The Confessions of Ira Short

All things considered -- and having spent most of my life trying to live up to the expectations and ideas of other people, I have come to a conclusion: My goal in life is to be the person my dog believes me to be.

In and of itself, not "fitting in" isn't a bad thing. But, even though I have been living with this my whole life, the feeling never really goes away. Sometimes I forget. In the excitement of a new thought or idea, the words come tumbling out in a rush. Then the moment comes, and I pause. Or, having reached the end, I finish. I look up, and once again, I realize my words have fallen on dead air. A blank look, an exchange of glances. Silence hangs like a shroud over the light I saw and tried to describe. On occasion I'll retrench, and try to find different words, in the hope that I can find the key to unlock the puzzle before me. But anymore I just pass on, and retire into the cover of the silence.

These days have taken on a surreal aspect. The outlines are familiar, but the edges are blurring, changing; details melting into the background. I'm standing outside of it, looking at a strange, yet familiar landscape. I've been here before. A half-dozen times when the world was cut out from under me, when everything that had been, no longer was. Updated: March 20, 2021 I started this post a year ago today. Wrote it, and never posted it. I looked at it, read it, re-wrote it, re-read it. I had a hundred reasons for not finishing it, for not posting it. In large part, it was because I was lucky enough to have been one of the fortunate ones. I haven't lost my job. On March 20, 2020, I was on my way back home from the office with my computer hardware in the front seat of the Miata, taking it home so I could set up my "office" in one of the spare bedrooms, where I have continued to work for the last year. I didn't post this because, after all, what di...

Sometimes we forget how random life really is. We hide in the comfort of our routines, but life incessantly points out that, despite our best efforts, stuff just happens. Traffic started slowing as I came over the hill. Ahead I could see a spill of liquid - gasoline or coolant - and some debris in the lane ahead. It looked like shards of dark plastic. Cars maneuvered slowly around it, and I scanned the pavement for glass or metal that could cause damage. Just about that time I noticed there weren't any damaged cars pulled over on the shoulder. No CHP units, or people exchanging information. And the spilled liquid looked to be nothing more than water. Then some of the debris moved. I looked down and saw several fish, about 6 inches long, flopping on the pavement. There was a circle of wet pavement about 6 feet across, with a dozen fish scattered around it. I skirted around them and traffic began to clear.

At first glance, it looked like the coyote was taking a nap on the side of the road. He was slightly curled up, his head turned to look down the long straightaway. He looked healthy in his winter coat, with a ruff of heavy fur around his neck. Nearly all of my commute is on the outskirts of the towns I pass by, the borderlands between the islands of houses and stores and the open desert in between. The mountains, San Gorgonio on the north and San Jacinto on the south, act as impenetrable walls to the spread of the city. Even these open spaces are populated, with creatures you don't normally see from a car on the highway. Animals that live in the desert, or that have been lost there, or abandoned. But you do see them when their paths have intersected with ours on the highway. There are fresh kills every morning. As I pass the coyote, a puff of air ruffles the thick hair on the muscular neck. I follow the direction he was looking, where the granite bulk of San Jacinto fills t...

As soon as traffic starts to back up on the freeway, there is always someone who will decide to drive down the shoulder as a shortcut to the next exit. The morning commute has slowed to a crawl. The freeway narrows to three lanes; we're moving, but slowly. I'm in the center lane, pacing the semi in front of me at a steady 20 miles an hour. To my right, coming up the paved shoulder, is a small flock of medium-sized birds. Uniformly white, there's about a dozen of them, flying in a loose formation no more than eight feet above the pavement. Steadily, they pass the slowly moving cars, keeping to their straight path along the empty shoulder. They got off at the next exit.

Every day, life gives us a little nudge, a peek, a whisper in the ear, "Here it is." And if you aren't paying attention, you'll miss it. I watch for them now, those brief seconds when an infinite variety of things suddenly align and you find yourself immersed in the sublime. If you are lucky, you will enjoy a moment of wonder, or awe, or epiphany before the sunlight changes or the cloud disappears. Personally, I don't believe in fate, or the idea that your life is set or predestined in any way. In 60-plus years, my experience of the world (external to me) is that it consists of seemingly random events that aren't random at all, but rather unpredictable. Their unpredictability lies in the fact that there is not a single bright line between cause and effect. Between cause (A) and effect (Z) lies an alphabet of mitigating factors, often unseen and unknown inputs that can dramatically change the outcome of events. In looking back at events in my life, I can ...

I literally try to end every day by asking myself, "What did you learn today?" It's really very simple. During the course of the day, you should be able to learn something, however trivial, that you didn't know yesterday. And then it becomes a question of, "What will I learn tomorrow?"

This is about a mouse. At least, I think it is. The other night, as I was setting up the coffeemaker for the morning, I heard something scratching around in the kitchen cupboards. I opened some doors and peeked warily inside, but saw nothing. Nevertheless, I baited and set a mousetrap and left it in one of the lower cupboards. The next morning, the trap was still set. I assumed the intruder had found its way out the same way it came in, and I wrote it off. So it was, when I opened one of the cabinets that night, I was not expecting to literally come face to face with a field mouse. Our eyes met briefly before he dove for cover and I took an involuntary step back. A brief chase ensued, where he easily dodged from shelf to shelf among the clutter, while I vainly tried to slap a plastic container over him. His bright eyes would watch me intently as I maneuvered for position, and then he would duck away as soon as I committed to a move. He finally tired of our cat and mouse game - ...

When they are running, horses take one breath perfectly in time with one stride. At a canter and gallop horses do not breathe by expanding and contracting their chest - all air movement comes from movement of the legs and diaphragm. In other words, the act of running actually moves the air in and out of the lungs. From the traffic light at the bottom of the grade, the highway runs straight and flat five miles across the desert floor to where it disappears into the Interstate. If I catch the green light coming off the hill, I can carry my speed onto the flat. It's smooth and usually lightly traveled, but there's also enough tamarisk trees and slight hills to give the CHP a place to hide. Discretion is the better part of not getting a ticket in 20 years. I hit the red light just before the freeway. They added this signal when they widened and re-paved the highway - it can be a pain if you get behind a truck on the on-ramp. I'm first in line though, and when the light ...

Actions have consequences, often unplanned and unexpected, and sometimes unwanted. Frequently the results of our actions are a mixture of both desired ("good") outcomes, and undesired ("bad") ones. Good and bad are relative terms, depending on your point of view. ***** Life in the desert is directly affected by the availability of two things - water and food. While this is true anywhere on Earth, due to the scarcity of those two elements in the desert environment, they become the paramount factors for the survival of living things. Usually the two are found together; plants and animals are concentrated in areas where water is reliably available. For many years I have made both available to the birds and small mammals occupying the rural suburban area where I live. I tend the plants that provide shelter and food to them, and make available a steady source of water and supplemental food in measured amounts. It is an oasis not dissimilar to the natural ones nearb...

This fork of a Joshua Tree fell over some months ago; you can see how the stump is nearly horizontal. They store water in their trunks and can be incredibly heavy, and it just fell over from its own weight. The upper part was laying across my driveway, and the trunk was hanging on the fence, so I had to cut it off. The stump was still partially rooted, so I let it be. Now there are a half dozen shoots, incipient new branches, sprouting from the stump. As I was growing up I would sometimes be envious of those friends and classmates who already knew what they wanted to be when they grew up. I still know a few of them and they actually have had the jobs they wanted to do, or moved to the places they said they wanted to live, done the things ... you get the idea. During my lifetime more than one person has thought me aimless, or lacking direction for my lack of a clear vision for my future. To be honest, they weren't completely wrong; I'm making this up as I go. It took me a...

The large front window of the house faces east, with the result that every morning I am privy to one of a seemingly limitless number of sunrises. Most of the time, that is simply a matter of the sun popping up over the horizon, without fanfare, and so my day begins. Other times, when I pull the curtains back, there is something more waiting for me. The work I do (aka, my "day job") is writing computer software. It is all very logical, methodical, and relatively predictable. Even when I am troubleshooting a problem, there is really not any creativity involved. There is a set number of variables to be traced; it's a problem in logic. It's all very cut and dried. If I look at the sunrise from that perspective, it is not in the least bit remarkable. A meteorologist could tell me the exact list of conditions that have caused the clouds to form on this morning. I don't know the exact terminology, but I do know it has to do with the relative humidity, the air tempe...

Living in the desert is to have a front seat to life at an almost primal level. That is, if you're paying attention. For some, like the desert marigold, life is a brief event, a brave foray into an inhospitable world. According to my reference it "thrives in dry, poor soils, in "extreme heat". The volunteer rye grass that sprouted up after the early rains has withered and died all around it, but the marigold soldiers on. Here on the sun-baked strip of bare dirt next to the street, it puts up a handful of small flowers to attract a pollinator, so that it can go to seed and spawn a generation of children it will not live to see. In more favorable areas, there are armies of marigolds crowded along the street, bright yellow advertisements for spring. But here there are only a few, like pioneers trying to stake a claim in a new land. It is not simply a matter of enduring the heat and lack of water and nutrients that the marigold is facing. Jostling for resources a...

Ahead of me, the freeway is dotted with cars, white and black and shades of gray. In the distance, a single red Mustang maneuvers its way through the monochrome blocks. A bank of clouds hangs ominously over the freeway ahead, black and white and shades of gray. San Gorgonio Pass Runs about 20 miles from the Highway 62 junction (where I get on Interstate 10), to the summit, roughly the junction with Highway 60 in Beaumont. Wikipedia informs me that it is one of the deepest passes in the contiguous 48 states, as it divides two peaks rising 9,000 feet above the valley floor on either side. From the desert floor to the summit of the pass is a rise of about 1800 feet; it's a long and gradual incline for 20 miles. This is one of the reasons the railroad came through this way in the middle 1800s. The steam locomotives still had to work pretty hard to go up it, so they put in a station to re-fill the water tender. Banning grew up around that. The freeway follows the railroad tracks. ...

I've been here before, this place in my life. Maybe it's a stage, rather than a place. It's a restless feeling that nags at me, like a splinter in my mind Part of it is annual. I don't like the short days of winter, I like sun and warmth ... part of why I live in the desert. When the days start to get noticeably longer, about the middle of March, it starts. I come out of hibernation, and I want to be doing. Cabin fever yields to spring fever. But there's also a longer cycle, and about every 8-10 years a deeper assessment takes place. A consideration of where I am, and where I want to be. Sort of a pause to get my bearings, and check the map. 10 years ago I made some major changes, changed tack, and headed for the horizon. A lot has happened since then, mostly good, some not so much. A course adjustment is in order; I'm not lost, just off a couple points to windward. My mom was really good at guiding me through a few of these. I didn't recognize it when...

I had my first epiphany (in the Joycean, secular sense, not the religious one) when I was in second grade, standing next to the telephone pole across the street from my house, talking to the girl next door. I don't remember how the conversation came up - it was probably one of those challenges kids throw at each other, of the "I know something you don't know" kind. The problem was "what is 3 times 2"? I couldn't tell you exactly what she said that triggered it, but at that moment a clear vision of two sets of three appeared in my head. 3 times 2 actually meant 3, two times. All I had to do was add them. Mostly what I remember though was the sensation - that feeling that a door had been opened in my head, that "ah-ha", light bulb moment. That brief moment when it seems you can touch something eternal, a glimpse into the infinite. Decades later, they still happen. I would really miss them if they didn't. On one level, I know that it is ...

So much of our time is spent on routines, doing the same things over and over, day after day. With repetition comes habituation. After performing the same actions enough times, we get to a point where we don't really have to think about what we are doing, we go on automatic pilot. This is the whole point of an athlete practicing their skills, in an effort to commit them to "muscle memory", to sharpen their reactions to a point where they become almost subconcious. But habits can be a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it does facilitate the performance of repetitive tasks, reducing them to a series of simple, well-worn steps. This allows us to accomplish mundane tasks with a minimum of effort. It gives us a sense of security in knowing that we have the day-to-day aspects of our life under control. These seemingly positive aspects of our routines become negatives after long use. The rote following of a learned behavior means that behavior is no longer being examin...

Even though I'm back to getting up in the dark because of the time change, my commute still has its rewards. That snow will be gone soon. So much of our time is spent on routines, doing the same things over and over, day after day. After awhile it becomes a habit, we become blind to it; "just another day driving to work". Yesterday afternoon I was doing yard work ... OK, I was cleaning up after the dogs. I do it every weekend, and the next weekend I'll have to do it again. It was fairly warm yesterday, and I was enjoying the warm sun on my back. I worked my way around the yard, head down, searching the sloping ground. When I reached the bottom, I stopped for a moment to scan the yard to see if I missed anything, and I briefly caught a flicker from the corner of my eye. I turned my gaze up to to look. From the empty lot across the way, dozens of butterflies were flying towards me. These were not the lazy summer butterflies that dance aimlessly from flower to flowe...

Time is a construct we have created in order to explain our presence in this precise instant. Since the future is unknown - to the point we have no idea if it will even occur - our only point of reference is the immediate past. Where you are right now is only understandable in the context of where you just were. The words I am writing right now are not in fact what I am thinking at this exact moment. Between the time the idea comes into my head and the time that the words appear on the page an entire of range of activities takes place that creates the sentence on the page. Although my perception may be that this occurs almost simultaneously, there is a measurable delay between the thought and its exposition; I am describing something that has already happened (the thought). In the meantime my thoughts have continued on to form the next idea which will then be converted into action (typing) that yields the next sentence. After the fact. From the point of view of my consciousness...