Life

Ack! It has been the equivalent of about a decade in blogging time since my last post. And now, it has come to this: pens. I have been through my share of felt-tip, rollerball, and fountain pens over time. As you can imagine, once in awhile a well-meaning acquaintance or relation, armed with the recent discovery that I write poetry, will bequeath a gilt and feathered writing implement to yours truly. Though I am, at heart, a pen pragmatist, I like dark writing and a touch of flair. That is why, even though I mostly type straight in to a plain text document on my laptop, when it does come time to put ink to paper, the Pilot Varsity is my newest top choice. Cheap, tough, light, and fluid — what’s not to like in this fountain pen? It travels well in pocket with nominal leakage, marks dark, and moves quickly. The only hiccups I’ve had are in trying to furiously scribble out words — an impulsive bad habit for any writer, where a simple strikethrough will suffice in case one changes one’s mind back to favoring the original word or phrase. In short, this pen supports all my best habits, and discourages my impetuous ones. Where else can you get that for three bucks and change?

Last night, I was ego surfing, and decided to check my Google rank for the keyword “Robert.” That’s right, just “Robert.” I have been in the top ten off and on, but last night this site actually came up higher than the blog of Robert Scoble.


I think this means I was momentarily famous. Strangely enough, I didn’t feel any different than before. By this morning, the effect wore off. I am now back under Scoble. Such are my thrills of late.

I also started up a stub page on Wikipedia for my googleganger, Robert Peake the Elder. Some art historian with a lot of spare time later went to town. Unfortunately, the Peake side of my family tree ends with my love-em-and-leave-em great-grandfather Peake. So, short of DNA testing (or some evidence that this painter had a double-jointed thumb), I’ll never know if we are related.

If he had lived, our son would be two years old today.

Several close friends have had children in the past year. I have been too afraid of breaking down in front of the parents to accept invitations to meet them. Just the other day, however, we were at a restaurant and some friends came in with their nine-month-old twins. I decided I was feeling strong enough to finally meet them.

Before approaching them, I washed my hands in the bathroom, since I have been fighting off a cold. I pumped soap from the dispenser, and ran my hands under the tap. Absentmindedly, I began lathering up my wrists and rubbing furiously. I was back in the hospital, scrubbing up at the sink inside the entrance to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Back then, I washed my hands vigorously, thoroughly, twice in a row — up to the elbows and underneath each fingernail. I shuttled over colostrum and came back with empty bottles, stole away in the night while Val was sleeping off the anesthetic, aware each visit could be the last. Every time, I scrubbed down furiously, as though some miracle of cleanliness could restore the electricity to our son’s brain.

It has not been an easy two years. But James’s death caused me to reevaluate what matters. I rediscovered the young idealist, who left the engineering department at Berkeley during the height of the dot-com era to study poetry instead. I recommitted to my writing, and signed up for an MFA. With such loss has come not only grief, but great compassion. I want to write about what makes us human, because never has it impressed upon me more that this is precious in its entirety — from my flashback in the bathroom to the radiant abandon with which infants squirm in their highchairs. There is so much to life. Sometimes it overwhelms.

I say once again: Godspeed, little James. There is so much more to love than could ever be comprehended.

I stuffed some peppermint tea bags into the percolator, along with a single-pot coffee pouch, and stirred chocolate instant breakfast into the result. Armed with this variant of mint mocha, and the esoteric knowledge passed on by a friendly maintenance guy, I have bypassed the timer on the fireplace, and am watching the waves from my window, slowly imbibing the choco-minty warmth. Fine sand is still whispering over the dunes, despite some drizzle. The soundtrack to the film “Once” is playing through my laptop speakers, extolling transitory love. Soon I will be navigating security checkpoints, on my way back to the hustle of a high-tech job. What I have experienced at this residency seems all the more profound for its fleeting nature. Like poetry, it is a place I can not fully inhabit, but still am loathe to leave.

This year marked the first anniversary of the passing of our son. Leading up to those difficult days, I was away at the first residency of the Pacific University MFA in writing program, shivering through an Oregon Winter. During the semester that followed, I studied with Joseph Millar, and began writing in earnest about grief, with his support. After the second residency, I studied with Sandra Alcosser, and began exploring the lyric and meditative traditions, deepening my understanding of the relationship between inner and outer experience, and therein finding a voice. I feel that I have made remarkable progress in my writing this year.

Later in the year, Pacific University’s MFA was named one of the top five low-residency programs in the country by Atlantic Monthly. This year, I also had one poem published, albeit belatedly, in our nation’s oldest literary magazine, and was a featured reader at several local venues. I also gave my first paid lecture on poetry and craft.

We returned to London this summer, and were sorry to leave. I walked in the graduation ceremony for my Doctorate in Spiritual Science, after seven years of transformative studies. And, when the 2007 Ojai Poetry Festival rolled around, I redesigned their website and orchestrated their online ticket sales.

I have written very little about technology in the past year, focusing my efforts much more on poetry and its significance, personally and universally. Still, this site has retained an audience of about four thousand unique visitors each month — although likely from a different demographic now than when my thoughts on PHP programming were widely syndicated. I have met some remarkable poets and readers through the blogosphere, and even broke down not long ago, after long resistance, to begin harassing my friends through social networking websites.

Several friends and acquaintances passed away this year, including the poet Sandford Lyne, who sped me on my way to Pacific with heartfelt encouragement and a letter of recommendation. The temporal and precious nature of life has never impressed upon me more. As the third residency of the MFA program approaches, and soon after that the second anniversary of our brief time with James, I marvel that such a rich, full year has passed, with me in it — writing, reading, loving — and learning to hope again.

I was saddened to read that technology journalist Marc Orchant passed away this afternoon, having been unconscious for several days following a major heart attack. I only met Marc once in person, but he struck me as vibrant, fit, and extremely likable. He is survived by his wife and two children. If you feel moved to help support them through what must be an incredibly challenging holiday time, details on making a donation are available here.

Marc’s was a lightning-quick creative intelligence and, coupled with his love of technology, made for stimulating conversation and insightful reading on ZDNet and, later, blognation. The blogosphere is abuzz with tributes to his memory. For my part, I would like to extend my heartfelt condolences to his family, and hope that they are buoyed up by the support of friends and family during this time.

My friend and colleague Kelly Forrister (née O’Brien) stopped by this evening to hand me an autographed copy of Seamus Heaney’s New Selected Poems: 1966-1987. She studied with him and several others on a summer course at Trinity College, Dublin, and had pints with him after class. This was just after his appointment at Oxford, and before his Nobel Prize. I am touched that she would give me something so personally meaningful.

Funnily enough, although we only live a few pretty blocks apart in the sleepy idyll that is Ojai, she found out about my rekindled interest in Heaney from this website. Who says blogging doesn’t have its rewards? In the end I have only to say: thank you, Kelly. I will use it well.

The following video (via Valerie, via Chris) seems like as good an answer as any to the question of why, in the middle of a high-tech career, I signed up for art school. While this particular piece deals with music, I find it equally applicable to the ongoing question: “why poetry?”


More Alan Watts — illuminated by the animators of South Park — is available at FreshMinds, including a great piece on perception and the “language of madness” in common between poetry and music.

After a brief experiment with Twitter, I concluded that the trend toward quantity over quality being perpetuated by social network status updates wasn’t for me. In fact, it seemed downright unpoetic. Then, thanks to Jeanine’s site, I discovered Goodreads. Finally, a niche network with a purpose I could get behind: discussing books. The only other specialized social network I had signed up for in the past was LinkedIn. But that was about work. This is about books. Delicious books!

I even went so far as to set up a private group for other students, faculty and alumni in the Pacific University MFA program. I figure this could help provide an outlet that is missing from the low-residency format — the opportunity to chat throughout the semester with other students about what we are reading. The results of that experiment remain to be seen.

Shortly after that, however, softened by my recent joinerism, I caved in and signed up for Facebook. It seems I am of a certain generation such that if I want to keep up with some of my friends, I need to be on Facebook. So, there I am — to the chagrin and relief of my wife, who has been reconnecting with friends overseas for some time through Facebook and and attempting to impress its wonders upon me (“Look! I gave someone a garden gnome!”), and a number of friends who have invited me to join up at various times. OK, OK, I’m on — happily reviewing books, posting photos, and turning friends into zombies. How did I ever live without this? Curmudgeon no more.

Related Links:

• Goodreads Profile
• Facebook Profile
• LinkedIn Profile

“Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.”

I couldn’t have expressed this better myself. We are homeward bound today (on my birthday — what better way to spend it than five miles above Greenland?) No doubt I’ll be unpacking our experiences for some time to come. Photos from this trip (and others) are available here.