xaviertrevino

This morning as I was making my coffee I was surprised to feel a rumble in my stomach, a sign my stomach was empty and I needed to eat. And yesterday as I was finishing up wall mounting a rather heavy TV for my writing teacher, Charles I stood up quickly as I was packing my tools and suddenly felt faint. It was almost 2pm and I hadn’t eaten since 8am, some muesli with milk.
It’s been a while since those things have happened, so the regimen I set upon a few days ago is starting to pay off.
I was never a skinny kid, my mom was a wonderful cook and made large protein AND carbohydrate rich meals. Have a little rice and beans with your pork, son.
We always had salad, of course, and I thank my mother for knowing we needed our veggies, but her idea of salad was iceberg lettuce, tomatoes from a little plastic holder and big tasteless Mexican avocados. But it was a good foundation, as it were.
By the time I was 16 and my hormones were raging I’d reached the weight of 200-plus pounds, and with urging from mom and some savings from my shoe store job I went to a local doctor who put me on a diet. The things I remember the most about him was that one day his tie was on top of one wing of his collar and that he smoked. He always wore a glazed look on his face and I wondered what drugs he was on.
I cheated, of course. In addition to following his diet, which was mostly tuna fish and lettuce, I took Dexedrine and Dexamyl pills and lost 35 pounds in a couple of months. The doc was proud of me and I got my first girlfriend.
I have to say I noticed a pattern vis-à-vis weight loss and women. Every time I broke up or was dumped, I immediately shed whatever weight I’d gained being in the relationship and was trim and slim and ready for the next one, like my body was on autopilot.
Conversely, every time I got into a relationship, I would gain weight, due to complacency.
During my first marriage, to the mother of my son Javier; I gained the most weight. Then again, it was the longest relationship I’ve ever had, 20 years if you count the dating beforehand.
In 1992, when my son was 5 I was diagnosed with adult onset diabetes. I weighed in at 285 pounds. I couldn’t stand to look at myself in the mirror.
I was working at another shoe store, and I made breakfast for everyone each morning. It was always eggs, bacon, and bread. Usually bagels, sometimes white rolls.

Me in 1990, at 285 Lbs.
At my coffee break at 10, I would have a large Au Bon Pain coffee with ten sugars and a cinnamon roll or croissant. Lunch was a sandwich I made myself, and that would be washed down with a big cup of Pepsi from the 2-liter bottle I kept in the fridge at work. I drank most of the bottle each day.
If you drink a 2-liter bottle of Pepsi every day for 20 years I promise you will die.
I think I did it for ten, so I only half-died.
After I was diagnosed with the type 2 diabetes I was sent to a nutritionist, a woman who was appropriately as thin as the proverbial rail. She was always munching on a piece of celery or raw carrot as way of example.
I did what I could, stopped eating sugar, and switched to diet Pepsi, cut down on the bread. I lost 50 pounds in six weeks. But there it stopped. My blood sugar remained above normal, and I was still fat, just not as fat.
Javier’s mom had gained weight after his birth, but somewhere along the line she became a jock, a gym rat, she worked in a place that had a gym and membership opened to its employees, and she took full advantage. She lost weight and became a new person, one that wanted different things in life. New things, new people. I had missed the bus.
During our divorce I took stock, and again the autopilot kicked in and I started to change. This time I started to exercise, and lost a lot of weight in a hurry. I went from 235 to 169 pounds in a matter of months. I called it the divorce diet, as the divorce left such a bad taste in my mouth I couldn’t eat anything.

I used to fill this shirt. 2001, 180 Lbs.
But I did start looking in the mirror again, and started feeling good about myself. This was in the year 2000. I stayed around 170 for a few years, till I quit smoking. I gained 10 pounds but met my soon to be new wife, Danusia.
We both eat healthy, but we both also like to snack while watching TV. Last year I realized I was 207 pounds during a doctor’s visit. I knew I’d gained weight; I’d had to buy new pants, and shirts. As a clothing aside, when I was really fat I had to wear 4E shoes. I didn’t know even your feet get fat. I wear a D width now, which is normal for a man my size.
I cut out peanut butter and started watching what I ate more, and lost 10 pounds. But it gets harder and harder to keep it off.
I think movies and TV have made Americans fat. I know when I am in front of the TV and I snack, I mindlessly shove food into my mouth. Luckily we don’t eat at the movies. The most we’ll do is bring a bag of nuts and share them.
Eating in bed is out, in my new effort. So is gluten, not all of it, but most. I truly believe gluten spikes your glycemic index, and that’s not good.

This summer, 195 Lbs.
So I’ve embarked on a sort-of protein rich, low carb diet, and of course I always exercise, we’ve got the old elliptical machine (we’re on our second one) and I do plenty of strength training stuff. By the way, if you have type 2 diabetes all you need to do is exercise and watch that sugar intake. As soon as I started exercising during the divorce diet, my blood sugar plunged. It went too low, and my doctor recommended more fruit.
Bread affects the very same receptors in your brain that opiates do, so it is no wonder that it can be such a comfort, and such an addiction. So I am making the concerted effort to limit not just bread, but all gluten as I said before and I’ll keep you all posted as to the results.
I read a lot of stuff about dieting in the past few days, and there is so much conflicting stuff. Eat bananas, don’t eat bananas. Eat chocolate, don’t eat chocolate. One thing that pops up on all the food blogs and website is the “5 foods you should never eat.” I clicked on it once out of curiosity and got a shaggy dog story that I’m told leads you to the opportunity to buy a book that tells you the 5 foods you should never eat. Bananas is one of them, it’s on the teaser.
I have a banana most mornings to start my metabolism, and I’ll tell you what. I’m not going to stop eating bananas, and I ain’t buying that book.

I get up either at 5:25am or 6am, without fail. 5:25 if I go to sleep right after the 11 O’clock news or 6am if it’s anytime after, no matter how late. Well, I haven’t tried staying up till 3 or 4am, I think my limit is 1am, even in the early summer when I was working till 2am I think I only managed to sleep till 7 before my eyes opened and there was no closing them again.
I used to get home at 7am, in my early adult days, the days of Pratt and all night parties and Max’s Kansas City and CBGB’s and the Ocean Club and Bootie’s disco and the Nursery and most familiarly for me, Club 82 at 82 East 4th Street.
Or the all night poker games where nobody left until one or two guys had cleaned everyone else out. The winner would buy breakfast for all the losers, I was usually amongst that number, and we’d go to Junior’s on DeKalb Ave.
After city outings, as in the aforementioned nightclubs it was usually Ratner’s on Delancey Street.

It’s funny, when I was a kid watching a lot of Black and White Film Noir movies and reading Dashiell Hammet novels I wondered what a nightclub was, and now I was hanging out in them, doing my best Nick Charles/Sam Spade imitations, except in tight jeans, shirts opened to the waist and 4inch platform shoes rather than a suit that fit like a plywood coffin.
I would go to breakfast, and if I had an early class I would go straight to class after a little pick-me-up of whatever chemical stimulant was available.
All of that was laid to rest when I started working regular jobs, and was further eroded by having a child. Child rearing is exhausting even for the most permissive of parents, and besides, you’ve got to be up early to make breakfast.
I also got used to getting up early for other reasons, like the anticipation for the next one, but I’m not going to get into that here.
Working in one place for 17 years will certainly set a biological clock for you, that’s for sure. For 6 of those years I would wake up at 4:30am, needing the alarm clock, of course; and prepare to be at my post by 6:30am. The only times I was ever late were the fault of NYC Transit, thank you.
I guess I got used to it, and due to a certain sleepless winter I also got used to sleeping a lot less than 8 hours. So now after 6 hours or a little less, my eyes open wide and that’s it, I have to get out of bed. If I can see my pillow it’s time to get up.
This is fine at home, where we have 2 bedrooms and a living room that is 18 feet from the bedroom door. I can get up, make my coffee, turn on my computer, and do whatever I want until my more than lovely wife Danusia gets up, after she gets her 8 plus hours of sleep. She is not a morning person, has a hard time formulating sentences when she first gets up.
This of course is since I’ve been out of work, before I would prepare and go, no it’s just one long Sunday morning, at least until everyone is up and I have stuff to do.

Being away from home my routine is naturally upset, but I manage; I’m pretty adaptable.
At our friend Ellen’s home in Salt Point it was pretty easy, I got up, found the Coffee machine (Mr. Coffee) and made myself a cup to go with my morning banana (I’m hooked on that morning banana) and the first view of my computer. I took my old laptop with me on that trip.
When we went to Canada to Danusia’s cousin’s house it was a little different. I couldn’t for the life of me find a coffee maker anywhere, and the kitchen being feet from Jola’s door (the cousin) I didn’t want to go banging around searching for one. I settled for a glass of orange juice and took it down to my temporary sanctuary, in front of the couch in the big entertainment/living room in the lower part of the house, I hate to say basement because it was so beautiful.
Eventually I found one of those Kurig one-cup machines on the bar of all places, but I hate those, the coffee is weak and artificial, anything that comes out of a prepackaged plastic and metal “pod” is bound to taste like shit.
After the ladies got up I found out Jola used a French press to make coffee and I made a mental note of where she put it. The next day I made myself a real cup of coffee, and I washed the French press before they got up.
I found myself the first awake at yet another friends house this weekend, and the coffeemaker (another Mr. Coffee) was right on the counter. What I couldn’t find was the coffee. The first morning I settled for a glass of water. They had bananas in a bin and I helped myself to one of those too.
The second morning I knew it would be another hour and a half till anyone else was awake, and I made a determined search of the kitchen till I found not one, but four different packages of good dark roast, all of it organic. They were all sealed, but I didn’t let that stop me. I cut one open and made myself coffee.
I sat outside on the porch to drink it and watch the sun come up over the fields across the road, casting long shadows on the lawn.

I loved the silence, a silence so intense I could hear my blood throbbing in my ears. Not even the birds were up yet.
I read the latest John LeCarré book and wrote a poem, no doubt influenced by the profound quiet of a totally rural setting. It was cold and I was barefoot, I could see my breath the first two mornings, looking at my iPhone it said it was 52° in Sparks, NY.
Each morning the local rabbit would run across the lawn right in front of me, as if daring me to chase it. Everyone thinks rabbits are these cute little creatures, but they are rodents, just rats with bigger feet and longer ears that will eat all of your crops if you let them.

When I was in the Army my unit went to Germany for a short field exercise. When we were done we were penned up in a fenced in compound on some farmer’s land, much like the land in front of my friend Tessa’s house. One afternoon as I sat with a couple of buddies watching a farmer till his land on a tractor we saw him suddenly stop; get off the tractor and retrieve something from under the blades of the tiller. He picked it up and walked over to our spot just inside of the fence. As he approached I could see it was something limp, brown and furry.
When he got to the fence he held up his prize, a dead rabbit that had been cleanly sliced through the head.
“Essen?” He said.
“Sure, we’ll essen,” I said. “Give it here,” someone else said holding a hand up. The farmer tossed the rabbit over the fence and we skinned it and cooked it in a helmet with some carrots and an onion the farmer was kind enough to toss us later. It was delicious.

I just need to acknowledge Edith Sitwell for this beautiful title before I go on, so thank you Edith Sitwell. I’d never even heard of her till 5 minutes before writing these words, but her writing is beautiful and I’ll look at more of it.
I read more of her words on the back of Candy Darling’s gravestone, which I visited, in Cherry Valley, NY Friday afternoon. Here’s a picture of that- and I’ve discovered that it’s paraphrased, taken out of context from a longer poem by Ms. Sitwell.

I remember Candy from Max’s Kansas City, she was one of the beautiful people allowed into the back room, I, was just a star-struck kid who was not.
I was in the area because I’d been invited to read at a literary event at the 204 Bar and Bistro in Sharon Springs, NY by my friend Tessa Lou Fix. I was flattered to be invited and said I wanted to come, but I had no way of getting there. Tessa is a master of getting things to happen, and she had a quick answer ready:
“Puma’s driving up that weekend and would love someone to come along to spilt the cost of tolls and gas. I’ll tell her you’re gonna call her.”
And that was it, I was going and my name was added to the flyer.

The event was called: “American Beauty, American dirt. A night of performance.”
I’ve done readings before, I thank my writing teacher Charles Salzberg for getting me hooked on that; doing that and liking the applause got me to the MOTH, and now I’m a bona fide writer who people want to hear and read.
The trip to Candy’s grave was just a side trip, time filler, but it was remarkable that for someone who’s never been to visit his own mother’s grave (I have no idea where it is) I visited four different gravesites in the past two weeks.
Last week the lovely Danusia and I visited Maggie Estep’s grave in the Cedar Park Cemetery in Hudson, NY but not before mistakenly going to the Hudson City Cemetery the previous day.
Besides the Candy Darling location in Cherry Valley there is a small graveyard on the property Tessa’s parents own in Canajoharie. We went to that one while exploring the heavily wooded area behind the house somewhere on their ten acres of land the day of the performance.
It is hard for me to conceive someone owning ten acres, someone points in a general direction and says: “all this is mine.” I was in some woods, and it was quiet and nice, if a little buggy; but different than walking down Broadway, which sometimes I think: “all this is mine” when thinking of New York. Sometimes.
It was fun staying at Tessa’s; it is a big house that according to her dad, Cleo, was built in three separate fits of building.
“1830,” he said pointing to the back of the house, “1850” pointing to the wing just off the main house where the living room and laundry room were located, and “during the Civil War,” he finished indicating the large dining room and kitchen areas. Upstairs was a maze of interconnecting bedrooms; they gave one to me and Puma that was through a second bathroom with two doors.

The small door is on the left.

You walked through a normal sized door into the small toilet and then through a half door you needed to duck your head to enter and then step down two wooden steps to enter. The room had four tiny slit windows and another door that led to yet another room. I did not investigate, not because Tessa said it was scary and there may be ghosts but because I wasn’t invited to investigate. I ain’t scared of no ghosts.
Tessa’s mom, Rhea, mom of moms kept everyone fed and coffeed, as well as supplying towels and directions around town and valley.
Puma wanted to drive up on Thursday to avoid the Labor Day traffic, so we had two days to kill. Besides the sight seeing we did I did a couple of saved up crosswords and started reading John LeCarre’s “A Most Wanted Man.” Haven’t read a novel in a while and it hooked me right away. I also wrote two poems, something I never do.
I had written a poem for the performance, I am inspired by Tessa and Puma’s dedication to the form and decided to give it a try. I wrote it last week and it’s called “Sordid Sex In Six Seconds.” Most of Puma and Tessa’s poetry revolve around sex and relationships, so I decided to give it a go. It is a microcosm of unusual sexual experiences.
I also read “The Door,” which is actually the very first piece I’d written in a serious writing class, but it has evolved and improved, and Danusia says it’s a very powerful piece. That’s about a drug overdose (not mine).
Saturday after a day of anticipation and rehearsal (for Tessa and Puma) we got in several cars and drove the few miles to Sharon Springs. By this time we’d acquired Paul, an actor and writer and another friend of Tessa’s that was to be doing a Noel Coward monologue. I rode with Paul and he expressed a little anxiety at going up first.
At the venue, a Fusion type restaurant with a big, airy open dining room (all white walls and authentic tin ceilings) we met another reader, a fellow named Stephen who’d driven from Ithaca for the occasion. I also found out that I had to double as the troupe’s tech, given the computer and slide projector to project the images Tessa wanted on the wall behind her as she performed. A fellow named Mark Hanlon was the MC and brought Paul up first. Paul did Noel Coward’s “I’ve been to a marvelous party” poem, then Tessa and Puma went up to do a duet thing that I was too busy figuring out how to work her computer and keep the images up to pay attention to and then I went up. People laughed at my poem, and that’s good, because sometimes-bad sexual experiences can be funny. Nobody laughed at The Door because near death drug overdoses are never funny.

Paul Heiner, me, Puma Perl, Stephan, and Tessa displaying her natural attributes. 

Then Stephen went up and read some ecology-themed anti fracking poetry, then Tessa by herself again. And lastly, the owner of the bistro (who’s name I did not catch) went up with two others and they read some teen-aged love letters from the 50’s they’d found in some attic.
There were a good amount of people there, fifty or so and Tessa’s anxiety about nobody showing up was assuaged.
Before we started Mark had gone to pick up a guy named Charles Plymel, a handsome white-bearded old coot that wore a fancy striped shirt with cufflinks and carried a rather ornate walking stick.

Charles Plymel, beat poet and underground comix pioneer.

I had no idea who he was (I do now) and was amused by his efforts to take home Puma’s leftovers. (“Are you gonna eat that?”) He wanted a paper napkin to wrap the food in and was informed by the waitress that they don’t use paper napkins. She brought him a takeout box.
Paul went outside and didn’t seem to be engaging in any of the congratulatory small talk going on, nobody was approaching me either so I asked him what his plans were.
“I’m ready to go. Are you?” Indeed I was, so we loaded the computer and projector in the back of his Grand Cherokee and went home.
The next morning Puma gave me my share of what was collected in the hat, $10.
On the way back to New York later that day I gave her back the money, my final contribution to gas and tolls. I can’t wait to be able to keep the money.

We missed the turn for the Taconic headed north on our way to Canada last week. It was the very first leg of our trip, and we made it almost all the way to Connecticut before we realized we’d made a mistake.
On our way back to our proposed route we ended up near the West Taghkanic Diner, on Rte. 9. We had lunch there in February with a few friends after Maggie Estep’s funeral, and were surprised to run across it.

Finally we drove through Hudson, NY to get to the Rip Van Winkle Bridge, which we needed to take if we wanted to get across the river to the NY State Thruway.
We passed the Helsinki on Columbia Street; this was the place where we’d attended the memorial. The lovely Danusia asked if we might visit Maggie’s grave, since we’d missed the actual funeral that cold February day.
“I don’t know where the Cemetery is, or where the grave is, for that matter,” I said.
We had passed the actual cemetery, and surprisingly saw the people at the graveside on our way to the Helsinki the morning of the funeral. I had a picture of the spot burned into my brain and was sure I could find it again. But getting lost that morning and already an hour behind schedule I didn’t think it was a great idea to go walking through a cemetery looking for a spot I’d glimpsed briefly from a moving car seven months ago.
We drove on across Columbia Street and turned onto Rte. 9 south to the bridge; and eventually many hours later, Oshawa, Ontario.
We returned to New York Friday night, and the trip wasn’t much shorter despite having followed our Google maps directions to a T, almost three hours past the estimated time on the map. Time for Google maps to re-calibrate.
We were to stay at Danusia’s friend’s house in Pleasant Valley till Monday, but when her friend called Sunday morning I knew it was bad news. They were returning that evening and we had to go.
“I’d rather stay in a hotel or motel somewhere up here for a night rather than go home,” Danusia said.
“How about finding a place in or near Hudson, and maybe we’ll visit Maggie’s grave in the morning?” I suggested.
“Great, let’s book a room someplace.”
I started looking on line, and there was one place, The St. Charles Hotel right in downtown Hudson. The pictures of the rooms on their website were nice, and the boasted free Internet, flat-screen TVs and a small refrigerator in every room. A coffeemaker is available on request. $265 a night.
That was a little steep for us, so I kept looking. After reading a lot of dismal reviews I found a B&B called “The Country Squire” two blocks from the main drag in Hudson. No fridge in the room, but the rooms looked nice and breakfast was served. It was $100 less than the St. Charles, so I made a reservation.
We got there later than expected, Danusia had wanted to wash the sheets of the bed we’d slept on before we left her friend’s house; and there was no stopping her.
As we approached the B&B I realized that it was on Rte.9A and we’d passed right by it on our way to the Rip Van Winkle Bridge the week before. This was getting spooky.
The proprietor and host, Paul answered the door and showed us the room, which he called the Black and White room. The bedspread was black and white and a black and white cowhide was on the beautiful parquet floor.
After Paul left Danusia said; “Is that a cow?”
“A dead one, honey,” I replied.
We unpacked and drove to the cemetery, which was on the other side of town. We found the spot that looked likely from our recollections. There was a gate that said HUDSON CITY CEMETERY. We went in and walked around, looking. My friend Jenny Meyer who had been Maggie’s closest friend told me on the phone that the stone had not been placed on the grave, so we could only guess where the site was, since the office was closed. It was almost dark.
“It might have been here.” I said after deciding it was the right distance from the road. The only other thing we had to go on was a picture of the gravesite with the plain pine box beside it that Jenny had sent me the day of the funeral.
“I don’t think that’s the spot,” Danusia said.
“We’ll come back in the morning and ask,” I said.
We drove back west to the B&B and stopped at some Mexican restaurant for dinner, eating amid a flurry of texted photos Jenny was sending from the funeral.
There was only one that had a landmark in the background, a red brick building.
“I didn’t see a red brick building today,” Danusia said after looking at the photos.
“Well, we weren’t looking for one, were we?” I answered.
“There was no red brick building there,” Danusia stated with certainty. I wasn’t going to argue with that. We walked around town after dinner, and as we came to the end of Warren Street, the main drag I spotted a sign for the St. Charles Hotel across the City Square.
“Look, honey, the overpriced St Charles Hotel!” I exclaimed. Just at that moment, an elderly man in a car stopped beside us and the man asked: “Can you tell me where the St. Charles Hotel is?” I pointed across the square and said, “right over there,” like I’d been living in Hudson forever.
The next morning after a wonderful breakfast served by our host Paul (Ham quiche or broccoli?) we headed back to the cemetery. Danusia was right, there was no brick building visible from the spot I’d declared correct.
“Maybe it’s on the other side of the cemetery?” I said in a vain effort to save a little face.
What we discovered was that we were in the wrong cemetery, there was another one called CEDAR PARK CEMETARY right next door. We drove on and simultaneously said, “There’s the building!”

We parked the car and walked over to the gate, and using the picture Jenny had sent we found the spot where two fresh holes were dug for headstones.

I wondered why there were two stones, and thought it was the wrong spot, but using the pictures (one of which has another gravestone in the background) we determined that this was indeed where Maggie was buried. We both said our own private (and now proper) goodbyes to Maggie and walked back to the car. I’m sure Maggie would have gotten a kick out of our detective work and determination.

The directions I downloaded from Google maps are pretty good, provided you don’t miss any exits or take too many rest stop detours. Still, the estimated time was 7hrs. to Oahawa, Ont. from Salt Point, NY was pretty optimistic. It took 10 hours. I know we missed the very first turn onto the Taconic Parkway (my fault) and had to buy a road atlas somewhere near the Connecticut border to figure out a way to get to I-87 north. I should have just used the GPS or the Google maps (tried the map but it’s hard to manage when someone else is insisting you buy the atlas) but we got to I-87 after a fashion, driving through Hudson, NY in the process and passing the Club Helsinki where we’d attended Maggie Estep’s funeral last February.
Danusia wanted to look for the cemetery to visit Maggie’s grave but it was a little out of the way.
When we got to the far reaches of New York State after almost 2 hours on I-90 I thought we were almost there, but GPS (yes, I succumbed) said it was another 5 hours to Oshawa. And it had taken us 5 hours to get THERE.
The most remarkable thing about Canada was how clean it was, how neat and tidy the houses and roads were in Oshawa, everywhere, actually. Even the Dollar Tree stores didn’t look as dingy as the American ones.
We got there exhausted, but Danusia’s cousin Jola (pronounced YO-la) had marinated steaks ready for the grill and I found myself appointed grillmaster. The steaks were excellent, and after eating and digesting a bit I excused myself and crashed out, letting the ladies catch up on the six years since they’d last seen each other.

The next day we drove around Oshawa and to my delight we discovered a working Antonov-2 at the local airfield. We talked to a kid at the front desk and he took us out to the field and let me take pictures of it. That made the ten-hour drive worth it, at least to me.
I also discovered that they don’t have Orbit gum in Canada, and finding a New York Times took a little work. The lovely Danusia sent out search party when I hadn’t returned from the local mall in the allotted time. I was surprised to see Jola in our car searching for me on the way back.
We were supposed to leave Wednesday after 2 nights there, but Jola persuaded us to stay with the promise of a trip to the countryside on Thursday.
I wanted to leave early, she said it was a couple of hours drive but not being the driver or the host we left when they were good and ready. We started out on the drive north to Wilno, which by the way is the oldest Polish settlement in Canada.

It was overcast in Oshawa, and Jola said “Oh, there might be a passing thunderstorm, but we’ll take our chances.”
The plan was to go kayaking in a lake up in Wilno, where a friend of Jola’s had a small lakefront property. Somewhere during the now 3 and a half hour drive it started raining. By the time we got to Wilno it was positively pouring, and I knew there was no chance of me getting into a kayak in the pouring rain. We drove around in the rain while Jola pointed out places of interest.
“Maybe the rain will stop when we get to the lake,” she said optimistically.
It didn’t stop, but it let up enough that I got in the kayak. I was already wet anyway.

I had fun, the lovely Danusia and I paddled around for a bit until the clouds started to darken again. She wanted to swim, and Jola took us to a lake that was better for swimming. We were the only ones there. I opted to watch from the shore, despite having my trunks in tow. After her swim we decided to head back.
We stopped off at a Tim Horton’s on the way back, a visit to Canada is not complete without a stop at a Tim Horton’s; Canada’s answer to Dunkin’ Doughnuts. Danusia and I enjoyed a delicious mass-produced pre-packaged chili and Jola had a gluten free soup.
We got back in the car and I fell asleep in the back seat.
I awoke to a sudden stop and Jola’s surprised declaration of “where the hell am I?” I could not get back to sleep now, knowing that her Galaxy has no GPS and that it was close to 10 pm.
She found her way back to the road to civilization, and as I tried to rest my head against the car door I realized the sky had cleared and I was staring at the big dipper shining bright in the black sky. I powered down my window for a clearer look and some fresh air. The window went back up by itself and Jola said:
“Did you open the window? I can’t drive with the window open, sorry.”
“I just wanted to look at the stars.”
“You want to see the stars? I’ll pull over and we’ll get out.”
“No, no, don’t stop, I can see them fine through the window.”

Too late for that, we were already on the side of the road and she was turning the engine off. We all got out and after the interior light went out I once again marveled at just how dark it is at night in the woods when there is no moon out. I hadn’t seen this many stars since being in Mexico five years ago. Even when we were in the desert outside of Vegas the stars were not as bright or plentiful, I don’t know why; but it was pretty breathtaking seeing the stars from Canada.
We got back on the road and I must admit I had never been so happy to see urban sprawl as I was when I spotted the lights of Oshawa in the distance.
We got home just before midnight and I fell into a deep sleep.
On the drive back to New York yesterday we missed only one exit and took few bathroom breaks, and we ate stuff we packed into out cooler in the car as we drove. It still took around 10 hours, despite the Google estimate that seemed to get more optimistic with each mile closer to our destination we got.
I was tired and cranky, but the memories of that Antonov and the stars will always be with me.

Last week I was finishing a shelf installation for a friend of Danusia’s and we were chatting while I worked. I’ll call him XY to protect his anonymity, as the conversation steered to more than a bit of self-doubt. That’s called something else in other circles, but he’s a nice guy, and I like him, so I’ll leave it at that.

He works in various mediums, he’s a creative guy, but he told me his passion it the theatre. That’s how he met Danusia; she was cast in a play that he was involved in somehow. I know a little about theatre, but it’s not my passion, so I’ll just say he was involved in the production.

As we chatted, he talked about his work. I know he’d made a movie with Danusia in it last winter, and I’d worked on a music video he’d shot in the spring, but I didn’t know he had a pretty big production, something that he had invested years of work in at a festival in Germany that did well there, but failed miserably here in the states. XY is still unhappy about it.
“The critics killed my career. You should have read what they wrote about me.”
“You can’t please everybody.”
“But I thought it was going to be a breakthrough, I worked so hard on it and then nothing. I’m 39 years old and I still haven’t made it.”
I thought about that for a bit before replying, thought about myself and the things I wanted and dreamt of; I’d gone to film school and made a couple of movies myself, so I sympathized.

“Well I’m 60 and I haven’t made it yet either.”
That sort of stopped him in his tracks, I could see on his face the realization that it might be a longer haul than he imagined it would be. It was a little funny; it was like telling someone the medication they’d been taking and liking was a placebo.
“Just keep doing what you love, don’t worry so much about ‘making it’, concentrate on your accomplishments rather than your failures.”
I thought that was about the best advice I could give him, and then I went back to thinking about myself as I drilled the holes for the screws to secure the shelves to the brackets I’d put up.
I haven’t “made it” yet in terms of the American dream, but I have to say I’m not unhappy about it. I was at one point, as a matter of fact I was miserable about my lack of accomplishment and ambition. And I surrounded myself with like-minded people and we sat around and did drugs and complained, “The fix was in” and why bother trying. I think that was the whole idea behind the dropout, turn on culture of the 60’s and 70’s that I mindlessly bought into.
I some point I changed, I realized that I did have something to offer the world if only in small measure, and that was all right. It didn’t have to be like on TV with all the bells and whistles, it just had to be real and all right.
Up to the age of 45 my biggest accomplishments were graduating high school and getting into college, which I dropped out of because it was too hard. Oh, and I went through jump school, something I thought I’d never be able to do because I am afraid of heights but I got through it and served in an airborne unit in the army for awhile.

Actually, in my 30’s I learned how to fix shoes and even sort of make them, I would assemble shoes with uppers made by a real shoemaker. I also became a pretty good plastic airplane modeler.

I lost the shoe store job and got a job in a building as a porter. I became a doorman and eventually a handyman, which is why I know how to put up shelves like I was doing for XY. I learned how to do a lot of other things, like plumbing and wiring and all that good stuff. More accomplishments.
Not to mention being married for 16 years, having a kid and surviving the divorce. I remember telling a guy about my horrible divorce while I was going through it and he asked how long I was married for.
“Sixteen years,” I replied.
“Well, that’s a successful marriage,” was what he said. In that moment I wanted to kill him, but now I realize that the success of that marriage was that my ex-wife and I brought up a pretty decent kid with good values, and that we both grew and found our way from point A to point B without killing each other and hurting others in irrevocable ways. Yes there was pain, but there was growth too.
And now I’ve found a new passion, a new outlet, one that may well enable me to “make it,” and it is this, writing. I can’t stop anyway.

45 years ago when I was 15 I spent the summer working as a day camp counselor at my local church, St. Patrick’s on Willoughby Ave. in Brooklyn.
It was a Job Corps program, and the church did not pay us directly, we had to go to downtown Brooklyn every Friday to get our paychecks somewhere on Fulton Street.
The quickest way to get there from the church was to take the old Myrtle Avenue El to the last stop, Jay Street. I would wait for the train at the Classon Ave. station, and that summer I started seeing posters for some music and arts fair that was to take place in August someplace upstate. It was to be called Woodstock, and the list of groups was very appealing, I was already into rock music and hanging out with a local band that did Sly and The family Stone covers exclusively.
But I had no idea how to get to White Lake, N.Y., and I could only fantasize about it.

                                                              The poster I saw all summer.

I had seen some concerts; I’d seen Traffic at the Academy of Music and The Jefferson Airplane for free in Central Park. But this was a big one, and I actually had enough money for a ticket, since I was getting paid $40 a week, more money than I’d ever seen in my life.
As the day drew near, my friends that had the Sly Stone cover band started talking excitedly about the upcoming Woodstock show.
The older brother of the guitarist Michael, was the road manager for Sly And The Family Stone, and Sly was playing at Woodstock. Michael and my friend Juan, who was the base player were going as roadies. Michael’s brother Kenny who was Sly’s road manager would get kids from the projects to carry amps and do roadie work for free and keep the money that was budgeted for roadies with the promise of seeing the show for free and maybe meeting Sly.
“Can I come?” I asked meekly.
“You’re too young. Your mother’s not going to let you go,” they answered, almost in unison. They were 17 and 18, and only let me hang out with them because I had money to buy weed, I suspect.
I started working on my mom, who knew my friends from me bringing them around for snacks after school.
“How are you getting up there?” She asked.
“In the equipment truck,” I said.
“And where will you stay?”
“Well, Sly is only playing the first day, I guess we’ll be back after that.”
Of course I had no intention of coming back that night, but I wasn’t going to tell my mom that. She relented and gave her approval.
“Kenny’s picking us up in the truck at 5am in front of the building, and if you’re not there we’re leaving without you,” admonished Juan.
The morning of the 15th I got up at 3:30, I couldn’t sleep anymore with so much excitement. As I showered and dressed I heard my mom get up too, she couldn’t sleep with worry. Her baby was going someplace far alone, and she was having a hard time with that.
It was still dark outside, and as I left my mother handed me a paper bag.
“Some sandwiches for later,” she said.

                                                               The front of the building on Lafayette Ave.

I went downstairs around a quarter to 5, and waited on the tarmac that separated our buildings from the curb of Lafayette Avenue. I strained my eyes waiting for a truck to appear. 5am came and went. So did 5:30, when it started getting light out, then 6am. No truck, just a few desultory cars slowly passing down the avenue. By 7 people were headed to work, it was after all a Friday, and by this time I felt stupid. They’d probably left earlier and told me to be there at 5 on purpose. I went back upstairs, and my mother wasn’t surprised at all, she’d been watching from the window.
“It’s OK, son, it wasn’t meant to be.” I went to my room and cried, and vowed never to speak to those guys again, or listen to Sly And The Family Stone again. I ate the sandwiches for lunch and stayed in my room playing music all day on my old record player.
That night I watched the news on TV where the big story was the clogged roads leading to the Woodstock music and arts festival.
Later on that evening I was surprised to see the white panel truck Kenny used for the equipment pull up in front of the building and disgorge Michael and Juan and some other kids. Juan lived upstairs from me and I watched him come into the building. I waited a few minutes and went up to the 8th floor to talk to him.
“Why did you guys leave without me?” I asked him after I was ushered into his room.
“Kenny said you were too young, he didn’t want you to come. Besides, we never made it.”
“Sly didn’t play?”
“Oh, he played. I think they took a helicopter there. But we got stuck on the highway, there were too many cars going there. A lot of people just got out of their cars and walked, but Kenny said we couldn’t leave the equipment. Eventually they cleared the road behind the truck and they made everybody turn around. It took forever to get back here.”
I was secretly happy; they didn’t get to Woodstock either.

                                                                   Woodstock at the movies.

Almost a year later we made it to Woodstock, the movie. We took plenty of weed and had a great time watching our favorite bands on the big screen without having to endure the mud, rain, and hunger we probably would have had to if we’d actually been there, but like my mother said, it wasn’t meant to be.