EPIC RANDOM RESOLUTION

Brett Beighley and Bunker, photographed while hiking the Mineral Springs Loop in 

Raccoon Creek State Park, PA. - photo by Marci Beighley, April 12th, 2015

12.10.18

   I was thin, I was healthier, and my dog was still my dog. 

   Honestly, I just fucking looked better all around. 

   I need to want to really be this person again. Somehow, I have to pull from within my sedentary self the necessity of being him. Again, with self honesty being a dull penetrating blade here, I’m not all that great at committing to activity. I would be rubbish at starting any revolution. This portrait of me though, which Marci took while we were on a hike, is like a photograph of a long dead friend. This photo, which in its own right is a fantastic and well made image, is a goddamn memorial to someone else who I have the potential but not the dedication to be. Where do I find the need? How can I force the adherence to repetitive motions? Am I stupidly doomed to wait for a full blown cardiac moment? Must I wind up in a hospital recovery room with my loved ones standing over my scarred chest and looking at me with the pity and knowledge that I came so very close to complete nonexistence? Or, and this is the monster that haunts my closet, is there some recessed part of my consciousness that wants the drama of a proper crescendo? If I’m dead and gone, imagine the weight such a loss would give to my works. Universes of intent and meaning would immediately and irresistibly  be passed on to my survivors. These dark thought drifts through my recognitions and I worry that they might be truths. 

   I miss my dog. I miss being that thin. I’m over forty and miss being younger. So much longing and nostalgia which I cannot, for some damned reason, turn into fuel to burn forward into a future long and meaningful. I’m not asking for help. I would somehow resent the sympathy and so please accept my apologies. Here amidst these few lines I have tried to vent a piece of anxiety out of myself and I’ve made note of at least a small desire to be better than I am at this moment. So, as this year and its twelve ridiculously short months wind down to an end which is as inevitable as mine, let me try yet once again to resolve to certain commitments. Shall I put first, for once and forever more, the needs of those who love me? No, absolutely not. I feel its need. Its ultimatum. There needs to exist some selfishness. I must develop some small amount of outward narcissism. 

   Ugh… even as I contemplate it I become exhausted and want to quit. 

Tis the Season

Marci decorates the tree in our Wexford, PA. apartment while Elfie keeps an eye on the festivities.

12.04.18

   The girls are working on putting up the Christmas tree tonight. It is not a real tree. It’s a fake and, because I have a horrible memory, I can’t remember when Marci and I got it. She may have even picked it up without me. It’s the second Christmas tree that Marci and I have had since we’ve been married. Two fake trees in thirteen years. That’s not too bad, right? It’s a nice fake tree as far as fake trees go. It’s thin so as to fit into our apartment. It tucks nicely into the corner. At first, I thought that it looked as if the branches were frosted (well, fake frosted) but Marci pointed out that it wasn’t at all frosted. It was just short of frayed out to look more like a naturally soft evergreen. A thin, soft, pre-lit and easily assembled fake Christmas tree which is almost too small to hold all of our ridiculously sentimental ornaments. We have too many decorations! We have ones from our first Christmas together, one for each girl when they were born, one for each vacation and ones that were homemade by each of us. There are bulbs and garland that Marci and I bought forever ago and some “retro” baubles that bring back memories of when I was a kiddo. There is simply not enough room to put all the decorations that we have onto our second fake tree, and we could never possibly thin out our collection. Too many moments and memories are attached to each precious bulb or figurine. So… put them all on!

A close up look at some of our tree's ornaments.

   I can remember the tree from my youth. It was always the same one. My dad would bring it up from the basement in its raggedy box. The thing was already ancient by the time that I was old enough to remember it. There were these two bare green-painted poles that pinned together and then bolted into a metal stand. All along the poles were these drilled out holes. In each hole you could almost make out the last fragment of colored paint that corollated to the viciously sharp metal end of the branches. I think the red colored branch tips were the biggest bottom ones and the white tipped ends went into the highest parts of the pole. I remember a faded yellow that got confused with the white and there were the impossible to see blue ones to match up. My dad would curse and swear at all the pieces. He would growl and grunt and sweat as he violently forced all the parts together into the familiar form of our family Christmas tree. Because I was the youngest and had the smallest hands, it was my job to reach in among the bristled branches and plug together the green colored extension cord that ran up to the top of the tree where the star sat. My father, frustrated and exhausted, would plop down on the couch and watch as the rest of us applied all of our treasured ornaments and the strands of wildly colored lights. By the time we had finished, his mood had come back around to one of holiday merriment and the whole family would bask in the warm happy glow of our decorated tree. 

Ruby Lynn hangs some decorations. On the front of the tree in this view (bottom right) is a handmade ornament that Lucy made when she was only six years old.

   Like most people and like most memories, neither is perfect. The memories I have of Christmases long, long ago are a combination of both warmth and fury. It all seemed like so much trouble but in the end everyone seemed willing to sacrifice for the event. It’s all completely normal, I guess. Neither unique to myself or an era, the memories I have perhaps seem similar to most. I hope that my girls can grow up to have warm memories of their early holidays. Maybe theirs can be filled with a touch less swearing and cursing if I try hard enough to be as unlike my father as all boys wish they were. 

   Merry Christmas to my beautiful little family, you girls are the very best gift anyone could have ever hoped for. 

Lucy Marie takes her turn hanging some decorations on the tree.

Metle Detector

Writer, artist, painter, sculptor, poet, seamstress... constant creator. All in one morning. Thankful for snow days because as Lucy says, "School just takes up too much of my creative time." [ M ]

As soon as she wakes up she will go straight to her little area in our apartment and start making something new or finish a project that didn't get done the night before. It's amazing to see her drive. It's inspiring and sometimes a little overwhelming. Lucy's creative needs are like an empty pit that we are perpetually trying to fill. She is so obviously talented that Marci and I are desperate to keep her interested in making stuff. In a way, both Marci and I are trying to give Lucy all the space and material that we wish we might've had at her age.

Marci captured this photo of Lucy in her natural habitat perched on top of a little table surrounded by crayons, markers, pens and endless amounts of paper. Our apartment in Wexford is small but Marci is exceptionally gifted at space management and has set aside this dedicated creative area which Lucy lovingly refers to as her "art space." On this particular January day it was only 8° outside and the girls' school had been cancelled. Lucy is once again busy in her space making another drawing about her latest obsession; Robots. 

Lucy's drawing of a robot she named "Metle Detector." January 6, 2018

Marci and I cannot figure out where or why Lucy became interested in them but lately she has taken to drawing sketches of different robots and machines. She seems particularly interested in the mechanics of them and how they might be built to perform different tasks. She has been asking for building materials so she can construct the robots from her drawings. 

Today she made Metle Detector and when I asked her about her newest robot she gave me the following instructions. 

“First, twist the little knob there.” she said and pointed to the first rounded lever of her robot. "Then, you go to this cog and it will go to, like, that spinny-thing that's full of yarn." Lucy excitedly pointed to other various details in her schematic and continued the explanation. "Then, if you hit the other cog, it will hit the bell. The bell will make a fun noise. If you spin the spinny-thing full of yarn it will go up to a hook and hold onto a magnet that will find all the metal.”

Lucy has made dozens of these drawings already. There is a whole armada of Lucy made robots ready to spin and whirl and buzz and make fun noises. I can't wait to see what she makes tomorrow!