The Narrative Image

My dad died a long time ago when I was away at college. Ever since, Father’s Day hasn’t been one of the more outstanding celebratory days. It isn’t because I can’t remember a lot of positive things about my dad, it’s more about a hole that I can’t seem to measure and which never really fills up. Cancer introduced itself to my dad back in the mid sixties and then proceeded to stalk him for almost two decades before cutting him down at the age of 48. So anyway, being in a melancholy mood, I thought I’d take a stab at writing a piece that might fit into the inspirational genre. Knuckle-prints in the Sand One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with Monkey-Cam. Many scenes from our hiking adventures flashed across my memory. In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were two sets of footprints, other times there was only one. This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life, when I really could have used a friend, I could see on...

This handprint appears above a depiction of a spotted pony that was painted in a gallery of a cave at the end of the last ice age some fifteen thousand years ago. Scholars point out that the gallery was far away from any living quarters and difficult to get to and therefore posit some religious – perhaps magical – significance to the artwork. It is one of the first recorded instances of a hominid making a characteristic gesture across time – a message that cries, “I was here. Remember me.” Later, in one of the first super civilizations, the Egyptians went to great lengths to have their respective deity remember them each as specific individuals. Of course, the more resources one had, the greater the lengths attained… Who will remember me? When you face that question, it becomes easy to see the selling points for religion as it exists today. What peasant, toiling in the mud of the fields during a short brutish life wouldn’t want to be re-united with God and fam...

Time worn stairs to an amusement park ride at Oaks Park. Winter, 2003 There is an old black and white photograph I keep that shows me and my brother, six and five years old respectively, wrestling with my father on the kitchen floor. My father smiles up at the camera (and undoubtedly his wife), and he looks happy. My brother and I are also smiling. Though Dad has twisted us into pretzel shapes, he simultaneously cradles us protectively in his powerful arms (a stealth hug). Some twelve years later, I wrestle Dad again. Somewhere over the years, it has become a contest. Time after time I try my puny muscles against his, and learn new ways to be beaten. But this time, I have spent a season wrestling for the high school team. I have worked long sweaty hours in the weight room. On the mats, I have practiced a small set of wrestling moves until they are habits. This time, I catch my Dad in a head-and-arm and miraculously – inexorably – I slowly inch him onto his back and pin him. He struggl...

If one reads enough science magazines, one absorbs the idea that a key evolutionary survival characteristic is the ability for animals to recognize patterns. The hominid process of elaboration on this particular ability has resulted in things like superstition, the ability to recognize patterns where they don’t really exist. Spring at Smith and Bybee Lakes isn’t a clear cut process. Trees rooted at the edge of an uncertain lake can’t decide if they’re waking from winter slumber or drowning. Yet life displays its exuberance to propagate in forms besides budding tree branches, like this head-start patch of Irises schooled in vowel forms. In one of those annoying coincidences that are used by people to prove there aren't any coincidences, I had been told about Zen masters who spend inordinate amounts of time, painting and repainting Zen circles just days before venturing out to the lakes. Like most things about Zen, the importance of painting simple looking circles over and over l...