Living My Life

With 10 things I can’t do without

Paul Combs wrote pretty eloquently this morning about 10 things he couldn’t live without and then issued a dignified challenge of sorts to others who feel that life is better lived with certain essentials. And while I don’t share his love for Camel Crush Menthols — or any form of smoke unless it’s of the CBD/Delta 8 variety — I can copy several of his other hits.

So let me get started with a few of retreads from Paul’s list.

1. Coffee. My only true chemical/organic addiction. As some of you know, I consume at least four twenty-ounce mugs a day of pure, unadulterated grind-my-own-beans 100% with caffeine coffee. Mainly, I order beans from Red Rooster, Atlas, and Grounds and Hounds, though if I travel to any place with a roaster, I’ll buy beans. How else can I write as much as I do, and so fast? And then, late in the afternoon, I supplement with a cup of tea, preferably Red Diamond or PG Tips (“England’s Best”).
2. Great Fiction (and hell, Nonfiction too). I’m on the verge of finishing Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood and have loved every word. It took me a while to pick this up, but with Patti Smith’s urging, I’m there now, going after a title that stirs my music world, too. Patti writes some pretty fine nonfiction, of course, so if you haven’t read Just Kids, you’re missing out, big time.
3. Bookstores/Record Stores. Why do I need to elaborate? Add libraries, too — any place where the staff wants you to read, to grow, to celebrate the written and recorded world. Our local stores — M. Judson (where I’m also giving a reading tonight at 5:30) and Horizon — are mainstays in my routine, and while I do buy online, the experience of exploring and touching — even in this Covid world — still stands above any virtual endeavor.
4. Music/My new Turntable. My daughter calls my new turntable my new “toy,” and she’s right. Toy in the sense that it keeps me young, or makes me young again. I’m spending tons of money (see #3 above) but I feel like I’m back to me in the sense that this is the form that music first entered my consciousness — a vinyl disc played through powered stereo speakers — actually, our first phonograph was mono, still…Listening to The Black Keys’ Let’s Rock as we speak/write/read.
5. Max. He’s running around outside now, so I’d better pause and check on him…okay, he’s fine. The gate is completely shut, and he’s headed back to lie down on our bed. Life without a dog wouldn’t be the same. I tried that for forty years, and I’m not making that mistake again.
6. My family. Should go without saying, but if I don’t say it, someone will get hurt — most likely me. And here’s another chance to slip in the fact that come next February, my wife and I will be grandparents, and I’ll be further amending this list.
7. Writing. Obviously. I kidded my wife last night that she needs an ongoing project to keep her anxious mind occupied. Well, so do I, and special thanks to Medium. I use a MacBookPro to write these days, but still keep my Moleskine journal close by. And a fine point pen, that is, if my wife doesn’t swipe it.
8. Our screened-in porch. God, I love to sit out there and reflect and watch the hummingbirds and take naps on the loveseat, and watch the light ebbing sometime after 7 on summer evenings.
9. Alabama football. Yeah, I know that life is changing on the college football landscape, but as long as I breathe, I’ll watch and cheer and be thrilled by a sport where an arcing spiral is still a wonder, a thing of beauty that’s followed me all my life. At times I even caught one.
10. William Faulkner, James Joyce, Joan Didion. Three things maybe, but their prose, their themes, their commentary, and their capturing of life’s essence have changed my life profoundly. Still do. I’m teaching two Faulkner novels and one by Joyce this fall. And especially, Absalom, Absalom! and Ulysses, and Slouching Toward Bethlehem. If I’m repeating the fiction/nonfiction category, so be it, because that’s how strongly I feel.

Honorable mention: cats, Neil Young, cooking, and burgers.

Thanks for indulging and to Benny Lim and Writers’ Blokke for publishing. What about your lists, Jessica Lee McMillan, TheWellSeasonedLibrarian, Rob Janicke, Nicole Brown, David Acaster, Steven Hale, Keith R. Higgons, Kathryn Dillon (where are you?), If Ever You’re Listening, MDSHall, Noah Levy, Reuben Salsa, and Chris Zappa?