what he said

i have often wondered about the mark i'll leave here when i go....you know, go...gonzo. and i have thought about this with no real measure of it, my life, such as it is. or has been. and not a mark or any sort of genius, or measure of greatness, but something...i can't explain it nor can i think what it could have been - or may be. in the future.
there's a course of thought that follows moments of mortal clarity...does that make sense at all?...my father had a stroke a few weeks ago, and apparently one 11 years ago as well - that i was not told about. (the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree i now see....) anyhow...it has caused me to think of things in a slightly different light, a dim sometimes flickering one, but a different one. sure, he's in great shape, but had a stroke nonetheless. and i have told stories about our weird and sometimes strained relationship, both here and in private....but i love that guy. and am happy i have said that out loud to him in recent times as there's nothing worse that saying something after the fact, when it's too late to be heard. i tell people i love them because i know it matters. a lot. but back to the matter at hand....this mortality we have sucks, and it would be nice to do something that matters, but a guy's gotta make a buck too...but that's another issue altogether. a mark, like a small scar on the side of a building you notice every day as you walk to work, that no one ever seems to paint over. something carved into the cement before it dries. the words, "trust your gut" are carved into the sidewalk at homer and seymour. i look at them every time i walk by there.
issy, god bless her, has helped and made a huge difference her entire life. working in hospitals doing the work many of us wouldn't do for all the money there was available. really. and i'm sure she changed a few lives along the way, probably a lot. her giving nature is one that can't help but get passed on to anyone who meets her. she's really one in a billion. there's nothing i wouldn't do for her. nothing.
floyd travelled, after retiring, to africa to help set-up a school for children there who, without him and a few others, would never have such a school or opportunity. no pay for it. in fact, it cost him money to make it happen, for him to be there, to help out. he made lifelong friends there and gained the kind of thing there, and intangible, we could all just hope to have a little of. he cuts lawns too - so he really is one of the chosen few.
i have been reading a new richard ford novel, the lay of the land, a third part of a trilogy, and as i was reading it came across a passage that kind of summed -up what i mean by leaving a mark...but know this, it comes across here out of context and maybe a little flippant but underneath the words is something i adhere to. it makes so much sense to me. i will, or maybe have already done what i wanted to do through my actions and the path i have taken but don't realize it yet or just can't see it.
maybe one day i'll figure it out. in the meantime, soon there will be lawns to cut and more lemonade to drink.

g. xo

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in the passage preceeding the one i am about to quote, frank overhears a woman say "frank would never do that..." but he has no idea what 'that is. what is being referred to. and he starts to give some thought to what it is he may do. his character and how people, may, view him....

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from page 53 of richard ford's 'lay of the land'.

but very little about me, i realized - except what i'd already done, said, eaten, etc. - seemed written in stone, and all of that meant almost nothing about what i might do. i had my history, okay, but not really much of a regular character, at least not an inner essence i or anyone could use as a predictor. and something, i felt, needed to be done about that. i needed to go out and find myself a recognizable and persuasive semblance of a character. i mean, isn't that the most cherished pre-posthumous dream of all? the news of our premature demise catching everyone so unprepared that beautiful women have to leave fancy dinner parties to be alone for a while, their poor husbands looking around confused; grown men find they can't finish their after-lunch remarks at the founders club because they're so moved. children wake up sobbing. dogs howl., hounds begin to bark. all because something essential and ineffable has been erased, and the world knows it and can't be consoled.
but given how i was conducting life-staying offshore, waiting for the extra beat-i realized i could die and no one would remember me for anything. "oh, that guy, frank, uh. yeah. hmmm...." that was me.
and not that i wanted to blaze my initials forever into history's oak. i just wanted that when i was no more, someone could say my name (my children? my ex-wife?) and someone else could then say, "right, that bascombe, he was a damn good blank." or, worse case, "jesus christ, that bascombe, i'm gald to see the end of his sorry blank" these blanks would all be human traits i knew about and others did too, and that i got credit for, even if they weren't heroic or particularly essential.

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