Power

It’s always nice to receive surprise validation.

 It’s always nice to receive any validation, of course, like when you receive detailed instructions, and then sort of forget all of them, but you make the thing anyway, just weirdly, and your boss tells you that you’re quite a guy, and please do it over, or when someone close to you tells you that you are the poster boy for unused potential, and it really rings true because you’ve heard it all your life.

Yeah! I’ve got potential! Feels great.

It’s Latin for power.

All that power.

 It’s hard to pick a direction sometimes, especially when things are easy. All that power, and I’m gonna play scales on an unamped guitar? All that experience, and I’m going to extrude cylinders and learn file management in CAD? All that strength, and I’m not going to max out my lifts every time? Journaling is for losers, am I really going to journal every day?

The issue with following the path of your chosen direction is the resistance to the mundane; it’s not sexy. It’s just walking. Just imagine trying to convince a living room full of comfortable people that it’s time to go for a walk. Disparaging looks, maybe some scoffing. Nobody wants to leave the room. But if you light the couch on fire, the decision to leave starts to look pretty good, and everyone will make that choice with alacrity.

 It’s not good to do things like that, though. It’s not good to live in crisis mode, hopping from one near, or total disaster to the next like it’s the Most Extreme Elimination Challenge in town. It’s exhausting, and dangerous, and ultimately unsatisfying.

Or so I’ve heard.

 I took on a writing challenge once. NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. The challenge is to write a 50,000 word novel draft in the month of November. Rough as guts, no editing or over thinking, just smash it out. I’d wanted to do it since before the internet, after I bought and read the book No Plot, No Problem by the instigators of this wonderful madness. It took me until 2013 to actually get to it, but I went for it.

It was pretty hard. 1772 words a day stack up pretty quick when you miss a few days and have a drinking problem. I also kept checking social media for tips and tricks, hopefully some magic that would make it as easy as dreaming about it was. I also posted progress updates, looking for the buoyancy of hearts and thumbs to organize my thoughts and provide me with flow.

 And I was completely blind sided when it happened.

 I’m not sure how much Morgan Thorp read or wrote. I’d known him forever, we were friends. We grew up together in a small town and moved in different, frequently overlapping circles. I accidentally hurt his feelings once, and I always felt bad about it. I mean the guy was the size of a grizzly bear, and would probably stare one down while calmly reaching for another Lucky Lager. That’s how I’d write it, anyway. The man was a legend. Outdoorsman, hunter, and especially, fisherman. Morgan won international renown for river and lake fishing, for what, I can’t say. I honestly hate fishing, but I respect and admire anyone with direction and passion. I love it when someone loves something so much that they can’t help but grind, and work, and suffer for it, succeed at it.

 I don’t know how many times he offered to take me out fishing and hunting, him and his brother Nick, but I never went. I have plenty of memories with those two, but I passed on the opportunity to see a master at work. That’s ok, though, I got to see him with his daughters. There is something so profoundly wonderful about seeing a couple of cute little toddlers, with their pinks and camo and pony tails reaching waaaay up to hold the finger of a gigantic, bearded, tattooed, rugged man, and knowing that there is nowhere he would rather be, than out fishing.

I’m kidding, he’d take them with him.

It was fun to see him with his kids, his daughters. I never loved him more. Almost.

 I guess I knew Morgan pretty well, but I learned so much more about him after he suddenly died.

 I don’t know how many awards Morg won. I don’t know how many people he taught to fish, and to hunt, how to properly kill and eat things, how to love being outside, and how to be good at it. I don’t know how many, but it was a lot. The outpouring of love and admiration, bordering on reverence, for the man was quite a wonder to behold. I believe that Morgan Thorp lived well in the time he was given.

 And I told him he was getting fat.

And he told me that he was, in fact losing weight like a motherfucker, and that what I said hurt his feelings.

It’s so weird, too, because I NEVER say shit like that. Ever.

So that’s my special memory with the legendary Morgan Thorp, but I do have another one, and it’s even better.

 Morgan liked one of my NaNoWriMo updates on Facebook one day. We hadn’t spoken for a long time, possibly years, and I didn’t fish, or hunt, I didn’t follow what he was doing on social media, I probably didn’t even know he was on social media, but he liked my post about writing over 2000 words in a day. He said, “That’s awesome.” And it was, you know?

It came out of nowhere, and I was completely shocked. And I fucking loved him for it.

He kept at it too. Morg interacted with every one of my updates about my writing progress, and I needed that. I needed that so bad. I needed a surprise that felt good. I needed someone to hold me in unconditional positive regard, and Morgan Thorp did, even though I called him fat. Maybe because, I don’t know.

I didn’t complete the challenge. I wrote about 35,000 words by the end of the month, probably 20,000 of them were written under the spell of a random kindness.

 And so I miss him. I miss Morg.

 I miss random kindnesses, too, not because they aren’t there, but because I forget to look for them, and I forget to share them out. I wall up, protecting myself from unkindness, and sitting in it as a result. The price of peace. It’s too high.

 I’m transcribing my book from the half drunk longhand scramble that it is onto my laptop so I can finish it. When it’s published it’ll be dedicated to Morgan Thorp because, somehow, he saw me staggering after MY passion, and gave me a thumbs up.

I guess he understood me, after all.

The big softy.