Showing posts with label Indiana. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Indiana. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Pink Mist

The fact of the matter is children and Planets are not owned. We just become voluntary care takers for each other and those that have been placed in our sphere of influence. Often I found myself woefully lacking. But push on all parties did to try to keep open lines of communications. But storms in Indiana often bring down power and communication lines. Bring them down it did. Slowly at first. One could say the Planet's and my infrastructure would be deemed structurally deficient.

Unfortunately at this time no such inspection had taken place.

But it would.

Then there was the SS line and it’s daily reminder.There was a palpable quiver up my spine upon my first of many daily arrivals from Hoosiervillie. What I saw on the first commute on the first morning of what would become a sixteen year ordeal should have been warning enough. The manifestation in the world of the harbinger of bad things from a dream ten years previous should have been heeded.

I dreamt in October of nineteen eighty, before the world had been subjected to Ronny and the Rayguns that I was boarding a train. The platform was high up on a huge wood framed trestle. Up and up I climbed until I boarded the train. It took off like a roller coaster giving all aboard the ride of their lives. On an on it went tossing us like clothes in a dryer. Then it stopped in a huge high grass prairie. The train to return home was on the other side of this grassland. As I walked towards my train home my feet got heavier and heavier. Then my legs felt like they were in cement. I could no longer pull my legs through the high grass. I was stuck and would never get my train home. There is no going home.

So on this first morning of the first commute when I pulled in to the station I saw where that dream train ride had begun. I felt I was in another world. How true it was . It was the Planets world now. I had changed many things already. There was much more to come.

But on this morning as my train arrived in Chicago and I came face to memory with the scene of that ten year old October dream which became my October nightmare all rolled into October 17, nineteen hundred and eighty. The day of the pink mist.

As I worked through another day of pain I counted all the good things that had happened to me in the decade since. Although there stood a reminder of a prescient dream, I counted my blessings on that December nineteen hundred and ninety morning. Things in my world couldn't have turned out better.

  Or so I thought

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Owners Manual

I would have to say that like any story there are usually at least three versions.  That's because in any relationship  each person is having a minimum of three within that commerce. First there is how one projects themselves to you. second there is how you perceive that projection. Third is who that person really is, which that person might only be marginally aware of. With the sudden rush of life changes that happened in a short span, perhaps neither I nor the Planet had a clue who or where we were.

It was certainly a huge change for the Planet. One might say it had global implications. The ravages of child birth on a body are something that a male cannot, never will, and has no reason to want to imagine. Empathy has it's limits. Perhaps I was even less empathetic than some. After all I wasn't consulted on the commencement of the parenting. Girl friend soon to be wife stops taking pills without warning is a guaranteed pregnant Planet. Although I never brought it up and rarely thought about it, perhaps that was the first of the constantly multiplying three hundred pound gorillas that inhabited mine and the Planets universe.

I certainly love those little sputnik's.

So within two years my reality had altered. The inventory of  my life's concerns multiplied, I might add, in many wonderful ways. To have two healthy sons, a new home to live in, a dog (hound from hell though she may have been), and a spouse who would always reply “I love you too”, I figured I had achieved the American dream. Of course the implications of always hearing “I love you too” were lost on me at the time.

Daily travel from the heart of Indiana was a minimum of one hour each way, and that only after the Planet had gotten her brand new leased Jeep Cherokee. Because to travel the wild and woolly SS line usually made commute door to door a minimum of two hours each way. Driving not only cut that time to half but it also freed me from the mercy of the SS schedule, which gets sparser and sparser as the evening wears on. Miss a train and you now add an additional hour or two of away time at the best of times.

The separation by time and geography may not seem like much, and there are many that make the same a part of their business day. We all have to get to where the most advantageous commerce can be transacted. That's why we are able to outsource so many of our jobs. The lure of cheap labor has always been the motivation for expansion and colonization. Thus Indiana was always a perfect source for the Chicago area. Since most industry jobs are gone from Indiana, over the years I saw the numbers of people boarding that last inter-city electric rail line increase ten fold from what it had been at the outset.

Perhaps they were drawn out there to the Planet. Gravitational forces still have a many mysteries for us all.

Funny how easy it is to fool yourself into believing that everything is all right. Sometimes when you have the least amount of time and are the busiest, there is absolutely no chance to mull over whether you are happy or not. As crazy as those years were, I know now as I knew then that they were happy years. I can only speak for myself, because I now know that I can only be sure of, and responsible for my own happiness. Enjoy the journey because if enjoyment is contingent on an outcome, joy becomes a rare commodity.

Journeys there were many. Every day was a journey and as it becomes routine the weeks make you weary and months make more mundane occurrences a blur. Being one of the landed gentry in Hoosierville, yet spending most of my waking hours in the cement canyons of a major rust belt city often made me feel a bit disjointed. Having grown up being able to walk to the corner store , corner restaurant, corner bar, corner of the universe made me even more sensitive to the vacuum of the Indiana population density. But what population is there feels much the same about Chicago people as Chicago people feel about them. Us against them proliferates on the planet, whether you bring your own Planet or not.

For a city boy surrounded by the contrasts of the natural beauty and industrial scars of northwest Indiana, with it's lack of urban diversions, cultural diversity, as well as it's just plain sub suburban environment left me at a loss for diversions. Maintaining a household with expansive yard and home repairs kept me occupied over the weekends when the call of commerce didn't take me away. The constant demands and search for a balance between family and career eluded me mercilessly.

To make matters worse , as any new parent will tell you , children do not come with an owners manual.

Neither did the Planet.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Formula for a Family

Formula for a family:

Talk about living together.

Significant other does not buy pills. Claims it was because she didn't have the money. Red flags should have started waving before my eye's. But they didn't so....

Have one hell of a wedding and honeymoon.

Learn to breathe.

Baby numero uno.

Honeymoon ends.

Enter the orbital adjustments of being a stay at home mom and no longer having a career. The spin of the Planet’s general disdain, that many career women have for stay at home moms, which though not immediatly apparent, was ever seething beneath the Planet’s crust.

The Planet latter claimed on our first visit to a therapist that she tried very hard at being domestic those early months, but just could not stomach it. If she was being domestic I did not notice. Perhaps another instance of my insensitivity.  But then it is very hard to tell with the bedlam brought about by a new newborn in the home. Only time I had to think was when I was at work, so I can only imagine what it was like having bee's live in her head those first couple of months.

It soon became clear that downtown is no place to raise a baby. Of course I may not have noticed, I was busy working while knowing that I was now the sole provider for three. Many would have found it comfortable to live on what I provided. But the Planet was not many. It was clearly time to find the picket fenced home sweet home for our family and I was fortunate enough to not have to drive us deeply into debt to accomplish this. Just what I considered a manageable mortgage on a home. I did so want to keep the Planet happy.

The Planets remedy.

Buy house move to another state.

Quote the Planet, 'I did not know what I was going to do, but I couldn't go on like this".
Was this first clue of postpartum depression or of plan to divorce when cash flow was adequate.
But first other global changes needed to be made. The Planet lived for change.
Change the company I had worked for for eleven years and work for the company the Planet used to work for. Fewer friends for me and even fewer old female consorts I suppose.

 Four months later: Supprise! Stop taking pills=baby number duo. The Planet had decided to get this birthing and fetching up business out of the way in one fell swoop.

Viola-family.

These are the surprises I was learning to live with within the Planet’s realm.

So much in life can be looked back on with the epitaph of it seemed like a good  idea at the time. Motives for all parties are often muddled between what is said to be wanted, what others think is wanted, and what is really wanted. Often the latter is as hidden from yourself as much as it is concealed from others. Clarity is a hard commodity to purchase for the currency itself is often a mystery.

Within months there were ripples of dissatisfaction for all concerned. However with communication between myself and the Planet not being what it was either perceived to be or certainly what it should have or could have been, we were indeed traveling in a void. It is the things we try to fill that void with that in the long run become truly problematic.

The few months spent living in the downtown hi-rise were indeed a blur. By living so close to work the temptation was always there to stay a little later than necessary and still get home at a decent hour. Of course the job still had it's peculiar hours and work schedule and I was rather busy with the transaction of commerce. It was also possible to pop home if there was something that needed my attention. However I do not recall  many occasions where the Planet called. The Planet stands alone and it is up to you to know the call is there. I know that now. In reality it was only three months with young Clark that went by in downtown land, but from some reason it seemed much longer. Much longer for the Planet as became apparent. I had apparently made all the mistakes that really counted by then. The next thirteen and a half years were merely a relationship in it's death throes. Nothing passes quickly with the Planet. Geological time is marked differently than our perception of time.

So what were the reasons we moved to that distant and dark land of the Indians. First of the Planet wanted to be close to her family. She wanted the help with our first son Clark. Even though it would mean an almost four hour journey on a daily basis to my enterprise. This from my accustomed less than half hour daily jaunt. Could this have been in the Planet’s design as well?

But I wanted the Planet to be happy.

We also got a great deal on a house on the big lake.Home life was like living in a vacation home. At least it was for me.

Originally the plan was for the Planet to pick up her career after Clark  got a couple years under his belt. With the arrival of Addison that seemed to be on hold but I was under the illusion that the basic plan would be maintained. But the Planets appetite for consumption was only just beginning. The Planet had cast off two satellites within eighteen months of each other. A prodigious feat of creation. The little asteroids where perfect as asteroids can be.

What more could one ever expect from Judith Janet Planet. Much more was indeed in the offing.

The Planet would make good on that assumption in spades.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Looming Indiana

      
        So what to do when you’re a thirty three year old professional who has a knocked up girlfriend. We had discussed living together. I was having the growing fear of being a 50 year old cripple, no family, no kids. Still living alone. I had always had a problem with commitment. Hell I had an eleven year emotional cul-de-sac with Rene. Sure we were young. Sure our careers took us in separate directions. Sure I was maimed in a car accident while we were together. But she stuck with me through the tough times. But I never asked Rene to marry me. Don't even know if she would have. When we took up together in our teens she didn't bargain on an a mono-ped, footless and fancy free, twenty year old husband with who knows what complications to follow.

But now there was going to be a child. My child. Our child. The Planet was to create a little moon out of our combined genetic material. Just what those little strands of DNA contained was as much a mystery then as was the South Shore line and Indiana to me at the time. But all such thing do reveal themselves in due time.

Up until this moment I had always tried to save and conserve resources. To be honest I never had had many resources to save. I had lived sparingly with my assets. Now I was becoming extravagant, or so I thought at the time. My extravagances at this point were nothing compared to the debacle to come once I followed the Planet down the South Shore snake that lead to the wilds of Indiana. Soon I would learn that the Planet could squander earthly resources on a scale that I could not even imagine.

The Planet laughed like the choked back yelp Rene made the first time I entered her virginal young blond fringed body in the sweaty attic that was my teenage room.

Now to say that it was some of the happiest and busiest and heady time in my life would be an understatement. It seems like I had it all. To me I couldn't have asked for a better or more wonderful wedding. The planet was born to organize  festivities and she blossomed in the role. The organizational and taste with which it was all executed was phenomenal. I knew the planet was indeed the right choice. Had I finally done something right. Had I finally made the right turn down my life's path. Had I finally chosen the right partner for the rest of life's journey. I truly believed I had.

Where it all would lead was anyones guess. It was just important that the planet and I were together. But lead to Indiana . That was a prospect I had never even contemplated.

But that was all to end . And it did. The minute it was clear the Planet was to release a satellite. Planet must be cared for.

Caring for the Planet

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Prelude


It was  Friday afternoon and I had a great sense of relief. I saw them all walking to the South Shore station and I knew what lay ahead of them. Herds of them filing into the underground . Lines and lines of them, heading out of their weekly veneer of civilization. Running away from the concrete, fine restaurants, theater, opera. All the finer things in life. Weekends they throw off these trappings and strip down to their basic, primordial selves. Oh how I shudder when I think of what goes on out there at any given moment. Why did I take that journey. What primitive and vile urge brought me to the very edge of my humanity. One thing I know. In Indiana...No one can hear you scream


I am a wiser man and have used as well as been used now. It is unfortunate that often it is unrealized at the time by all parties. But upon reflection ,after having pulled myself out of the wilderness, and looking back on the events there is no longer a need for forgiveness. What was done was done . Whether out of necessity of survival, or just basic animal instinct. Perhaps both the same. Is it the actions or the motivations that really matter? Or is it in fact only the results that count. Perhaps that is the true measure of my journey into Indiana.


What was it that brought people down that South Shore line, many on a daily basis. Others beginning on a day to day trek ,only to eventually be swallowed up, churned inside the guts of mills, industry, and eventually corn. None but the brave or foolish returned there to toil. The lure of cheap cigarettes, cheap property, low gas prices would seem to be the immediate and easy answer. There where also whispers of white trash trailer park women who could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch, but most thought that was just rumor to draw the young males back to the corn fields. Whatever the draw, the land was ripe to be plundered as a century before the robber barons located their mills. They sang there song of the south drawing hundreds of thousands from Kentucky and Tennessee to labor in the newly industrialized lake front. In many ways the new migration out of the big city was much more insidious. To the point: what was it that drew me. But I have yet to mention


The Planet

About Me

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Purveyor of paralogical compliance to verbally mediated reality, artisanal smut, with a pinch of full time flâneur tossed in to taste.