My page is blank. My mind is numb.

There is not much to say today. I, at least, have very little to contribute to the topic of the day

Perhaps I am a little shocked, or stunned, but know I shouldn’t be. I have said (not loudly and not to a lot of people) that Donald Trump could become the next president of the United States of America. I’ve said it a couple of times, at different times, throughout the campaign.

Even yesterday I was not dismissing the possibility. I even said it out loud.

I made the statement as an observer, as one who has watched and observed politics for many years. Election campaigns are often baffling, but made for some of my most exciting days in my former newspaper career. Much of the time I hated the politics, but enjoyed the race leading up to an election. I loved the challenge and I was energized by the chase.

I’ve only had the experience of covering Canadian politics. We do things differently here. American politics, for me, has more been entertainment or a chance to learn about issues on the global scale.

The USA. has been, is, and will continue to be, a major force in how this planet functions.

I respect that.

And I respect what happened yesterday. I have to respect what happened because I believe in democracy and I believe in the right to vote. Majority rules. The people have spoken.

So I respect the principal, but find it hard to respect the results.

Yes I think it’s sad, and I don’t at all like it, and I believe those people who voted the way they did were not even considering what would happen in the coming days, months and years. I’m not sure if they realize how bad it will get before their America can be great again.

Do they not remember the collapse of the financial markets in 2008? Do they not remember the devastation of the global economy? Do they not remember the recession that followed?

What happened in 2008 (it wasn’t that long ago) was an economic crisis that was born in the USA and it devalued currencies across the globe. The United States took it the worst, and recovery took much longer than expected. Has the country even recovered?

I haven’t recovered. I know what happened in 2008 affected me personally, and not just financially. I know some of my plans, dreams, and goals were lost in the last economic meltdown.

I know we must all be prepared to lose even more whether we live in the USA or not.

I’ve been called stubborn, and principled (and words even nastier). I tend to take a stand, but still respect those who may not see the world, or an issue, as I do. I can be convinced otherwise, or persuaded, but when it comes right down to it I end up doing what I believe is right, or proper, or necessary.

I do this thing called whatever the fuck I want.

Certainly it has taken time, and a great deal of trial and error, but I think I’m at the point in my life where I’ve become comfortable with what I say and do (within reason). Some may call it selfish, but I say it’s honest because I am aware of the consequences of my actions.

If I get involved with a charity or take on a cause, if I am committed to a project, principle, or person, it’s because that’s what I want. The reasons may vary, but not my intent. I’m all in or not at all. Why get involved if you are not interested?

It comes with knowing, and learning, what you are capable of, what you can withstand, and what will allow you to live a life with integrity, and distinction, and purpose. You have to trust your gut, but it also takes thought. I do a lot of thinking.

When making a decision, I am considerate and careful when it comes to the feelings of others, and I do step back or step away if a situation becomes too complicated, one-sided, or boring.

Driven by my intentions, I prefer calm and collected instinct instead of walking through an emotional battlefield; I’ve been there before and still have the scars to prove it. Guided by true emotion, I try not to shy away from tough decisions where the results could be frightening. Fear and panic never were the most helpful emotions, so every attempt is made to step past those stumbling blocks, if it is something that I really want.

And it’s not that I am ignorant, or unmoved, by the advice of others. Many times somebody’s theory or knowledge will impact my decision. I can be influenced and often take another point of view under advisement. Consideration is the fulcrum providing balance to my actions but, ultimately, it is not somebody else’s decision that I am following, but my own.

Wrong advice: I’ve gone along with ideas that weren’t entirely sound, and I suppose I’ve followed as much as I’ve led. I’ve dealt, or am dealing, with those things. Poor choices; of course we make them. Bad decisions just happen, though they weren’t meant to be at the start.

The wrong road is not often identified, and you usually fail to see the caution signs when you are determinedly looking ahead.

Maybe that is why I have resolved to follow my own path, for that way there is no one to blame for what happens, or does not happen. If it is a mistake, it is my mistake. Perhaps it seems careless, but I believe it’s being responsibly irresponsible. I can live with that (I have to) and at the core it was something I wanted to do at the time. I own my mistakes. You don’t learn if you don’t make mistakes and I always make new ones. I can be convinced, sometimes too easily, of trying something or changing up my ways, but in doing so I am doing what I want to do at that time or in that head space. It seems to work.

You have to own up to what and who you are and become comfortable with where you are and why you are doing it. It’s doing what you want not because you have to, but because you need to.

It can’t always be beautiful.

I have been reminded of this over the past couple of weeks as I make my way through a hard edit on a manuscript I’d like to think is near completion.

Comments in my editor’s overview, notes along the margin, and highlights throughout the pages are references to the word beautiful. Further remarks ask for further clarification, synonyms, or other ways of explaining what kind of beauty it was, or is.

Now I know I have a handful of go-to words I am continually trying to restrict in copy; words like just, as in it just fits or they are just words. I also use like a lot, like as in as if. Now is pretty common too, and I know it, when I speak of the now and when, or right now. . . or write now.

But never had I considered the word beautiful as one of my sticking points.

I enjoy beauty. I like what it represents, and how it feels. I like to believe everyone has an inner beauty, and as I’ve tried to find other words that can encompass so much, realize there are few that even come close.

It is a beautiful word. Unfortunately, it is a word I overuse.

In the never-ending edit, at certain points, I can come up with a phrase or description to paint the picture of what it means or why it was used but, when it comes down to it, there are few words you can replace it with.

Beautiful.

On my desk is Roget’s Super Thesaurus 4th edition (super being a word nowhere near as strong as beautiful) and it lists a dozen options, but the words won’t fit where I want them to go.

My Oxford dictionary describes the word as “a combination of qualities such as shape, colour, etc., that pleases the aesthetic senses, esp. the sight” and “a combination of qualities that pleases the intellectual or moral sense”.

It is a pretty lofty definition that demonstrates how so much worth can be squeezed into a single word. When one word can say it all I defer to Stunk and White’s most useful rule of writing (omit needless words), and in doing so I have come to accept beautiful as one of the most powerful words.

Beauty is a thing of wonder. I often look for, or see, beauty as a means of, perhaps, steering my attention from the sadness of a day, or an unsolvable resolution.

I have lived beauty, loved beauty, and have searched for, found, and photographed objects, scenes, and people with both an obvious or uncertain beauty. I look out for beautiful words; words I use whether writing a poem or a story. I hope what I write will read beautifully, flaws and all.

Beauty is subjective, at times hard to describe, because it is not always physical or tangible. You can see it, but also feel it, or taste and smell and dream it. It is as tactile as it is invisible.

That one word, or any derivative, can describe so much: a sunrise, scent, memories, the strains of a cello, my daughter’s voice or smile. It can also sum up the lyrics of a balled, that one particular movement of an utterly complex symphony, a painting, necktie, or a guitar lick by Ry Cooder or Jimi Hendrix

Beautiful can hardly even describe the words of Pablo Neruda’s soul-shaking, heart-stopping scripture of wisdom and honesty, and I am only reading translations. I cannot fathom the true splendor of the man’s poetry spoken in his native tongue, or how much more beautiful it would feel if I could read and understand Spanish

But that is beauty that I know, and I have known more, and others may see it differently. We have all witnessed, touched, dreamt, or admired beauty and each of us may describe it differently. Nonetheless, it is what it is

Perhaps that is why I’m having some difficulty rephrasing parts of the manuscript as I have to envision scenes that are not entirely my own. While I can alter my narrative, adjust the settings and circumstance on the page, I also have to rethink dialogue that fits each of the characters I have created. We all speak and think differently, as does each of the characters in the story.

In a passage where a character stands face-to-face with the object of his desire, what else would a middle-aged man say when presented with a naked body than: “You are beautiful.”

It’s not a particularly complex scene, and this man is not a particularly complicated character. I mean, he is a nice man, a humble man (a paramedic by vocation), perhaps even an ordinary man. He, in this instance, would impulsively use the first words that would pop into his mind.

He is a regular guy, certainly not a poet or a scholar, so he wouldn’t dig into his Shakespearean vernacular and come up with “Thou, in the flesh, lessens the starriest of skies, illuminating a wonder and glory of which I could never imagine.” Come to think of it, I, as a poet, in a moment like this, could only utter something as simple, and as meaningful, as “You are beautiful”, and not because it is one of my standard go-to words.

How else would a young woman emerging from her awkward teenage years, and one who lacks confidence yet wishes to be admired, explain to an artist her wish to be captured on canvas other than “I want to be as beautiful as your painting.”

I’ve tried to come up with natural, and fitting, dialogue for these same scenes over and over, and after deleting, and altering, and questioning, have put the words right back where they were.

Beautiful works when nothing else can.

Now I will continue to work on the manuscript, and I will search out and apply alternative phrases, words and descriptions, and I will not stop until I get it right.

But, in doing so, I will continue to see the beauty of the story as it unfolds.

We take this life not for granted, but one hour,
one day, moment by moment, not knowing when we
will no longer count. Displaced, you in your wisdom
continue the route among daily delusions and
deep-seated anonymity. Colours change,
green to amber, we rush ahead, instead of slowing
or stopping for the red and allowing traffic
to move along its hurried way.
Seldom still, we balance our lives on myth,
emotion and complications. The things we carry
become a burden.
Not often enough do we remove ourselves from the
concrete and corruption of a common urban existence
to seek comfort elsewhere; away
from city sounds we have become accustomed to.
Far away, there, where noise is noticed for
what it is, and mostly silence. Natural.
Birds, however small and hardly noticed, cry out
with intention and command our attention.
As autumn passes swiftly.
We take this time not for granted, but one hour,
one whisper, moment to moment, not knowing when
we began counting. At any point the weather will
take away the splendor we barely find space to absorb,
though we know we must.
Cold winds have been hesitant of late.
Call us fortunate, for now, yet not entirely.
We watch the sky, waiting for a sign, or a message;
one we may have been too stifled to observe.
Maybe the moon, as it shifts, with you beneath it, has
captured your fancy. You notice it more
in a nocturnal setting away from the day in
day out clamor of life, as you know it.
Each day given, each day taken,
should be an opportunity or reminder
there are lessons beyond this meaningful sky.
You pay less attention to the intangibles
and shadows of former thoughts.
We take this life not for granted, but one breath,
one season, moment upon moment, not realizing
how much it counts. We drift, not alone,
but separate among others.
© 2016 j.g. lewis

You may have missed it (it was pretty easy to miss) but last Saturday was International Cassette Store Day and, let’s face it, the outdated format hasn’t been making much noise for years.

At one point the tidy little package was even outselling the LP record, but both formats slipped into the ditch after the compact disc arrived on the scene.

Inspired by the resurgence of vinyl sales in past years and, of course, by Record Store Day (the third Saturday of April), a day celebrating the cassette was introduced four years ago by manufacturers of the once-popular music source.

But we shouldn’t expect cassettes to even come close to the renewed popularity of vinyl. The equipment required to play the tapes is not readily available, and the source itself was never that reliable to begin with.

The increase in sales of the cassettes in the ‘80s was spurred on by the equipment of the day. The Walkman (granddaddy of the iPod), big-assed boom boxes, and introduction of factory-installed stereo systems in just about every automobile promoted the portability of cassette tapes. You could take your favorite music with you (something so commonplace today, but difficult then).

Music never sounded as good on cassette as it did on LP, and the packaging had even less cover art and liner notes than a CD, but portability was the magic that popularized the format.

Yet, as portable as it was, magnetic tape never responded well to the elements and could easily be spoiled by exposure to sunlight and too much heat (conditions easily found in a locked car on an average July day). The small section of exposed tape in the actual cassette would, eventually, create some sort of problem. It was not perfect.

I was never a fan of store-bought, off-the-rack, pre-recorded cassettes, but will admit to a love affair with the blank tape. It was there, on a blank 90-minute TDK, that I would be allowed to create mixtapes from the thousands of records I owned.

A mixtape was a self-made product where you would pick and choose the correct music for the moment. A mixtape was created for yourself, or shared with and given to family, friends, and lovers.

A mixtape was all about you; it showed what you were listening to, where you were emotionally, and what you were feeling at the time.

It reflected time.

Now you couldn’t just slap a bunch of tunes on a tape and call it effective. I mean, it would do (sort of) but to create the perfect tape (well, really any mixtape at all) took time. It wasn’t like today’s assortment of digital downloads, and iTunes, where a few keystrokes and a couple of minutes could result in a playlist. No, to create the perfect mixtape took time. Real time.

To record a mixtape took even more time than 90-minute tape you were working with. You had to set recording levels for each song, and master the pause/play button. You had to know, to feel, which song would work next, or when you would add the right song into the mix. You could easily spend a couple of hours creating a tape, but it was worth it every second.

Sometimes your selection of tunes would be radically changed because the vibe of a certain song spontaneously reminded you of another song from the year or decade before. It was more about feeling than format, and as you built up the playlist it would go back and forth through genres as you explored album after album trying to create the perfect mix.

On my mixes you might find Rickie Lee Jones or Patsy Cline next to The Clash, Talking Heads behind Television, or The Who followed by (Winnipeg bands) the Mongrels, Les Pucks, Harlequin, or Popular Mechanix. The Doors might play before or after Pearl Harbor & The Explosions, The Police, or Bruce Cockburn. It was what you did to fill the time you loved with what you loved.

You could do that with a mix tape; create a world you wanted to listen to past the then-boring radio of Brandon, and outside the reach of Winnipeg’s CITI FM.

In creating the playlist, you created the tempo, and I have made hundreds of tapes for myself and friends; music to drive to, music for running, music for sleeping, being, or dancing.

Mixtapes provided something more than music, they offered a feeling you just can’t get from a streaming service or computer-generated playlist based on past listens and likes.

A mixtape was organic, and now it is nostalgic.