Real Me

We all have a public profile, whether online or in person; the portion of us we are willing to share with others.  Our faces are retouched, blemishes removed, smile set just slight.  Experiences are massaged, awkwardness deleted, outcome certain.  But it isn’t complete truth, and this is my attempt to go a bit deeper than the traditional ABOUT page.

As fingers slapped keys in my efforts, childhood scenes kept landing upon the screen.  Stories of hauling green logs from hardwood forest to split for firewood.  No wonder my sisters and I all had hernia operations before the age of ten.  Freezing toes in a damp ditch as Dad and buddies blew what I thought were big kazoos, the melody wooing a circling flock of Canada geese to land in the field before us.  Smoking bees from hives, watching the guards’ stingers squeeze through the screen affixed to the brim of my hat, trying frantically to get at me.  A cabinet full of jars of dark-brown sweet stickiness with pieces of comb suspended within.

Why these memories as I try and describe myself today?  Because many still deeply affect how I think and reason, or at least catch blame for it.  But not wanting to drag you through an autobiography, the military drill sergeant, clad in starched and creased BDUs, stands firm upon one shoulder screaming into an ear, “Get it done!  Keep it short!  Answer the question!”  Across from him my creative muse, draped in white toga whispers, “A monster lurks beneath the ice.  Break through and dive in!”

I’m going to have to balance the two.  Here goes:

I enjoy things neat and organized, though an acquired taste.  My entire childhood, you couldn’t walk into my bedroom without stepping on dirty clothes, Legos, and a hundred projects haphazardly strewn.  But now, I function best when items are in order, projects complete, under control.  Yes, I’ve developed an issue with that.

Every morning I wake early, though the bed temps me hard to stay.  I rise, read the Bible, and exercise my body.  I don’t enjoy the pain of a workout.  However, I am male, vain, and aspire to not appear a slouch.  It weighs on me.  If Daddy goes out in a blaze of glory rescuing a child from a burning building, so be it.  If he dies from a heart attack because his ass was too lazy to get out of bed and get his heart rate up, I would’ve let the family down.  Yeah, I’ve got issues with duty as well.

I am deeply religious; a Christian.  It undergirds my being, the foundation for every action, the surety in which I rest.

Most enjoyable to me is working with my hands, fixing things, making them better.  Crafting raw materials of wood and metal into something functional is awesome.  I find it easiest to smile at things I can touch.  I relish projects as simple as fashioning a handrail for our back steps to the more meticulous rebuilding of a Mikuni carburetor on my son’s thirty-year-old jet ski.

However, my greatest pleasures are strong coffee, a sharp knife, well-written books, lazy Sunday mornings, studying a cold winter’s pink sunrise with a hug from my daughter, my son’s first score in park-and-rec basketball, a house humming with piano being practiced, the squelchy shriek of an attempt on the violin, strong coffee, action-adventure movies, laying under warm blankets when winter is outside, drifting asleep next to my wife of twenty-plus years, writing, off-key church hymns sung enthusiastically, truth, a zeroed rifle, and strong coffee.  I’ve got coffee issues to boot.

For more, you’ll have to follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or better yet, read my books.  All of us authors stick pieces of ourselves in there, if only subconsciously.  Sometimes even I’m surprised at what I find.  Plus, they’re awesome.  Never buy from an author who doesn’t think the same of their work!