Author: frankisemptiness

January 17th, 2018

Karin let the candles on the Christmas tree burn down last night. The Christmas tree itself didn’t burn down, just the candles that were on it. Karin always puts real candles on a real Christmas tree every year.  She has little metal candle holders that attach to the tree branches. She places candles in the holders, and we light them once or twice during the Christmas season. Finally, Karin burns the candles all the way down until the wax is completely consumed. Then the holidays are officially over, and we celebrate the fact that we haven’t burned the house down.

You may at this point ask, “Why do you have candles on your Christmas tree?”

The answer to that question is: “Because Karin is a German.” She isn’t just a descendant of German immigrants. She is a bonafide, genuine Deutscher Frau. Germans like to have real Christmas trees (preferably Douglas firs or some type of spruce). They like to have candles on their trees, and they like to see those candles burn. They just do.

Honestly, watching candles flicker on a fir tree in a darkened room is truly a glorious sight. The scene has kind of an edgy beauty. It is nice to sit and look at the tree, while sipping a warm mug of Gluehwein. The smell of evergreen and beeswax fills the air. Maybe some cheesy German Weihnachtslieder are playing on the stereo. A person closely observes the ephemeral beauty of the the tiny, golden lights. This is due to the fact that a moment’s inattention could result in the whole tree going up in flames. One does not wander off while the tree is lit.

Karin and I start the Christmas season later than most people. This partly due to our desire to follow the Church calendar and actually experience Advent. It is also partly due to our procrastination. We generally don’t buy a tree until the last possible minute. If Karin has the tree decorated by Christmas Eve, we consider that to be a major win. Karin prefers wooden or straw ornaments. We do have a metal star on the top of the tree. Stefan welded it for us. It’s a tad heavy, but it really looks cool.

We do not light the candles often. As a rule, they get lit on Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve, and the Feast of the Epiphany. If there is still any wax left after that, then Karin burns the candles down to nothing, and I hope to God that our insurance is paid up.

Holiday traditions are unique to every family. Every home has its own way of celebrating their festivals. Everybody has a different story and a different tradition.

We just like to live dangerously.

Frohe Weihnachten!

 

 

 

 

January 16th, 2018

It only took five minutes. Our loved one had been nervously awaiting this arraignment hearing for months, and the whole process was absurdly brief. The whole point of it was for the public defender to enter the young woman’s “not guilty” plea, and then set up the date for the next hearing. Beyond that, nothing was decided. The girl goes back to jail for two more months with her future still undetermined.

Our loved one wanted Karin and I to be there with her for the arraignment. I am not entirely sure why she needed us, unless it was to have us physically there with her. Karin and I were not involved at all in the hearing. We just sat on a wooden bench across the room from the girl. We weren’t allowed to communicate with the woman, although we did that anyway in subtle ways. Karin smiled at the girl and made movements as if she were hugging her. I nodded at the young woman. In return, our loved one gave us a quick finger wave. She didn’t smile back. She was completely silent and stone-faced.

The young woman sat stiffly in a chair, wearing her dark blue jail uniform with bright orange slippers on her feet. I remember that the jail in Las Vegas had those slippers too. They must be standard issue for most jails. The girl was handcuffed, and she wore leg shackles.

I cannot get rid of the image of this young woman in chains. If I close my eyes right now, I see her as clearly as I did a few hours ago in that courtroom. That picture is seared into my memory. I can’t forget it because it felt (and still feels) so wrong. I know that I was there and I know that I saw her like that, but my mind rebels at this memory. Part of me screams, “No, it wasn’t like that. It couldn’t be like that!”

A while ago, I had a good friend ask me, in all seriousness, if this troubled young woman was just using me. That question puzzled and angered me. If she is playing me, she is doing a terrible job of it. I suspect that she is not trying to take advantage of me. But, even if she is, who cares? If it eases her suffering to have me help her, even if she doesn’t deserve that help, then it’s okay by me. Karin and I drove for hour through a snowstorm this morning to spend a whole five minutes in the same room as this girl, and we would gladly do it again.

Sometimes we do a thing without considering the results or the costs. Sometimes we do something simply because it the right thing to do and it needs to be done. Sometimes we do a thing out of love.

 

 

January 11th, 2018

Last night I went to help teach the citizenship class at Voces de la Frontera. It was a slow night. We didn’t have many students. Sergio walked in a little after 6:00 PM. I sat down with him to work on the questions for his retest at the immigration office. He failed his first attempt at the citizenship exam, and he has to go for it again in less than a week.

Sergio is a few years older than I am.  He’s a retired widower. He’s been living in the U.S. for decades. Sergio is an intelligent man, and he seems to be very conscientious. He failed the test because the examiner determined that Sergio didn’t understand English well enough. The problem is not so much with Sergio’s fluency in English. I’ve worked with other students who had a much weaker grasp of the language. Sergio’s problem is that he does not always listen.

Sergio and I went over a series of questions from his N-400, the citizenship application.

“Sergio, when was your son born?”

He looked at me quizzically and asked, “My son?”

“Yes, your son. When was he born?”

Sergio replied, “In Mexico.”

I sighed. “NO, not where was he born. When was he born?”

Sergio finally gave me his son’s birth date, we proceeded to the next question.

Later I asked him to answer some of the civics questions.

“What did the Declaration of Independence do?”

Sergio looked puzzled. “The Declaration of Independence?”

“Yes. The Declaration of Independence. What did it do?”

Sergio said, “Freedom of speech?”

I rubbed my eyes. “Uh no. The Constitution gave us freedom of speech. The Declaration of Independence declared our independence from Great Britain. The answer to the question is in the name: ‘Declaration of Independence’. The Declaration of Independence declared our independence. You see?”

Sergio nodded, “Yes, I see.”

No, you don’t.

After a while, I said to Sergio, “At the test you need to really listen to the examiner. Sometimes you don’t understand what I am asking you. If you don’t understand the examiner, ask him to repeat the question.”

Sergio nodded. “Yes, I ask him to repeat.”

“Yeah, or ask him to say it in another way. Or ask him to say it more slooooowly. Make sure you understand the question before you try to answer. Don’t guess.”

“Okay, Frank, I do that.” Sergio seemed tired and worried.

I told him, “Sergio, you are going to be fine. You’ll be okay. I believe in you. You’re going to pass.”

Another teacher, Mary Pat, asked Sergio if he wanted to practice some more on Saturday morning. He said yes to that.

I told Sergio, “You retest is on Tuesday morning. If you want, I can meet you here on Monday to work on the questions again. You just have to let me know. I don’t want you in class again after Tuesday.

Mary Pat told him, “We don’t want to see you again”, and she laughed at her own joke.

I told Sergio, “Actually, we do want to see you again. We want you to tell everybody here how well you did, and how happy you are to be a citizen.”

Mary Pat added, “Yes, exactly.”

Sergio said, “Okay, Frank. Thank you.” We shook hands.

I got ready to leave. Sergio said, “I gonna pass.”

 

 

January 10th, 2018

I was at the VA hospital last night. The psych. ward was a busy place. There were twenty-five patients staying there. The folks from the local American Legion post brought along pizzas for the vets, so the break room was full people eager to score some snacks. I put out some grapes for the patients. Besides the pizzas, we had cookies and sodas. We actually started to run out of food toward the end of our visit. That doesn’t often happen.

I spent most of my time conversing with a young Air Force veteran. I had seen him there the week before, but during that previous visit we hadn’t had a chance to get to know each other. Once I was done serving diet, non-caffeinated soft drinks to the other patients, I sat down with Adam, and we just talked for a while. Another patient, an elderly woman, sat at the table with us.

Adam told me, “I’m a drug addict.” He made a point of showing me his arms. He really didn’t need to do that. I would have taken his word for it.

I said to Adam, “Everybody is an addict.”

He paused for a moment and replied, “Yeah, I’ve heard that before, that everyone is hooked on something.”

It’s true. In some ways, the chemical addictions are the easiest to handle, because they are the most obvious, and they tend to get people into the most immediate sorts of trouble. But everybody is stuck somewhere on something. I have never met anybody who was completely free of attachments. I know I’m not.

Most patients don’t stay on the third floor for more then a week. The VA likes to get these people stabilized, and then move them to a halfway house, or somewhere. Adam told me that they didn’t have a place for him to go yet, so that’s why he was spending more quality time in the psych. ward of the VA. It’s not a happy place to be.

Adam and I talked about jail and prison. Adam has been in jail, and I spent a very brief period in there too. I mentioned to Adam that somebody I love is currently in jail, and that my wife and I were trying to help her. I also said that this young woman is likely to go to prison for a while.

The older woman sitting next to us to a break from gumming her slice of pizza, and said in a raspy voice,

“Anything less than a year in prison ain’t nothing.”

Adam thought for a moment, and replied to her, “Well, I’m sure you’re right, but any time in jail is bad. Even two days in jail are two days of your life that are lost.”

Amen, Brother.

Then Adam told me, “When I was in jail, I only got one letter from my parents. They told me not to bother them until I got out.”

Ouch.

I winced when Adam said that because, many years ago, I got in trouble, and my dad basically told me, “You’re no son of mine!” I know how that feels when your own flesh and blood turn their back on you.  It hurts, and it’s so, so wrong.

The person that we love has told my wife and me that we have in the past abandoned her.  Maybe so. A year ago, Karin and I took our loved one to stay with her cousin on a mountain in Oregon. We had no other ideas, and nobody else was willing to provide a home for the young woman. The experience clearly sucked, and Karin and I wish we had been able to do something else for her. We just didn’t know what to do. Honestly, we still don’t know what to do for the girl we love.

I don’t think that people hurt others out of spite or malice, at least not very often. I truly believe that people hurt each other mostly because of ignorance. We just don’t know the right thing to do. Perhaps we are willfully blind to the truth, or perhaps we are too frightened to recognize what we have to do. In any case, we cause suffering because we are clueless. That’s how I do it.

Eventually, the pizza was all eaten, and it was time for me to leave the VA. I shook Adam’s hand, and I told him to stay clean and to get healthy.

Adam is a good guy, but I hope that I never see him in the psych. ward again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 7th, 2018

I bought a train ticket. One way. Milwaukee to Seattle. That means forty-four hours of window time. Most of that period will be spent admiring the scenic beauty of North Dakota and eastern Montana in February. It will be a long, snowy journey. So, why am I going?

Don’t know.

I mean…I have a reason for travelling to Seattle. However, that reason simply brings up a new question. The plan is for me to participate in a peace walk with some Native American groups. The walk is called the “Longest Walk 5.3”, and it actually starts in Blaine, WA. Blaine is northwest of Seattle. If you go north of Blaine, you are in Canada, and if you west of Blaine, you are in the Pacific Ocean. The walk ends in Washington, DC. It begins on February 16th and ends, God willing, on July 14th.

The walk is supposed to promote awareness of domestic violence and drug abuse. I don’t know the route we will be taking. I don’t know where we will be staying each night, or who will be feeding us. All I know is that I will be gathering together with a large number of strangers in a strange town to walk to places I have never seen before. The idea is appealing to me. Why?

Don’t know.

I told Karin a few months ago that I wanted to go on another peace walk. I have been on a walk that went for 165 miles. This exercise is exponentially longer than that walk. Karin is okay with me going on this jaunt. She has grown accustomed to my adventures. She smiled and told me, “I’ll be okay.”

I replied, “I know that. I wouldn’t have even considered doing this if I didn’t know that you would be all right.”

So, is this a pilgrimage? Yes, it could qualify as that. Why do people go on a pilgrimage? To find God? To find themselves? To get away from the blandness of a regular routine? Why am I going?

Don’t know.

I don’t know if I will complete the entire walk. I somehow doubt it. The guy organizing the event, Bobby, knows that I write and he is visualizing me as the walk’s writer, media guru, and PR guy. I think he is vastly overestimating my abilities. There will have to be a lot of on-the-job training.

I am supposed to learn something from this walk. What am I supposed to learn?

Don’t know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 1st, 2018

My sister-in-law, Shawn, likes to send us music CD’s that are unconventional. For Christmas she mailed us a copy of “Yahudky” from DakhaBrakha. This is one of those albums that provoke unsuspecting persons to exclaim, “What the fuck are we listening to?!” Yes, it is twisted and disturbing, and oh so addictive.

The album cover is, well, odd. It shows some young Ukrainian women dressed in peasant blouses and long, dark skirts. These girls are wearing tall, black, furry hats that make them look like Slavic cone heads. The album has no liner notes. There is a list of the songs on the recording, but absolutely no other information about the band or the music. Thank God for YouTube. Apparently, there is male accordion player, two female drummers, and a female cellist involved in this process. All four of the band members sing… in Ukrainian.

Some of the songs are lively, with a lot of intense drumming. “Sho Z-Pod Duba” is like that. The beat almost feels African at times. The melodies tend to sound Gypsy, or Jewish, or just pagan. The female vocalists somehow remind me of the B-52’s on meth. The singing is often wild and frantic, until they crash, and crash hard.

The band likes to use minor keys. Some of the songs have a deep melancholy sound. The group also has an affinity for sound effects. One song, “Oy, U Kyevi” has the sound of the wind moaning across the steppe. “Na Dobranich” has wolf calls is the background, along with a cello part that sounds like it came from an Apocalyptica album. The vocal harmonies in “Na Dobranich” are eerie and haunting. Think “Sinead O’Conner Meets Dracula”. It’s music for a witch’s sabbath. I mean that in the best possible way.

Yeah, I think I will turn off all the lights, except for a candle or two. Then I’ll make sure the doors are locked, and crank up the music. I have to check if we have any vodka in the house.

 

 

December 31th, 2017

The following letter was printed in the Capital Times (Madison WI) yesterday. A similar  letter from me has been posted in the Chicago Tribune, dated January 1st, 2018. I am displaying the letter to the Tribune immediately below the letter to the Capital times. Pick one of them, and then try to be festive.

To the Capital Times:

“Dear Editor: I have been spending time over this holiday reading about the prospect of war between the United States and North Korea. Needless to say, I am not feeling the joy and peace that should come with this season.

It is fascinating to me how numb we have become to violence. The U.S. is currently fighting in several countries around the world, and it appears that we are edging closer to another war, this time in East Asia. In our current wars we have grown accustomed to the idea of “collateral damage.” We don’t even blink when civilians are killed by bombs or drones. However, with the slaughter of those innocent and apparently expendable people, we are only talking in terms of hundreds or maybe thousands of casualties. A war with North Korea would certainly cause tens of thousands of deaths, and possibly millions of fatalities. Millions. I get the impression from reading the news that somehow that number of deaths is acceptable (as long as they aren’t Americans). We’ve come a long way.”

 

To the Chicago Tribune:

“I have been reading the news regarding the prospects of war between the United States and North Korea. It strikes me that since 9/11 we, as Americans, have become increasingly numb to the tragedy of war. First, we invaded Afghanistan. Then we invaded Iraq. Now U.S. forces are fighting in several countries simultaneously. For most people these wars are just background noise. Few people actually pay any attention to them, unless they or a loved one are actively fighting overseas.

We have become used to the idea of “collateral damage.” It doesn’t seem to bother us if civilians in faraway countries are killed by our bombs or drones. The media seldom even report those deaths. We are not shocked when hundreds or even thousands of innocent (and apparently expendable) people die in our wars. Now, we are edging toward a new war, this time in East Asia. If we fight against North Korea, it will surely cause tens of thousands of casualties. It might even cause a million people to die. A million people.

I can’t even conceive of the slaughter of a million people, much less justify it. How can we go to war if we know that Seoul may be incinerated? Are we willing to protect Chicago by offering up Tokyo? If we are somehow okay with a million deaths, then we have come a long, long way on a very dark road.”

Francis Pauc

 

December 27th, 2017

Damn, it was cold when I went to the VA hospital on Tuesday evening. The thermometer in the Subaru showed that it was a solid two degrees Fahrenheit outside. I grabbed my bag of grapes, and walked through the parking lot to the entrance of the hospital. I kept my head down as the wind blew across the frozen tundra. There was a clear sky, and the air had that Arctic feel to it. It was not a good night to be out of doors.

I show up at the VA most Tuesday evenings to visit the vets in the psychiatric ward on the third floor of the building. Usually, I am there with several other volunteers from the American Legion. Since it was Christmastime, most everybody else was out of town, so only Jim and I were there to spend time with the patients. Jim brought sodas and sugary snacks, mostly homemade Christmas cookies, for the veterans. I always bring grapes, so that we provide at least one thing that qualifies as healthy. The patients like the grapes as much as they like the other snacks. There are never any grapes left over.

Christmastime is the busy season at the psych. ward. The third floor is packed at this time of year. The holidays bring out the best in people, or they bring out the worst. Folks who are already living on the edge tend to fall off when Christmas comes. The loneliness and the grief become overwhelming. The season of mandatory happiness is too much for the people who struggle to find any joy in their lives. The lights and the laughter simply accentuate their own darkness and tears. It’s not a good time.

Jim and I set up our array of goodies. Vets shuffled into the break room to grab bowls of popcorn, plates of cookies, cups of soda, and handfuls of grapes. Not many people wanted to talk. If they did talk, they were mostly talking to themselves. A woman my age sang off key to herself, and then laughed about it. She went out of her way to help other vets carry their food to a table. It helped her to be helpful.

One of the nurses shepherded a young woman through the break room. The young woman never spoke. She glared at everything and everybody. The nurse, and other people, asked the girl if she wanted anything to eat. She just gave us all that stone cold stare. Pain and silent rage. I know that look very well.

I thought about our loved one, who was at that moment in jail. Our girl has not had a Christmas at home for three years. This year she sits in jail. Last Christmas she was in a place just like the psych. ward. The year before that, she was in another jail. I was lost in thought until a vet asked me for some soda. I cleared my mind, and I gave him a cup of Diet Sierra Mist.

Some of the vets talked among themselves. Some just sat and watched “Wheel of Fortune”. For a while, even I was watching “Wheel of Fortune”. That’s depressing.

Maybe I wasn’t paying attention, but I didn’t notice much for holiday decorations in the psych. ward. It’s just as well. Why remind these people of a holiday that they can’t share? They all seemed happy that Jim and I were there. I don’t think that is was just because we brought snacks. I think it was because we bothered to show up. Sometimes the best thing a person can do is to show up. Just be there.

Jim and I hung around for a while. We talked with the patients. Some of them were new to the place. Some of them we knew from previous visits. Some of the patients don’t ever get better. They get recycled. They go to a halfway house or someplace else, and then they come back to the ward again, and again, and again. Some people can’t heal any more.

Jim and I left after about an hour and a half. The attendants on duty let us out. The doors are always locked to prevent an “elopement”. Yeah, people in pajamas try to leave the ward, and go somewhere. I don’t know where they try to go. I don’t think that they know either.

I walked through the windswept lot back to my car. Next time I have to bring more grapes.

 

 

December 25th, 2017

Karin and I attended Midnight Mass at St. Rita. I stood in front of the congregation late last night to proclaim the Prayers of the Faithful. I made a mistake during one of the petitions. In the prayer, as written, we ask God, our Father-Forever, to “help your children” who are suffering on Christmas, especially those who are imprisoned. For whatever reason, I actually said “our children”. I guess I said it that way because I really was thinking about “our children”, at least about one child in particular. It was difficult to get through that prayer because it was all up close and personal. It hurt.

Yesterday afternoon Karin and I drove to the Kenosha County Jail. We went to visit our loved one. She was worried that we would not be able to come to her because it was Christmas Eve. I had called the jail earlier in the week and they told me that it didn’t matter that it was Christmas Eve. As far as they were concerned, it was just another Sunday afternoon. The drive to Kenosha was a little stressful. It had been snowing. The roads were slick and the drivers were stupid. We got there.

I had my ten minutes with our loved one. We talked shop. We talked about when she would get the results of her blood test (drug scan). We talked about her public defender. We talked about everything except Christmas. I refused to bring it up. It just seemed too painful for the loved one and for me. In a way it doesn’t matter what the jail does to celebrate Christmas with the inmates. Anything that the jail does is simply a reminder of what the inmates cannot do. It would seem best to just ignore the holiday. It would be easier to pretend that Christmas did not exist.

At the end of the prayer for those imprisoned, I asked God to let them “feel Your loving embrace”. Does our loved one feel that embrace? Do I feel it?

 

 

 

 

December 24th, 2017

I’ve been thinking in German. This is the result of binge-watching a German Netflix series with Karin. The title of the series is “Dark”, and it is completely appropriate. It matches the show’s subject matter, the scenery, and the language. The series addresses a number of heavy themes: free will (Freier Wille), fate (Schicksal), the purpose of our lives, and the existence of God. I am convinced that no American TV show would even attempt to incorporate these topics into a drama. As it is, “Dark” combines wormholes, time travel, and the dangers of nuclear energy into a story of generations of tangled family relationships. Most of my time was spent trying to figure out who was connected to whom, as the series progressed.

“Dark” appeals to me for a couple reasons. The story takes place in a town called Winden, which is actually not terribly far from where Karin lived all those years ago. Part of the show, since it has to do with time travel, takes place in 1986. I was stationed in Germany in the early 80’s, so the images on the screen bring back some memories for me. It is impossible to completely re-create the past, but the show does a tolerable job of it. The mood in the series is spot on. I remember Germany as being often dark and rainy. Most of the action in the series takes place at night, or in caves, or in dimly-lit, Teutonic forests: dark places conducive to thinking dark thoughts. The premise of the show is a bit silly, but the feeling is accurate. The language accentuates the tension and the gloom. I don’t think this show would work nearly as well in Spanish or Italian: those languages are too light and too sunny.

One of the show’s hooks is that it touches upon the very human desire to go back in time, and tweak the past. People often want to unsay words or undo actions. There is a scene where an old woman tells her grandson, ”

“Wenn ich die Zeit zurückdrehen könnte, würde ich viele Dinge anders machen.”

“If I could turn back Time, I would do many things differently.”

I wonder about that. If I could go back, would I really change things? I doubt it.

The series has a strong Buddhist vibe. There is a heavy emphasis on the interconnections between all things. There is also the notion of being in the present moment. One character in the show is a elderly watchmaker/inventor/scientist. At one point he converses with a time traveler. The time traveler ask the scientist if he has any desire to see the future or to revisit the past. The old man replies,

“Nein, ich würde nicht in die Zukunft oder in die Vergangenheit gehen wollen. Ich gehöre hier … jetzt.”

“No, I would not want to go to the future or to the past. I belong here…now.”

That is totally Zen.

Generally, I don’t watch television. I find most shows to be mindless and superficial.

This one haunts me.