A Wonderful Review for Airstreaming

A couple of weeks ago we hosted a great guy in our Airstream through Airbnb. He stayed a week and unbeknownst to me downloaded Airstreaming to his Kindle. He left this note for me the night before he left and it was wonderful to receive. Again, this is why I write – to give amazing experiences to others and to quell my own demons.  Here’s the text of the letter and I redacted a line that gives away the ending so I wouldn’t offer any spoilers up. Take a look and I’ll hope you’ll download Airstreaming as well!

September 18^th, 2015

Dear Tom,

I want to let you know how much I enjoyed your novel Airstreaming. It is a literary accomplishment that deserves much recognition. Meeting Linda, Clare, her father, the Millers and Jack and Martha took me on an emotional rollercoaster I am still very much contemplating. The way in which you introduced and intertwined these characters while slowly peeling back the onion of their inner secrets and demons was masterful. Linda’s father’s prophetic guidance about looking for the meanings behind a person’s façade and recognizing the darkness (different from sinister) really describes the empathetic 3-diminsional way you brought me into these people’s lives. The weight of this was powerful enough that by the end of “Winter” I was emotionally exhausted by all of these wounded women! “Silver” brought some welcome relief in the form of the Airstream and the prospects it represented. I didn’t fully exhale until I got to work the door with the epic Barkis. Being a huge music fan and having worked the door at a popular nightclub it brought back a lot of great memories as did the term “Up North” and the summer home – lake culture- seasonality that it represents. This was a big part of my own childhood in Northern Michigan and it felt good to relive it a little.

We all knew the Airstream would heal somebody (removed as to not give away the ending). The way in which the seriousness of Martha’s mental health issues slowly unfolded was an accurate representation of how these things often enter our lives only to leave and return. The genuine sadness I felt for Martha was commensurate with the pride I felt in Jack’s example of choosing to nurture and protect her over escaping with his own demons of work and alcohol. As men, we know these are ever present.

I could go on, but yhou don’t need a recitation of your own story. Thank you for writing this and for the experience you gave me reading it.

Warm Regards,

Michael

My Book is a Lake

For thirteen years I’ve walked along this lake, most with a dog, stick in his mouth, longing, eyes on the lake. Now, I can only touch his stick, which he is offering to me, and which I know disappoints him because I can’t throw it into the water until I heal. I’m too focused on my heart’s beat, and that I’ve dropped more weight. I’m focused on upturning my collar today as the weather has shifted back to Northwest normal. Buster has a sense about me, and he is happy to eat the spring grass, dip his toes in, and swim circles around thrown imaginary sticks. I think how I’ve turned his life around, and how he keeps me walking, the very thing I have to do.

Walking is a sort of meditation. I meditate on all the stories I’ve collected through my job. The one I keep going back to is of this beautiful woman from Denver, hair a black, tangled nest around her thin face, her smile, as she tells me about the book she wrote for her son following her first heart surgery and how, after her second surgery she runs marathons, but still she says, “I shouldn’t be here, but I am.”

I take pleasure when my barber vacuums my head after my first haircut, tasting my first Baja Taco, my first sip of decaf coffee, avocados. Everything seems new.

My book is a lake I walk along every day. Sometimes it’s a mirror, others it is a place I could drown in. Today the sun halos my dog’s muzzle as he runs the trail ahead of me and then looks back as if to say, “c’mon, there is more to see.”

Opportunities for Stillness

Months of healing ahead

seemed a prison,

a sentence of no action,

and me tracking the sun

across the day a way

to move time.

At the bank,

a retired black man,

warm, inviting eyes,

who’d been in my shoes,

said, “Healing is

an opportunity for stillness.”

Which knocked me down.

His big, wide smile

I could’ve disappeared in.

We reached out,

touched fingers

and I was left with stillness.

These are the family names,

hearts retired young:

Tom, Jack, Brad and Jack.

Remember.

Reach for the bottle

and lets regale them,

and tell stories long since

heightened, festooned

with gold leaf, crystal,

elements that lend

themselves to elevation.

We are travelers,

with opportunities for

stillness. We are diviners

for justice. We are

perpetrators burrowing

into the unknowable.

We can’t know when

that moment comes,

when our lives move

into silence, into

air echoing with all

that has gone before, but

nights are opportunities

to hold each other close,

in a stilled cluster,

as twins are in the womb,

dreaming of the day

you come out gasping,

knowing that you

can be alive again.

2 AM Albums

As a writer, there is nothing more motivational for me than music. Over the years, I’ve used all kinds of music to set the scene, draw emotion and keep the mind engaged for long stretches in front of the computer. Nothing compels me more than the right music for writing. Since I’m a lousy sleeper and can’t shut my mind off when I wake in the early morning, I usually go to my iPad or computer on my nightstand and surf for new music. Since most of the writing I do comes from dark corners, the music I listen to I call 2 AM music because most of the time I’ve discovered it right around then.

Here are some amazing 2 AM albums that have seen me through the dark passages, or eased me into the state at which they are more easily reached.

HATS by THE BLUE NILE – A timeless collection of late night imagery brought to life by a world-weary voice and impeccable production. Over twenty-five years, this band has put out four albums. Not very prolific, but some of the best.

THE WALKING by JANE SIBERRY – At her best, Jane Siberry’s visceral music takes on cinematic overtones and this album is a great example of that: a compromised woman entering a church in her bright red shoes, a lonely person wanting just the right table, a white tent and raft traveling down river. When I first heard this, it was quite an experience.

FOR EMMA FOREVER AGO by BON IVER – Quiet, reflective and devastating for all the right reasons.

EVERYBODY DIGS BILL EVANS – Peace Piece I could listen to over and over – in my last moments, this is what I want to hear.

MID AIR by PAUL BUCHANAN – A quintessential 2 am album that has maybe 4 instruments and Buchanan’s deeply felt vocals. The imagery alone is worth a listen.

BITTER by ME’SHELL N’DEGEOCELLO – I remember standing in Virgin Records many years ago when I was living in Los Angeles listening to this entire cd because I couldn’t stop. It’s an emotional tour-de-force and one of her finest records.

INTO THE MUSIC by VAN MORRISON – Huge fan for many years, but this is the album I continually go back to for the entire 2nd side of the album (when albums had 2 sides). One song blends into the other, and his use of repetition goes to the heart of why I love Van Morrison. Inflections change on each word giving it meaning.