“This is just to say..” (to steal an opening line from William Carlos Williams) since some readers have expressed concern the past two weeks (”Where are you?”)…I’ve been away. Grandfathering, in Pennsylvania, among other things.

This is one of those pieces which could easily take off in a hundred different directions (note, title), any one of which might result in at least a 5000-word essay. And I don’t have time for that—today. So let’s call this just another work-in-progress. (Aren’t they all?)

Yes.

The worst thing about travel is coming back.
No, the worst is leaving.

Frequently, I enjoy traveling with my best friend, in fact, relish traveling with the good woman. But as she, and most of my friends and family know, I prefer going it alone.

I am not always good company in transit. I discovered that many years ago, when it became clear that the traveler in me is the writer in me. Who is always on a journey somewhere--24 hrs a day. And that part of me (forever on conflict with Real Time/Real World) does not wish to be disturbed.

Quiet: Writer at Work—sitting In airports, looking out train windows, staring over deck railings, driving the roads in the dark.

Obviously, this does not bode well for relationships, especially marriages. Unless the other is similarly engaged in inner trajectories. And even then… artists do not paint in a roomful of visitors, friends, lovers. Nor do musicians compose under such circumstances. Or sculptors sculpt, photographers photograph, actors dramatize, architects design, potters pot, dancers turn.

I always take plenty of books and writing materials when I travel.
But rarely accomplish all that I set out to do. Nevertheless, words are a comfort. And I am at work in my head even when my hands appear to be still.

The best part of travel planning is imagining all I will read, all I will write and packing my carry-on suitcase/office with notebooks, notepads, (occasionally a laptop) pens, pencils, address books, newspapers, magazines, a manila file folder (legal size) filled with clippings saved to read for just such occasions…and books. Books, books, books till my carry-on bag is so damn heavy I must keep switching in from right hand to left hand to shoulder and back again as I meander through airports (shoulder and arms numb), my carry-on so damn thick it will not fit “under the seat in front of me” on the plane without a solid kick--while the flight attendant attends, austerely looks on, prepared to direct my travails, my possible infraction of flight safety rules to the “overhead compartment above”—precisely where I DO NOT wish to confine the contents of my precious baggage, needing everything immediately within hand’s reach. (That’s my whole life in there, lady! Dare not deny me instant access to everything that matters most to me at any moment!)

Did I mention I have come to hate flying ever since…(fill in the date.) Dread it.

Still I love airports. Seaports, train terminals, bus stations… The remembered romance of train depots--Paris, London, Copenhagen, Rome, Berlin, Belgrade, Athens, Warsaw, Krakow, Budapest, Prague--not to mention Chicago, New York and the deserted railway stations all across rural Midwest Americana. Ah, Chicago (overnight) to Lamy, New Mexico…clickity-clack…and from there, via a friend’s pickup, just a few miles to Santa Fe.)

I used to hang around train stations and airports just for the hell of it in Chicago, in my younger days. (Who can forget the sound of old steam engines? The ‘all aboard’ calls?) I wanted to be heading elsewhere too. Just the adventure of departure and arrival, though departure was always more exciting. The unknown as opposed to the known.

There is still some of that in me, though it’s been buried in current air travel travesties of photo identity, body identity, baggage inspection, shoe inspection, inspection inspection, security-osis—the decline of service, the din/dinginess of airports, the expensive (tasteless) food, the impromptu scheduling, the stuffed seating in toy seats on toy planes, the absence of humanity…all leaving me longing for home. Content in place. Walking the woods. Driving the back roads.

(What happened to Shel Silverstein?)
(I’ll get to him, I’ll get to him.)

What did I bring along to read on the plane, at my daughter’s house in Pennsylvania? THE WISDOM OF NO ESCAPE by Pema Chodron (My Buddhist/Zen mind-snack food…which I always find a traveler’s need of, to soothe the savage no-mindedness within). THE FIDDLE ROSE (Poems 1970-1972) by Abraham Sutzkever; WINESBURG OHIO by Sherwood Anderson; THE BUSINESS OF MEMORY, edited by Charles Baxter; THE WRITING LIFE by Annie Dillard; THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING by Joan Dideon: INVENTING THE TRUTH, edited by William Zinsser; FRAGMENTS OF A JOURNAL by Eugene Ionesco; SOMETHING I’VE BEEN MEANING TO TELL YOU, Thirteen Stories by Alice Munro

What did I buy at a favorite used bookstore in Stroudsburg, PA? IN THE NEXT GALAXY (poetry) by Ruth Stone; WAITING IN THE DARK, WAITING IN THE LIGHT (a novel) by Ivan Klima; AGE (a novel) by Hortense Calisher; HUMOROUS STORIES and SKETCHES by Mark Twain; OUTSIDE (Selected Writings) by Marguerite Duras; GERTRUDE STEIN: A COMPOSITE PORTRAIT edited by Linda Simon; INDEPENDENT PEOPLE (a novel) by Halldor Laxness;
and another copy of A SMALL PLACE by Jamaica Kincaid, this one to give to my daughter and son-in-law to read while vacationing in St. Martin’s, to remind them there is always another side to every paradise---and to be sure to tell my grandkids some day that behind every sandy beach is a world of native exploitation.

(Can we get to Shel Silverstein already?)
(Not yet.)

My grandkids. There are three. Ages: 4, 7, and 9. Bright, beautiful, thoughtful, funny, loving, well-behaved, curious, exasperating, rejuvenating—just like yours.

Did I manage to hold down the fort in the absence of their two good and loving parents? Yes, after I got their daily routine down pat. The schoolbus schedule. The route to pre-school, to dance school, to practice… Did I survive alone? Yes. And no, not quite…I was rescued by the good woman who flew in a few days later to assist. (Our ‘spring break’).

Did I get any writing done, after hours, as I had planned, after lugging my whole life with me in my carry-on? Very little. (Except in my head.) Any reading? Some…but not nearly enough. (Exhaustion sets in early with three kids ‘to mind’, as they used to say. And how interesting and revealing is that old expression? )

Speaking of ‘mind’ I am reminded…This is what I miss most of all, arriving at a destination, being elsewhere in such lively company, under such understandable circumstances: the life of the mind. The solitariness of that journey inside I spoke of before. The feast of thought, speculation, imagination—uninterrupted. That inner excitement of the mind crackling with ideas, things to write, read, do. THE ONLY LIFE, perhaps only another writer can comprehend.

Just to sneak one passage, mid-day, from a book purchased at that local used bookstore: “Women get their past earlier than we [men] do. And keep it longer. In spite of which they answer the world more from the flesh than we do. And are always answering themselves there” (Age, Hortense Calisher) brings me back immediately to that sweet mindscape of thought, the written word, and what else I want to be, should be doing, as Grandfatherly time ticks away. Or:

”The condominium style of building, ugly in any climate, is especially ugly in a small, hot place. Imagine these concrete, box-like structures, stacked against each other as if they were tinned goods in a store with not enough shelf-space, overlooking an expanse of three different shades of blue seawater. It’s true—condominiums degrade everything around them.” (A SMALL PLACE, Jamaica Kincaid) And I back home in Door County again, confronting the invasive species: creeping condominiumism.

There is more to say, especially about grandfathering…but Shel Silverstein is waiting to be heard

What better gift for grandparent to pass down to grandchildren than the gift of words—books of stories and poems?

Perhaps, a grandparent’s greatest role. Certainly mine, as I have bussed them with books since birth, as I did my own kids in their time.

So I am more than ready to answer the call “Grandpa read me…” or “Grandpa, I read…”—either way a supreme delight. Including, and especially, the four-year-old who insists upon ‘reading’ to me over and over and over again (a text she’s memorized) ONE FISH TWO FISH REDFISH BLUE FISH by the immortal Dr. Seuss. (Seuss, youse is a meuss)

Time for a bedtime story? Okay. How about I end it all with this to muse on…

Later in the week, under a pile of books on the coffee table, the black and white cover drawing of an old book, an old friend, catches my eye and I pull it from the bottom of the stack in one clean swipe. My god, how long has it been? (I can feel myself smile.) How many years since I read, heard the words of you, you ole Shel Silverstein? What a find!

Born in Chicagoan (l932), died in Key West (l999). A cartoonist and writer and storyteller and…Mr. Versatile, himself. The guy who wrote the song that Johnny Cash made famous, “A Boy Named Sue.” An immensely successful children’s book author who had no intention or desire to ever write for kids and had to be damn near dragged kicking and screaming into an editor’s office and ‘forced’ to commit his zany thoughts and poems and perfect drawings upon the page---for the likes of all of us!

So this is where this piece, the journey, begins and ends with me…with him, with his first book of poems and drawings, l974: WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS. This is where ‘the life of the mind” returned to me, in transit, during my time away from my usual habitat. Opening the book to the poem “Invitation,” immediately caught up in the genius of Shel Silverstein again, addressing not only the world of the child, but mine as well, any writer’s in fact and fancy:

INVITATION

If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hoper-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer…
If you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin,
Come in!
Come in!

What writer would not wish the same invitation upon his reader?

(How often in a day does a writer say: to hell with the world?)

I WON’T HATCH

Oh I am a chickie who lives in an egg,
But I will not hatch, I will not hatch.
The hens they all cackle, the roosters all beg,
But I will not hatch, I will not hatch.
For I hear all the talk of pollution and war
As the people all shout and the airplanes roar,
So I’m staying in here where it’s safe and warm,
And I WILL NOT HATCH!

At some point in reading ole Shel, you think: Why waste his words on the very young? Get him into high school English classes, college…writing workshops. You want to talk language? Interpret the meaning of these words:

FORGOTTEN LANGUAGE

Once I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,
Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared the conversation with the housefly in my bed.
Once I heard and answered all the questions of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers…
How did it go?
How did it go?

“Grandpa…one more… And leave the light on.”

Ah, the old bogeyman, alive and well. As well he should be…now and in the hour of…(Remember Old Hem, in his old age, who still slept with a light on. )

AFRAID OF THE DARK

I’m Reginald Clark, I’m afraid of the dark
So I always insist on the light on,
And my teddy bear to hug,
And my blanket to rub,
And my thumby to suck or to bite on.
And three bedtime stories,
Two trips to the toilet,
Two prayers, and five hugs from my mommy.
I’m Reginald Clark, I’m afraid of the dark
So please do not close this book on me.

Grandpa reads it again, smiles, passing it all on to the next generation,
leaving an open book at bedside, and a little light in the dark.