Formative (vol. 7, no. 8)

Here are a few things I’m sharing this month:

1. Question:

“The moral influence of nature upon every individual is that amount of truth which it illustrates to him. Who can estimate this? Who can guess how much firmness the sea-beaten rock has taught the fisherman? How much tranquility has been reflected to man from the azure sky, over whose unspotted deeps the winds forevermore drive flocks of stormy clouds, and leave no wrinkle or stain?” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature

2. Quote:

“There is an inescapable tentativeness in writing of one’s own formative experiences: as long as the memory of them stays alive they remain formative; the power of growth and change remains in them, and they never become quite predictable in their influence.” – Wendell Berry, The Hidden Wound

3. Poem:

Excerpt from “When We Were 13, Jeff’s Father Left The Needle Down On A Journey Record Before Leaving The House One Morning And Never Coming Back” by Hanif Abdurraqib

and this is why none of us sing along to “Don’t Stop Believin’” when we are being driven by Jeff’s mom, four boys packed in the backseat tight like the tobacco in them cigarettes Jeff’s mom got riding

shotgun with us around I-270 in a powder blue Ford Taurus where four years later Jeff will lose his virginity to a girl behind the East High School football field then later that night his keys and pants in the school pool so that he has to run

home crying to his mother with an oversized shirt and no pants, like a cartoon bear, and the next day when I hear this story, I will think about what it means for someone to become naked two times in one night to rush into the warmth of two

women, once becoming a man and once becoming a boy all over again but right now it is just us in this car with Jeff’s mother, that cigarette smoke dancing from her lips until it catches the breeze

from the cracked front window and glides back towards us a vagabond, searching for a throat to move into and cripple while Neal Schon’s guitar rides out the speakers and I don’t know how many open windows a man has to climb out of in the middle of the night in order to have hands that can make anything scream like that.

4. Something Inspiring:

“Find out who you are and do it on purpose.” – Dolly Parton

5. Project updates:

I’m slowly gathering the pieces of a new book called Manly: A Field Report. Here’s one of them:

A giant knobby tire props the door open. 

“Can I speak to the owner?” I ask.

“That’s me.”

Fit. Muscular. Taller than me. Late 30s, maybe early 40s. T-shirt, jeans, boots, ball cap. Tattoos up and down both arms.

I tell him my name. Tell him my son’s name.

Ask, “Do you still have the truck?”

“Yes, we have it,” he answers.

“I need to lay eyes on it.”

“What kind of shop do you think I’m running here?”

“I need to see it.”

He sizes me up.

His 4×4 shop has had my son’s F-150 for close to a month. There was little to no communication for the first two weeks. Then, last week, they said it’d be ready Thursday. Thursday became Friday. Friday became Monday. Monday became Tuesday.

It’s Tuesday.

My son handles his own business. But after almost a month, it’s time for me to step in.

We walk to the garage.

He leads. I follow.

He points to a truck near the bay door, “There it is.”

I say, “That’s not it.”

We walk to the back lot where Dillon’s truck is caged in a 4×4 graveyard.

He points.

I say, “That’s it.”

Back in the office, the owner scrolls through Dillon’s repair history, then looks up.

“Man to man…,” he says.

I pause. Soften.

Reduce my suspicion. Gift him my heightened attention.

Although we’re standing in an automotive shop located in a desolate sprawl-scape of asphalt, steel, and right angles, the phrase moves us into a walled-off garden.

Sacred space…

Thanks so much. And have a great day! – shawn