Candle For…

I cannot sleep,

Tick, tock,

I breathe in,

Tick, tock,

I exhale,

Tick…, snap…, tock,

I feel chilled,

Tick, tock,

Oh, dearly departed,

Tick, tock,

Oh, dearly departed,

Why can’t I rhyme?

My mind is distant,

I don’t understand why,

What can I do,

To remember you,

In total darkness,

Deep in the silent night,

I will strike a match for you,

Let the flame linger as I remember you,

I will let the flame burn almost to my fingertips, for you,

The sulfur smell, whoosh, crackle,

The burn creates pain,

I’m alive,

Being alive, allows me to remember you,

In the present tense,

I pray, for you,

A quiet prayer for wisdom,

The wisdom to be humble,

The wisdom to listen,

To simply pray,

To simply remember you, today,

You remember someone, too?

Don’t you?

Don’t you?

To remember walking along the beach line, with only them,

To remember collecting sea shells, with them,

To remember sharing silence at dusk or at dawn, with them,

But now, to stand alone at the same shoreline,

Just thinking about them,

And then, deep in the night,

When we feel its time,

We burn a fresh candle for them,

To remember them,

A fresh, a perfect, an unblemished candle,

A candle made only for them,

To share its unique fragrance,

To share its unique glow,

Only for them.

End.

NS

The opening -5th & Hope

After a brief respite, I returned to my editing cave, and I have been dutifully working through my editors edits.

But I have decided to share the opening to the novel, 5th&Hope.

Over the years I have learned to follow my instinctual sense as to where to follow for a story. I don’t start writing until I know the ending – I think the ending to 5th&Hope might be a surprise.

The underlying themes delve into faith, abortion and race relations.

The book title comes from the exact spot my missionary grandparents met in downtown Los Angeles, California, in 1926. After they graduated from BIOLA, they drove a Model A Ford back across the original Route 66  in 1930.  Part of the story is about retracing that journey … that’s them in the shared photo. Can you imagine driving across the United States in 1930? Where would you get gas, food or a place to sleep?

They have been gone a long time, and I miss them every day.

Unlike my grandparents, and more like me, I suspect the main character is not real likable, but I think he is a perfect foil for my literary purposes.

Feel free to share your comments – bad or good… they are equal in my eyes.

==============================================================================

5th&Hope

My mother was dead. The news had come that rapturous sun splashed morning during a smartphone call from my sister. The call instantly caused the back of my throat to burn like the devil had poked me with a scolding hot pitchfork. I shut my eyes as I flipped the ubiquitous device onto a repurposed cast iron table. I heard the touchscreen shatter, it sounded like ice cracking as if I walked alone as an innocent boy across a frozen pond. I knew what being alone meant. I looked down at it. It was now helpless like my childhood, a useless memory.

I wanted to cry. I thought it was what I was supposed to do. My grandfather would not have cried, but a red tailed hawk shrieked down at me. The predator bird would not allow it. It was judgmentally perched high above me in a mature live oak in its nest intertwined with dry vegetation, as its newborn chicks chirped for breakfast. As our routine, this was our favorite spot at the cliff’s edge to watch the daily human and animal goings-on. It offered beautiful Carmel Bay views with cooling ocean currents. And at that moment I felt quite cold. I gripped the warm coffee mug. The black coffee tasted bitter, as if it had been brewed from bourbon barrel char, but I liked it. My mother was dead. I nodded back at a God I didn’t believe existed. But it was a fact, she was gone. My sister was not the type to play horrible practical jokes. I leaned back against the table. I sucked in the salty air as I looked up at the predator bird’s dark eyes. I wondered if it sensed something permanent had happened.

It had.

For several minutes I watched along the pastoral white frothy beach line as a blonde haired boy menaced a golden retriever with a driftwood stick. I wondered what it would have been like to have been a parent. I had no idea what that meant, to love a human being you helped create, to love them beyond reason.

The thunderous sounds from the ocean reassured me like a mother’s hug. But my mother had never been the hugging type. And I had always wondered if she even wanted me. I was neither sad nor happy as I strolled back across the stone walkway and back inside our kitchen. I told my wife Rebecca the news with a simple sentence, as I blankly stared down at our yellow butcher block counter top. She hugged me as the house staff disappeared from my view.

With her encouragement, we journeyed back to Kentucky one last time to pay our respects. Respect was an odd sentiment for the funeral. I twisted the SUV’s steering wheel a bit to the right as I gazed up through the panoramic windshield. It was a resplendent fall afternoon. The oak, sycamore, and maple leaves were dying from thirst as they prepared for winter. But the tree family shared one last stunning color palette of yellows, reds and oranges that blanketed the dense Appalachian forest.

We drove past the tiny town of Jackson, beneath the natural canopy along the twisting two lane road toward my grandfather’s white chapel. The moist roads were rutted with the concave imprint from the heavy wheeled coal truck traffic that splattered coal dust across our rental. It sounded like the truck drivers had thrown wedding rice at us. But we drove toward the past, and not toward an abundant future. I glanced over at Rebecca.

End

 

NS

“To Love is to act” ~ Victor Hugo’s final words.

“To Love is to act.” Victor Hugo’s last words.

Lately, for a variety of reasons, I’ve been a bit uninspired to write, or to finish the final edits for 5th&Hope.

But the other day, a business friend walked into my office, and she told me to keep writing, and to not give up, even though my current novel, 5th&Hope has only gotten rejection responses from the big, bad publishing world.

So what’s the point? IF I can’t get published, cliche’, cliche’, cliche’…

Now, Don’t cry for me Argentina, my life, for the most part, has been, and is, pretty good. I love my day job, and I love the folks I work with. They are a good bunch. And I am a US citizen. I’ve got it easy.

But then, as if the fates might intervene, I came across this happy photo, and it gave me the nudge I needed to keep at it. To keep sharing, to keep at my steep literary climb. I know I may never see the peak, but, I’ll keep trying – one word at a time.

From the photo, this child’s grandmother, who I asked for permission to use the photo,(grandmother?), is not just any childhood friend.

In my first novel, Bobby’s Socks, there is one chapter that comes from real life, the rest of the story I made-up. It was this child’s grandmother, who probably still has a great sense of humor and laugh, who went to a movie with me, the author, when we were both about 13 years old.

I’ll come back to this photo, later. But, there is something spiritual about the photo that you might miss, but it hit me! It hit me almost instantly.

First, let me tell you a story.

When I was a teenager I told my friend Ernie I wanted to be a writer.  If you know Ernie, you’d appreciate his gift for dry-wit, as he advised me that was a poor career choice, to paraphrase him, “you know, you’ll only be a famous writer – after you’re dead”.

At the time I focused on the – dead part, because I understood, if I’m dead – why would I care to be famous?

Perhaps it’s my cynical nature, but I smirk every time I see or read about a career politician has a building named after them, as if they’ll live forever as the inspiration for a new library or other cold concrete and marble public building?

If there is a heaven, I hope, I’d like to think I’m doing heavenly things, and not telling Archangel Gabriel that back on modern day earth, the new campus library was named after me, and I might pull on his white feathered wings and whisper to him I had a good shot at the new freeway, too.

As to libraries, I’m not even sure the humbled-masses even read books these days.

It would seem to me, the humbled-author, many with the masses chase their 15-minutes of fame on YouTube, and why has it become a preoccupation within our American society to take a nude selfie and then share it with the planet?

And, I think we have the collective attention spans of a nat.

I think that preoccupation includes all ages, shapes and ethnicity. It has to include me, after all, I’m the author of this blog post that I have shared across the world-wide inter-web.

But I can only comment from where I observe, I don’t know what those in war-torn countries think.

But, the attention seeking effort causes me to wonder about the United States population, how we seem to live from fantasy-to-delusion within war-like video games like a scene from Saving Private Ryan. Of course, all these brave acts happen within the safety of our parents basement or your best buds apartment.

Pick your televised athletic event, here comes the video game commercials that bother me, they bother me because they encourage violence, and because I have dear friends that actually went off to war to protect my wimpy-behind, they can assure you and me it’s not a video game in Iraq, and the bullets and bombs are quite real.

Another nugget, I don’t care to be famous, except for one reason.

And it’s the single reason that drives my writing.

I’ll explain that one reason later, again, it has to do with the pasted photo I’ve shared of that beautiful child, a hint, she is wearing a bespoke cap, because just like the child and her DNA, that cap is one-of-kind.

Back to the story…

So, I went off to college and I earned a couple of business degrees. I write the word earned with intention, because I hated every-single-day, and every-single-class. I thought the entire learning experience was a bloodless adventure into mediocrity. It’s not like I was getting a Harvard MBA, and I was not genetically well-connected.

At the time, I had no idea that sort of negative thinking that had filled inside me a growing river of cynicism that could have caused my life to stop. And I would have been the person that stopped it.

I know those words might read chilling, but those are truthful words. And I know there are millions of others just like me that silently suffer with those thoughts, it can be a full-time job just staying above the green clover.

But a few years after I graduated, I got lucky, as I swerved into the business world of medical malpractice insurance. In a sense, I feel like God, or Devine Providence, or that higher-power thing – kept dropping plot clues for me to follow because I quickly became fascinated with medicine, in particular, genetics.

Of note, I wrote feel, and not think, because the most profound moments in my life have come from feeling first, and then thinking about those feelings. I think those feelings are fed by your instinct, that God-like whisper you hear from time to time.

So, my first day on the insurance carrier job, I met a world famous cardiovascular surgeon. He could tell I was a curious young man with an unblemished apple-pie face, so he patiently, passionately explained to the green-horn (me), as I sat across from him, how the heart muscle works. He showed me a scale model, the how he operated, and the why he treated the deceased patient in question, and I learned about surgical anastomosis.

I had no idea what those two words meant before I had walked into that office, but after, I thought they sounded like fancy words to this Kentucky kid. I craved to learn more.

I had also learned the deceased guy had lived a sedentary life, smoked, drank and ate himself into heart disease.

From that point on, I was hooked.

At the time, as I roamed all over Florida, and then the United States, in-and-out of hospitals and medical practices, I was blissfully unaware, I was learning about medicine, and how life choices impact patient outcomes.

I was learning how the human body and mind work, or in many situations, how genetic defects alter a life’s journey.

In a simple way, if you think about it, gene expression is a lot like a light switch on your bedroom wall, but the trick, good ones or bad ones are turned on based on what you got from mom and dad, and then the food you eat, the air you breathe, the water you drink, and even the traumas you have experienced.

If a scientist draws a little bit of blood or tissue or saliva from you, that genetic code will tell your story.

To be clear, some days, I wish I were blissfully ignorant. But what goes into my brain, the images, the thoughts, the feelings, they stay there, waiting for my mind to return. And many of those thoughts – scare me.

Now, fast-forward twenty plus years, I’m a middle-aged dude sitting in my office researching claim data to better negotiate on behalf of my psychiatrist client – with a rather difficult underwriter. Since I had been a medical malpractice underwriter, I knew all their bag-of-tricks. I had the advantage, I just needed evidence.

That day, my mission was simple, to keep the physician in business because without that insurance policy, that, by the way, costs about what a brand new E Class Mercedes goes for, he couldn’t work at the hospital. He couldn’t treat any patients, or earn an income. He couldn’t pay his mortgage, or feed his family. No pressure.

The key thorny issue was that my clients patient had committed suicide, in front of him. I’ll not bore you with any comments about standard-of-care, or the pathological effects from profound mental illness, but during my effort I came across an article about the epi genetic link between child sexual abuse and suicide.

The study theorized about a so called, suicide gene. Today, thanks to the hard work from those scientists at McGill Univesity, their theory has by and large, been validated.

After I read the article, a not-so-funny thing happened, I couldn’t breathe, in truth, I was having a panic attack. All those trapped memories from my childhood had returned for an unpleasant, unplanned family visit.

So, I had to quickly leave the office building, and I slowly walked down the busy city street on a hot spring day in St. Petersburg, Florida. It was in those moments, sweating under the sun, in the open air under palm trees, that I returned to my desire to be a writer, to be a story teller.

I stared up into the blue sky and thought, why not? To emote what was hidden behind my hazel colored eyes, and what I had felt from my youth. I didn’t have to have my blood sampled, I knew what lurked within my genetic code.

So, we return to today, and you ask, what’s up with the photo, and what’s so spiritual about that photo?

“To Love is to Act” – it is recounted that those are Victor Hugo’s last words.

If you closely examine the photo of a perfect, blue-eyed, smiling child, a photo taken by her grandmother, you will note that sunlight encircles a yellow heart shape that was meticulously weaved into the cap. I know this, because I’m the persons that ordered it from the artist, with my requested specifications. And that is not caused by different colored yarn, that circle is from morning sunlight.

For me, the way the sunlight casts over the Happy Heart symbol, it felt like it was a quiet signal from you-know-who. I had been feeling depressed, I guess you-know-who noticed, so I got a happy booster shot.

I’ll explain further:

The yarn strands used to create the cap, like our socks, represent the double-helix strands of DNA.

The heart shape represents the phrase, Always have a Happy Heart!

Because a happy-hearted child can positively change the world.

And a smiling person releases, endorphins. The happy chemicals released from your brain, spinal cord and other parts of your body. If you question that, go smile as you workout, how do you feel?

The photo is spiritual to me, because her grandmother took the photo, and if memory serves, that child’s first name is ~ Grace.

And if you look up the meaning of the name, in part, it means, “A virtue coming from God.”

And so we come to the only reason I would ever want to be a famous author, living or dead. Otherwise, I write my stories for me, and the joy I get from writing.

It would be for a child or teenager or adult to ask someone wearing a woven cap like the one in the photo, or wearing a pair of our socks:

“What’s up with the cap with the happy face? I’ve never seen anything like it?”

“Have you ever read the novel, Bobby’s Socks?”

“No, what’s it about?”

And then you never know, from that simple, casual conversation, a person living in shame, a person silently suffering, he or she, might for the first time in their life, talk.

They might begin to search for help, for answers.

And once someone talks, a therapeutic journey begins, and perhaps, the story, in part, it will help, save a life.

And remember, the word, Love – is both a noun and a verb.

“To Love is to Act”.

Silence is a choice. And silence, can be deadly.

Always have a Happy Heart!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nathaniel Sewell

 

 

Dear John,

 

 

Well, my old Henry Clay high school baseball team buddy, John, and current Facebook friend, because he didn’t unfriend me during the recent election, has encouraged me to write a blog, which I have been doing, here, on my author site.

But I have not tried to heavily advertise it. I’m a bit contrarian, a Capricorn, and chicken.

If I did become a famous author, my only real goal would be to be interviewed by Charlie Rose. I love that show, and his round wooden table. I’d have to get a brand new bow tie.

So, this blog post is for John, and my old friends from Briar Hill, Bryan Station and Henry Clay.

I am admittedly, not very good at marketing my writing, I’m a bit introverted, and my novels are about serious topics.

And I don’t write to shout someone to get off my well-manicured lawn, I’m not unhappy, or angry, or bitter, but thank you, Juan. Seriously, he’s named Juan, shows up with his army every Tuesday at 7:30 am, and cuts and maintains the exterior for this residential property. The grass grows 365 days a year in Houston, Texas, and Juan gives me a shrug, and as the King’s English is not his primary language, and I no habla … well, you get it.

Perhaps, if I really wanted to make a living as an author, I should write middle-aged porn? Or about a 50 something, pasty-white male, in good health, after 20 years, him dealing with re-entering the modern dating pool and/or his experiences with on-line dating sites?

I suspect my future  dating stories would be more about my failures, than any real successes. But as my younger friend Trey, happy father of three, has counseled me, “Dude, it’s about numbers, hey, fat chicks need love too? Don’t forget them. Consider them a confidence builder, I bet they’d consider you a conquest.”

I do appreciate his scattered nuggets of wisdom, but then I arrived back at the house, I look down at the picture of Mark Twain that I have under the glass-top for my writing desk, and he seems to be looking back up at me saying, “Really? I wrote about real problems, in my own way, and by the way, what’s on-line dating?”

If you want to know what in part, inspires me to write, it’s the look in Mark Twain’s eyes from a portrait that can be found in Connecticut. I used to travel up there for business, for some odd reason I have kept the marketing piece for the museum, the tri-fold can be found in every West Hartford hotel lobby.

I think he’s looking back at me, in a sense, Mark Twain is saying to me,

“Well? Step-up, buttercup, you really want to write? I wrote about ugly things, I used ugly words that they now want to edit out of my stories, ugly words I used with intent. It’s the whole point behind the story!

So, Bobby, or Nathaniel, or Robert, or whomever you are, what have you got in that brain of yours?

And don’t go all weak-kneed on me, hey, you’re the one with the Henry James quote set next to my face, what’d he write? … blah, blah, blah, ‘Go on, my boy, and strike hard… Try everything, do everything, render everything-be an artist, be distinguished to the last.’ Blah, blah, blah,

So Bobby, I can’t write anything now, my fingers are gone, and I’m only a specter within your imagination, but you can write, so, what ya goin’ ta do ’bout it, hoogie, cracka, honkey, or, betta, white-devil?”

Point taken.

I’m curious if I’ll even obtain a publisher for my current novel, 5th&Hope. It’s not like I’ve got this magical track record that attracts big time literary agents. To be clear, if you’re not represented by one of them on the island, you are not going very far in that world. And 5th&Hope has rather tough content, I’ll tip you off, it’s about abortion, racism and my constant underlying theme for all my novels, is there really a higher-power?

After all, my second novel was entitled, Fishing for Light.

Even so, my NYC editors sent my current manuscript back with their recommended edits, that I’ve been – slowly – accepting or rejecting. It’s a process. If you want to write a well-written story, do the work. But don’t expect any reward.

It’s unlikely anyone in the big-time publishing world will stop to take notice, because truthfully, it’s about them making money, and writing a novel or a screen play are about art, and those two they don’t always make for a happy marriage.

But most of all, I write my blog posts when I feel like it, and I typically write posts just for fun. I write these posts for me, I write posts to talk back to me. Why?

Because most eyeballs are over on YouTube, or Instagram, or, well, insert your preferred visual distraction… be honest, when was the last time you read a serious novel? It’s okay, I know I was born a hundred years to late.

However, I do get asked what it’s like to write a novel, or even a blog post … and the how? Okay, consider what I just wrote, here’s the trick, have an ending in mind, then turn off all the noise that surrounds you, and begin to listen to that inner voice. I promise you a voice will appear, it might get a bit scary, not in a Meet Joe Black way, but in a, “how did I grow gray hair inside my nose, or, how did I get gray hair – there, next to my Mister Happy? I have to pluck that off me, oh crap, that hurts.”

As former President G. W. Bush might say, “I’ve become a good notice-er, helps with my right-in, paint-in.” (Insert his typical mischievous nod and shrug.)

Are you still with me?

In truth, I write my quick screeds simply to communicate, and for my own writing practice. After all, writing or telling jokes or painting, are muscles that need to have regular exercise.

But it would seem, perhaps, my nom de plume, Nathaniel Sewell, might have tricked some of my old friends, well yeah, my Facebook childhood and school days friends might have said, “it looks like Robert, I have not seen him up close in 30 years, and yeah, the goofy bow tie, the poofy hair – but naw, can’t be him. His names not, Nathaniel, or Sewell. And he was always the funny kid, the comedian, the class clown, he’d never write about…”

Are you still with me?

First off, I have a REALLY good reason why I chose a pen name, not ego, my first published novel, Bobby’s Socks, was about child sexual abuse and the epi-genetic link to suicide.

Yeah, I know… it’s okay, but don’t cry for me Argentina.

(By the way, I don’t bring up the fact that I’m a published author on a date, or with a female prospect, or suspect, or Hooters waitress, because they’ll ask, “Oh, what do you write about?”

Seems like an innocent question? But it’ll kill the mood. RED ALERT, RED ALERT, AVOID, AVOID!

I don’t need any advice from Trey for this one, I know this to be true from hard-earned experience from my youth, I’ll not drop a first or last name, but let’s just say when I was 24, we had not even gotten through dinner and I’d already fantasied about experimenting with her through the first-half of the Kama Sutra, and then, THUD!

Have you ever released words past your lips that you instantly think, COME BACK! Don’t say that, IDIOT!

Well, I have, and almost 30 years later, I still remember the exact moment. I’m not kidding. I’ll stop there, but I’d really like to have some of that testosterone back, I think it might come in handy, someday, I hope, maybe? I don’t know. But it would seem there are magical pills out there that only Alice can see?)

Sorry, I digressed…

Now, I’m a big-boy, I can take a punch, but I know there are ‘others’ out there, way beyond me that CAN NOT take a punch, people that take their lives, many times, I read about a sad teenager, those are the folks that I intended to help. I wrote Bobby’s Socks for them, not me. I’m lucky to be alive.

And I cannot tell you how many men and women have told me – “that’s how I felt, thank you.”

Even so,  at the time that Bobby’s Socks was published, I ‘thought’ I had a lot to lose, and I didn’t want my business contacts to shun me. To the chagrin of my publisher, the book did not sell well, it did okay, but I was not surprised.

Funny how life works, I thought at the time, I should continue to hide behind my pen name, it would allow me to share a part of my life, share about thoughts that I suffer through, every-single-day-of-my-life, and I could equally remain hidden within the cold, hard calculating business world?

In truth, I have always thought the business world was an easy place to roam and hide. It might seem cutthroat to others, but I like being the captain of my pirate ship. And I’ve been quite fortunate, I actually do enjoy my business career – I’ll explain why another time, but after Bobby’s Socks was published, what I didn’t expect, happened.

Instead of being ‘shunned’, or being judged for that, YUCK, or, ICK-factor.

I got hugs. I was told I was loved.

And I was encouraged by those that I feared might shun me, some who are highly successful, well, they told me to keep writing, to keep at it, as Henry James wrote, “The way to do it- to affirm one’s self sur la fin- … be an artist, be distinguished to the last.”

So, I will at least try.

Well, you get it…

I hope this worked, John?

Best,

Robert

aka Nathaniel Sewell

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow Gets Here Fast

The storms have past, and it’s a warm day here in Houston. The innocent white cotton ball like clouds randomly drift under the protection of a pure blue sky allowing yellow sunlight to blink down at me.

It is at these quiet moments without the interruption from life, or a television, or a radio, or Youtube or whatever other noise making modern device that distracts me, that I listen to that inner whisper.

My life sometimes feels like I’m on a high-speed train blurring past reality. But then the train stops, I investigate the past and then I get back on the train curious when it will stop again.

I don’t live in the past, I live in the present, wondering about the future. I have zero control over the future. But I can still wonder, and be hopeful, right?

I am quite aware that I’m approaching 51 trips around the sun, and that for the most part, I’ve been quite fortunate. Sure, I can complain about certain scars that I hold from my youth, or if someone cut me off in traffic, but what’s the point?

I like to use an old Polish saying, “not my circus, not my monkeys”. In other words, I let the negative influences leave my orbit, and I replace them with the happy bright stars that I allow into my universe.

If you think about it, it’s really easy to be negative, you actually have to decide to be happy.

Simply stated, I am thankful to be alive.

I am thankful I breathe fresh air within the earned freedom of these United States.

I can write and publish what ever I choose. I can share my thoughts without the fear of retribution from a tyrannical government.

And ‘the we’ within this country can agree to disagree, but we can still break bread and toast each other for our differences.  I love those differences, because they make life interesting. And I learn a thing or two from those that view the world through different eyes.

When I was a boy, I wondered what it would feel like to have gray hair. I have learned it feels the same, but I have also learned how to make the gray temporarily disappear. Eventually, I’ll accept reality, and I’ll look in the mirror at my head full of gray hair, but I’m genetically lucky, at least I’ll have a head full of hair.

After a brief health scare, with an unpleasant CT scan, for the most part, I’m in good health. I can still run a sub 7 minute mile, that is, if I choose to push my body and mind. I choose to work-out, hard, because it feels good. And I’m lucky that my body allows me to compete with me. I know there are others bigger, stronger and much faster than me.   I also know there are others that their body does not allow them to work-out, so I have zero excuses.

Some day, my body will not allow me to run, my fingers might not allow me to type, and my mind might fade into dusk. The future will eventually arrive at my doorstep, and then others will talk of me in the past tense.  That’s life.

In the meantime, I’ll get back on that empty train for one, I’ll grip the cold metal pole, and I’ll watch through the windows at the outside world as reality begins to blur again.

I’ll appreciate my flawed journey and I’ll wonder about the next stop.

Today, at this stop, I am thankful.

NS

 

 

In My Opinion – Is it a rising or a setting sun?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Oh every night a baby dies,

And every night a mama cries,

What makes those men do what they do,

To make that person black and blue,” ~ Chris Rea, lyrics from – Tell Me There’s A Heaven

 

As I work through the editing process and accept, or reject, my editor’s recommendations for my forthcoming novel, 5th&Hope, I typically take a break and run my angst off on a treadmill.

If you have ever been to Houston on a summer day, you’ll realize I run indoors because outside you’ll have a vague notion how hot hell might be, because the Texas heat seems hotter than the surface of the sun. Or at least my perception of how hot the sun is, or was, as sunlight is about 8 minutes old, and the corresponding heat is actually much older.

I don’t want to find out how hot hell is, but make no mistake, I do believe there is an evil in this world, and if there is evil, it has to come from hell, not the sun. So the responsible party must be the Devil. But if there is the Devil, an entity I don’t want to tangle with, there must be the polar opposite, a good, a pure love, and therefore, there must be a God in heaven.

Even today in mid-October, it’s near 90 degrees Fahrenheit outside, but a raging fire burns in my heart. Simply stated, I’m disgusted, and I am tired of being manipulated. I suspect there are millions of other Americans that feel the same way I feel, right now. I’ll come back to this… and then those pictures I shared will make sense.

The treadmills quietly wait for me at an air-conditioned workout facility, where they have been set in front of a long line of wide-screen televisions bolted to the steel ceiling joists. I run anonymously with a panalapy of other like minded humans with the hope to extend our days with the most valuable thing on the earth that cannot be purchased, our good health. I am thankful to have been, for the most part, genetically lucky.

There are a few things that I have learned to love, and running, or plodding to more accurate, is one ritual that allows me to maintain my physical fitness. But the exertion also opens windows within my mind that clarify, that hone, that reflect, and that cause me to think deeply. I guess it’s my way of singing in the shower and having an ‘Aha!!’

Those aha thoughts emerge that silently, patiently float within my subconscious that wait for me to hear, and those thoughts are followed by the words I write, born from God’s whispered recommendation for me to see and to feel the truth.

If there is one common thread through my novels, all my characters have been emotionally harmed. I think every person at some level has been emotionally scarred, so in a way, I simply write about how I feel, and how I wonder how other people feel.

After all,  if you don’t have the courage to feel the truth, you’re already dead. And yes, sometimes the truth hurts.

As I’ve grown older, I pray I have become a wiser person, a kinder person, a tolerant person, and a respectful person of another human beings point of view. It’s a skill I’ve had to learn, and I work at it daily.

I have a very simple goal with all my stories, that after I’ve reached room temperature, then my carbon based carcass has been placed in temporary cold storage, and later burned to ashes, that the words I wrote while alive might help someone realize they are not alone, that they are unique, special and loved. And most of all, that the love they feel comes from the inside first, and then it should be shared with the outside.

Unfortunately, as I run on the treadmill of my choice, I see the television screens with images that don’t share news, but images that encourage hate, division, and the worst elements from humanity. I thinks its purposeful, I think it is intended for profit, and William Randolph Hearst must be grinning ear to ear in his grave, after all, he invented the term, “yellow journalism”.

Fortunately, I grew up when a man named, Walter Cronkite. He shared the news every weekday evening. He had such class, and journalistic integrity that his viewers had no idea which direction his political leanings.

If Mr. Cronkite told us something was wrong, we knew without question, he was telling us the truth.

I don’t see any Walter Cronkite’s on the television these days.

If you take a hard look at the picture of that chair, you’ll notice it’s also in the picture of a painting by Howard Chandler Christy depicting the signing of the U.S. Constitution in Independence Hall. The chair is called, The Rising Sun Chair, because as the story goes,  Benjamin Franklin is credited with saying, “I have often looked at that behind the president without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now I… know that it is a rising…sun.”

That chair is the only original piece of furniture in Independence Hall.

Many years ago, I stood staring at that chair realizing what that chair represented, what it witnessed, and the person that sat on that chair, President George Washington. For some odd reason, I cried. My wife was so moved, a few years later, she had an exact copy made of the chair that she gave me for my birthday.

I never sit on the chair.

I don’t see any George Washington’s running for public office these days.

In closing, I’ll let President Washington make my point.  I’ll trust Wikisource for the below quote, it comes from President Washington’s farewell address. He was reflecting on a two-party system.

——————–

22 “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.

23 Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight,) the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

24 It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.”

I made my point.

I will get off my soap box.

NS

 

 

 

 

 

 

Get in the game!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since football season has returned at its regular time and slot in our collective lives, it struck me why so many are excited  for the new season.

I don’t think it has anything to do with winning or losing at Fantasy Football. I do think it has a lot to do with being distracted from our daily lives. But more importantly, that we have a fantasy for us to look forward to.

Believe it or not, I actually do look forward to my Kentucky football team’s new season.

In a sense, I know what it feels like to be a CUB fan.

But as the saying goes in Lexington, “ah, but basketball season is coming, CATS, CATS, CATS!” (Sorry football team, no disrespect, but I will always cheer for you, but I am rational enough to realize every other SEC team needs a homecoming team on the schedule.)

For me, I feel much happier when I have a goal to achieve, if I am writing something, a novel, in truth, I have already written the last sentence. My mission then becomes, “how do I get to that ending?”

That simple question is what motivates me to wake up at 4 in the morning to write for 3 hours. Typically, it’s whisper quiet outside, and all I can hear is the house air-conditioning units cycle on and off. After about 7ish, then I’ll go tackle my day-time career, a career that I do enjoy because I love the challenge to interact in the modern healthcare business, but in truth, it’s not my passion.

I never want to feel content, I prefer that I burn-up from re-entry from a raging internal fire. I want this carbon based vessel to voyage great and far, but eventually I know it will disappear into the atmosphere.

If you’re like me, and fortunate enough to have over 50 growth-rings within your skin bark, I am quite aware of the reality that I approach closer to being a past-tense, a memory for the living.

If someone takes a core sample from me after I reach room temperature, I wonder what story the patterns will tell?

After, I know there will be an intense fire, and I’ll go all, “ashes to ashes, funk to funky” thank you David Bowie, and my friends and family will know, thankfully I was never a junky.

But I wondered this morning, gazing at that picture of me from a time when LBJ was president, what advice would I provide to that little boy?

Number 1 – “Get in the GAME! If you get knocked down, get back up, and get back in the game.”

(I’ll let you add or create whatever metaphor or saying attributed to Knute Rockne, or Abraham Lincoln, or Mother Teresa that you think might work into this interstellar scenario.)

But for me, I would share these sentences from Henry James’ notebooks. He was a famous author, you can Wiki him, but it’s what he wrote that I read, almost every day, the thought Is the fuel that stokes my caldron.

“The way to do it – to affirm one’s self sur la fin – is to strike as many notes, deep, full and rapid, as one can. All life is – at my age, with all one’s artistic soul the record of it – in one’s pocket, as it were. Go on, my boy, and strike hard…. Try everything, do everything, render everything – be an artist, be distinguished to the last.” ~ Henry James.

Well, I look forward to another football season in my life, and I will faithfully cheer for my Cats. And I will hope not to come in last place in Fantasy Football.  But if I do, I’ll try again next season.

NS

PS ~ Feel free to share this post, I’m sure you know someone that might need Henry’s advice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Red Bandanna – a book, by Tom Rinaldi

“Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.” – Thomas Gray, An Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard

 

 

 

 

This past Sunday morning, as I was mindlessly reading the news, drinking black coffee after I had turned off the television news because I cannot stomach what’s spewing out from those talking-heads, I safely surfed over to a rerun for the original Ghostbusters, because I wanted the television noise to fill up the house. But as I glanced up I had noticed within the story they had driven Ecto-1 back across the Brooklyn Bridge toward New York City’s East Side, and beyond them within the city scape haze stood the Twin Towers.

I grunted and shook my head as I, being a bit boring, I had watched on a hot Saturday night an almost 3 hour documentary by Rick Burns about the building of the Twin Towers and all the Rockefeller politics behind the development of the World Trade Center.

But then I looked down to read the front page for the NY Post. (I prefer the NY Post because it’s got some hard news, but it’s also full of bubble gum for the mind.) But my eyes landed on the face of a little boy wearing a red bandanna. The child’s face triggered my curiosity.

As I learned, the little boy grows up to be a courageous young man, and he was the inspiration behind a new book, The Red Bandanna – a book, by Tom Rinaldi. In truth, I love to watch Mr. Rinaldi’s vinettes on ESPN about athletes befriending a cancer victim, or donating a kidney to teammate. He gets me every time.

Now, to be clear, I’m also the sap that watches the Olympics for the personal stories of ordinary people working for years and years at the Home Depot to become the Gold Medalist in, well pick your obscure sport, toothpick fencing, badminton, or whatever. I don’t care about the professional athletes, I care about the previously unknown man or woman getting 15 minutes or less, of well-earned fame, and then soon to be forgotten but for their family and friends, and maybe a mention in the trophy case at the high school they attended.

From time to time when I’m up in Jersey City, I take the PATH (Port Authority Trans-Hudson), underneath the Hudson, and over to lower Manhattan. It takes less than 5 minutes, and I emerge inside World Trade Center station. After I move with the quiet crowd from all walks of life, and up the stairs into the West mezzanine, to where there are now lots of fancy shops. And by the way, if you’re a foodie like me, there is a really cool grocery called, Le District, anyway, or you can walk underneath West Street and the 9/11 Memorial site and on over to step up to street level inside this white-ribbed dinosaurs looking thing they call the Oculus.

And then you can be on your way to whatever destination you have on the island via the subway, bus, taxi or my preference, on foot.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in a relatively small town, Lexington, Kentucky, that I can’t help but be a hayseed and marvel at the massive buildings, notice the city smells, but most of all, the people. In part, standing near busy street corners in huge cities, reminds me how utterly insignificant I am, and how we all have our own singular journey in life. But I wonder about the people – short, fat, skinny, old, young or like me, middle-aged, but they all seem like ants within an ant hill, “where are they all going? where do they go at night?” I don’t know why, I’ve always had those thoughts in my head.

But I like walking across busy West Street, and to maneuver past unaware tourists that are taking selfies next to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. In particular, I tend to stroll underneath the white oak and gum trees past the reflective pools and waterfalls that are in the center of where the Twin Towers once stood like gleaming 110 story identical twin brother and sister.

What I do every time I am near the footprints, I read out loud, really more like a whisper, a name inscribed on the bronze plates that surround the waterfalls. The names are not radomly placed on the plates, someone with a really big brain figured out how to place them near those they were near, be it an office, a fire station or on a plane that terrible day that scars our collective hearts. I wonder about them, not unlike I wonder about the names on tombstones in cemeteries. But I whisper their names out of respect for the dead.

The Red Bandanna is about one of those names. The young man could have easily saved his own life, but instead he helped those that could not help themselves. I love these stories, I love these types of books because they remind there are really good people, who selflessly do extraordinary things. I hope the book is a big success. Perhaps it will add to a positive legacy to put others before yourself.

I would like to think and pray that there is a paradise beyond us. I would like to think life is not all that random, but that a high-power created a series of well-orchestrated choices we get to make. As a sentient being I know with certainty that I will die, and this carbon based vessel that hosts my consciousness will go back to the earth and I will disappear into the ether. Perhaps someone will whisper my name.

Along my journey, I have learned not to judge someone based on their life choices, or based on their faith or lack of faith, or the color of their skin. I only view someone from my specific lense based on how they treat me. I think it is acceptable behavior to hold open a door for a man or woman, ananomously buy someone’s lunch. Perhaps I’m being selfish, but I cannot express how happy I feel after I do something kind, without making it about me. I highly recommend giving it a try, I think you’ll get hooked.

Maybe it’s the power I feel standing on that sacred dry land near the memorial with the knowledge it was the location for sensless violence, the violence broadcast live on television. Maybe it’s because I cannot wrap my small brain around the ‘why’. In truth, I don’t know why I write, I don’t know why I felt compelled to write about this book. I pre-ordered it. I know that will make the author smile. I know from hard experience, it’s really hard to get published, it’s even harder to sell books.

But I have learned never to question that gentle whisper I hear from time to time, I think it’s called, instinct. My duty is to simply listen. I think that’s how God speaks to each of us, not from a thunderous shout, but a calm resplendent nudge.

The one sensation I do feel, the one thought I have, was on that terrible day many flowers bloomed unseen, but their sweetness was not wasted in the dry September air.

The next time I take the PATH over to lower Manhattan, I’ll walk across West Street, and I’ll go find Welles Crowther, and I’ll whisper his name.

NS

How Do I say, “Thank you”, Deli Selects?

It is not lost on me every, single, time, I walk near my wife’s office inside a tall Jersey City building at the banks of the brown Hudson River that I don’t marvel at 3 things. Her, she’s always number 1, and 2 & 3, the fact I can look out the building’s rectangular smoked glass windows and see to my left the gleaming, brand new, after more than 15 years, World Trade Center with this sort of white-ribbed, maybe better, white-winged thing, and to my right, the statuesque, Lady Liberty.

Occasionally, I’ll take the PATH (Port Authority Trans-Hudson) under the Hudson River, which is hard for me because I get claustrophobic and I’m a control freak, and now, I bravely emerge inside the new white marbled, squeaky clean train facility that houses fancy shops, and not yet opened, exspensive shops that none of the construction crew will ever shop at.

I’ll walk across the busy, multi-laned West Street with groups of distracted by their mobile phones tourists, because I know New Yorker’s do not obey the traffic lights, nor wait for the crosswalk sign, or for that fact, a policeman to tell them to walk, because they don’t wait for anything, nor anyone.

I think true New Yorkers have a sort of Shawshank vibe about them that equates to the films motto, “get busy livin’, or get busy dyin’.” The neon lit streets near Time Square might smell like a ménage of exhaust, grime and wanderlust, but as Robert Duval might appreciate, it smells like victory to me.

As I pass by the 9/11 memorial, I look at the names that have been chiseled into the large black marble rim that creates two massive squares, and within each square are waterfall fountains from where the twin towers footprints once stood. I think those waters are really memory tears.

I try to read new names each time I pass-by, and I’ll alter my course to take a different approach out of respect for each singular name. I wonder about each name, what was it like for them to have been there that day. As Billy Graham said at the national ecumenical prayer service, “they had no idea this would be their last… .” And I wonder about the younger tourists, do they realize they are walking atop sacred dry land.

I was lucky on September 11, 2001, I was watching those names fight terrorists from the relative comfort of my living room near downtown Orlando, Florida, as a disheveled plumber was fixing our dishwasher. I got a call from my wife, who at the time worked for a defense contractor. They had gone into total facility lock-down. She told me to immediately turn on the television, she told me she loved me, and she quickly hung-up, and then me and the one-eyed plumber with his senior citizen, Sancho Panza sized assistant, watched in horror as United Airlines flight 175 flew into the South Tower.

To be clear, I did not write, ‘watching those names fight terrorists’ by mistake, or as a passing flick of my writer wrists. Because as the towers burned, we silently watched live on CNN, human beings dangle at the window ledges high in the concrete jungle sky. And then we watched them decide to  leap to their deaths as the camera followed them all the way down. I cannot think of any act more defiant to the terrorists than being fully aware you decided to defy them, and leap to your death. To me, they fought back  with the only choice they had left.

I don’t know if I would have had their courage. But I do know I can stop, and read their names as I travel to whatever important destination I have on the island.

However, I do know two people who do have the courage, the integrity, and have actually been fighting back against  terrorists. And defending my freedom to write what ever I want.

One of them was on an officer aboard a Naval ship that cruised into New York Harbor as the towers smoldered gray and black smoke into the blue sky, the other was an Air Force officer and he ended up in a place called, Fallujah.

And now, I am proud that each has been ‘selected’. One selected to be a rear admiral, and the other selected to be a colonel. In truth, they earned their selection.

Back in the day, we gave our colonel friend a hard-time telling him, he was ‘deli-select’, per the cold cut commercial, when he was selected to be a captain. He likes the term these days, he told us he had been ‘deli-selected’. In truth, back then, we didn’t really know what to say. I’m not a military man, I’ve been a businessman, and I write for the pure pleasure to express my thoughts.

All I know to write now is, thank you.

Thank you for having our collective backs as we stare down at our mobile phones as we walk across the busy street, as we text gossip to our friends unaware of the oncoming heavy city traffic, and as we thoughtlessly take selfies in front of a sacred memorial.

Thank you as I freely walk down crowded 5th Avenue with a kaleidoscope of humanity and pay an immigrant 3 dollars for a rancid hotdog smothered in yellow mustard.

Thank you as I take the aged trains like burrowed tunnels within an ant hill toward here and there, as my wife reminds me to give up my seat to the tired old Asian lady supporting her tiny body against a metal pole.

Thank you as I get on a packed plane to safely travel across the country.

Thank you for protecting my right to waste away my life watching stupid reality television shows.

Thank you for allowing me to endure my daily hardships to safely earn a living.

And thank you for protecting me, to allow me to freely practice whatever faith I choose, or not to practice anything at all.

Thank you for letting me live out my life within this protective cocoon we call the United States of America.

As I stood watching Lady Liberty from my wife’s office, it occurred to me she silently continues to watch time pass lower Manhattan with her right arm defiantly thrust into the sky grasping a golden torch.

At night, that torch lights the dark night, to provide, in some way, a bright beacon for safe passage to those that approach freedom. And I guess in my own way, to my two ‘deli-select’ friends, thank you for supporting her arm and keeping the flame lit.

NS