i have longish hair combed back, think don johnson in miami vice, 1994 and i’m living in santiago, chile, always walking the city streets, one afternoon he sees me strolling, hey guy, my name is max, please take my card, i think you can model, are you interested? i had heard about other americans who’d made thousands of dollars with their blue eyes and light skin color, sure, i say, good, good, go to this place tomorrow at 4pm, he scribbles the address on the back of his card, tell them max sent you, the next day i arrive, it’s a tv ad for a washing machine, i give max’s card to a woman, ok, she says, stand on the x, spin around and smile, i nod, i get the spinning part, but i can’t smile on demand, in my head i’m thinking, this is stupid, i do another spin, another failed smile, third time’s the charm, but no, thanks for coming, she says, i throw max’s card in the trash, adios modeling career.
Category: Memoir
Trying Out For Colby Water Polo
i was an athlete, six feet, maybe 190, kinda husky, remembered water polo in high school, we played in five feet of water, i liked pushing guys around, throwing the ball into the net, polk, you should come out and play with us, the colby captain said to me one night, yeah, i thought, i can play division III water polo, the first practice was two days later, i borrowed a speedo and headed down to the pool, ok fellas, we will start with 20 laps, at this moment i should have walked away, i had never swam more than a couple laps in my life, but i was too embarrassed, so i got in, labored through 7 exhausting laps, then quietly exited the water, went to the locker room, put on my clothes, and pretended the whole thing never happened.
Palo Alto Hermit
I live two blocks from the Apple store, don’t own a cellphone or a TV, don’t have an internet connection. Some weekends I unplug my phone and I’m an ascetic, surrounded by my volumes of John Muir, Jane Kenyon, A Buddhist Bible, and my journals of poetic plodding. I watch them on their headsets, talking to the air, talking about technology into technology. They fill the Starbucks on University Avenue with their napkins, sketching schematas of the next IPO. I’m a walking anachronism, a luddite they call me, voluntary simplicity, I call me. Doing the mental math, I calculate whether I’m the only one in all of Palo Alto completely disconnected. Maybe a couple of Stanford religion majors without TV, but none would be internet free, no, that is just me, 1 out of 66,000. But there is Greg, that isn’t his real name, no one knows his real name, he drags his feet, toes sticking out of his shoes, his long, unkempt blondish brown hair jutting in all directions. Greg and the other homeless people by the creek are my kin, my kind, fiber-optically missing, invisible, off the grid. One night I meet Larry Page at a Stanford pub, we don’t talk about his company, Google. He tells me he likes Dance Dance Revolution, but only does it in private. The seven minute conversation sticks with me, like the mornings when I see Steve Jobs at the farmer’s market. Me, Steve, and Larry, we’re in this thing together, makes me feel like I’m a part of the team, the future. But all I teach about is the past, the Cherokee, the Californios, the buffalo, the removed, the replaced. I hike miles on Sundays, Butano Ridge Loop, Foothills Park, my fern-filled temple, my isolation, my solace. I try to make sense of it all, the movement of time, my standing still. After many days, maybe hours, I plug my phone back in, walk down Kipling Street, go to the library, check my email.
Swimming As Meditation
i’m experienced in walking meditation. one step slowly in front of another, ball of foot, then toes, and finally the heel, like a dog carefully touching december’s first snow. the point of walking meditation is to go nowhere, except within, and this can happen while breathing each breath, one inhale, one exhale. in the pool where i paddle pushing water with palms and legs and arms, maple leaves glide near me on the surface where i pretend to walk in deep water, treading instead. i sometimes pray, that my back heals, that i can be kinder, that i will live without fear. with glances i watch the trees, today it was a pileated woodpecker, the birds know more than i, about when to move quickly and when to just sit and wait. my quick days are over, the waiting days are here, breathe in, breathe out.
Meditating In A Church
Rome in the summer is heat and tourists. The crowds are always too much for me and I don’t shop. My favorite thing to do is simply sit in churches, breathing, meditating. Most people enter the churches with their cameras, meaning their phones, they shuffle around, snap a couple of photos of the stained glass and leave. Others approach the image of Jesus and make the sign of the cross, perhaps kneel. Occasionally, a person places two hands together and prays for several minutes. For the first few moments I notice these things, then they disappear as my eyes close. I focus on my breath, but often my mind wanders and i become someone else, perhaps a parishioner from the 18th century, or perhaps it is easter mass 1946, just after the war, i imagine myself in time, of time, back in time, the musty air speaks to me. This traveling can last 50 minutes, maybe longer, i’m there, but i’m not there, like the shoes moving around me, they exist, but only when i open my eyes. This has become my Roman ritual, the highlight of my summer vacation day. After almost an hour, i open my eyes, bow my head, silently pray, walk back out into the ancient Italian piazza sun.
Meet the Beatles!
john, george, paul, and ringo, peering out of the darkness, capitol records, 1964, my first glimpse of the british sensation, a window into my mother’s 20-something obsession. as a kid how could anyone not love i want to hold your hand? then, 1986, matthew broderick on a chicago float, twist and shout, later, revolver here, there, and everywhere, first snow in early december maine, young love in the air. and i still listen to do you want to know a secret? but it all goes back to my mom playing that album, dancing like the 1960’s never ended.
Camp Counselors At Night
2am and even the mosquitoes are sleeping, but we are still up, campers slumbering in bunk bed cabins with wet towels hanging from wooden pegs, luna moths circling bathroom lights in the distance, the talk goes on and on, 17 year-olds under summer stars in virginia countryside night, sitting on wooden picnic tables, flirting with time and each other, we’ve hit that moment where words don’t matter anymore, just eyes twinkling in the quiet dark surrounded by trees, warm july breeze, daylight will arrive, but not yet, not yet.
when art influences life
we must constantly look at things in a different way, mr. keating says in an empty movie theater, empty except for me and a friend, two amc rooms showing the movie at the same time, but everyone else went right, and we went left, so when robin williams stands on his desk, we stand, dead poets society, you guessed it, or you knew, to think that was 34 years ago, and who became a teacher and poet?
Pontiac Fiero & The American Dream
12 years old, not able to drive, but furious fingers tug on the rotary phone dialing again and again, the pontiac fiero will go to the 107th caller, says the Q107 DJ, as he cues up sweet dreams are made of these, frantic to somehow win, knowing the radio station won’t give it to me anyway, but the chase is everything, like sitting in a boat doing nothing but waiting, like scratching lottery cards, like betting everything on the yankees, busy signal, busy signal, time wasted, finally, you are the 94th caller, busy signal, i lost the car, i never had it.
I Have Fleas
i also have a borrowed walkman with one cassette, phish, rift, when you’re there, i sleep lengthwise, and when you’re gone, i sleep diagonal in my bed. july, 1993, and i’m in ojaca, honduras, you won’t find it on a map. i have fleas. listen to rift over and over again, itching in my sleeping bag, while looking for fleas by flashlight. 2am, i give up on sleeping because i have to be up at 4am to hitchhike back to gracias, a smallish town that is on a map. and you’d never believe it, but it was a great night, sometimes suffering is like that. PS-i don’t even really like phish
Daniel W. Polk 