The Perfect Chemical

Home again. It seems I am always coming home, or simply leaving it. There's no feeling of homecoming this time. It feels like forever ago that I was here but not that long since I left. Strange...I'm a wandering gypsy now, without a place to lay my head that I can call my own. Oregon, Idaho, California, North Dakota...wherever. It should worry me more than this but doesn't. Baghdad made something clear to me this time...it was where I was supposed to be, but I don't think I will ever go back. My travels aren't through yet though. It's not a bad thing, necessarily. I don't feel upset or worry. In fact, I don't feel much of anything about it right now. I'm more rolling than stone I guess. That's fine with me.

I took two steps back while in Oregon this week. THAT I do feel a bit bad about. How can something that feels so good be so damn bad for me? That's the way it goes though, the perfect chemical is still just that...a drug. I don't use drugs though, so maybe I should kick that habit.

-Jim Franks

24 hours

24 hours to go. Just 24 hours to go until I’ll be headed for home. There’s so much more to be done, I can’t feel the end this time, which means that when I look back over my shoulder the beginning is still in view.

There’s no use complaining and no use blaming anyone for the abrupt end that’s now at hand. It’s the life I chose to live. A Contractor never knows when or where the start or conclusion will be. I knew that when I signed up and so am OK with it today. It’s just another link in the long chain tying me to the journey.

-Jim Franks

Blood Let

It's dark again, here in the corners of my mind. I am headed home in a few days and although I feel as ready as I think I can be, I wish it weren't so. It's an abrupt intermission to the storied journey I have been set upon. Most of me wants to disappear into the desert, under the stars, into the fire. But against my will I am going home.

I haven't been able to write here since the blood letting of my last post. Writing about my dad saps my energy and my spirit. But the relief of finally letting the demon loose feels good, even if it was from Pandora's Box that I set him free. I will get back on that road as soon as I can catch the breath that it knocked out of me. Soon.

In the meantime I fight on. My journey carries me home and will undoubtedly test my resolve. It's a door opening as another may be closing for good. I have to see it that way.

-Jim Franks

My Confession

I can see his glassy, unanimated eyes like it was just yesterday that they were staring at me. Dying eyes plead for life, as if somehow a look can bring back all the years lost to fleeting memories. There was no color there. Gone was the handsome blue that haunted my childhood. His glimmer replaced with jet black, and there was no window for me to see into. I looked into my father’s eyes for what would soon be the last time and received none of the solace I hoped to find there.

I was alone with my dad in the ICU. He laying there comatose and succumbing to his failing liver, and me sitting next to him wondering how I was going to manage. I was expected to talk to him as if doing so would bring him back. But I never believed it. His eyes were open and he was breathing but the man I saw lying in front of me was dead. I had no clue how to handle that. How does a child watch a parent die before their very eyes? I was the only brother there so far, Joe and John hadn't arrived yet. And so I felt like it was expected that I’d know what to do. I am ashamed to say that I woefully did not. All I could think to do was clear my mind. I couldn’t engage a dying man in idle chatter to possibly lift his spirits. But I could take advantage of a captive audience and clear my mind and heart, once and for all, of the things I always wanted to say to my father but never had the courage.  So that’s what I tried to do.

Oh…forgive me! Please forgive me for what I did that day. For taking advantage of a dying mans inability to fight back or to counter my anguished mental blows, or to simply speak at all. This is the first time I have ever thought to ask God to forgive me for that day. I never thought I needed to ask until just now. But even though I seek divine forgiveness I shamefully feel no remorse. I am not sorry for what I did next. I moved my chair close to his face so that if he actually was able to hear me he most certainly would. And I leaned in close and looked into his lifeless eyes. I could smell him. He smelled like my dad; like thick skin and age. And I kissed his cheek. My lips were once again a boys, feeling the soft sting of whiskers that would one day be my own. And I said aloud, “It’s OK Dad, I forgive you.” But I didn't mean it.

Forgive me father for lying to you on your death bed. You deserved the truth that day as much as it was my birthright to tell it to you. But I didn't give you the dying chance to absolve yourself for all the years of pain you caused me. I didn't let you hear your sons cry for his father…finally defiant, finally brave, and finally standing on two feet. I should have let you see and hear me there as the man you never helped me to grow into but most certainly knew I would become. No sir, all I simply wanted to do was comfort you, as always. It was just appeasement so you might feel a bit of calm on your way to the other side. But you didn't deserve it, not from me. You never earned my reverence. But even in death, you simply took it like you always did. No, this time you deserved my best…the truth from my own lips. It should have been, but was not, my own dying confession.

-Jim Franks

Blood Red Moon

The blood moon rises through a veil of desert sand. It is 3am. The haze that seems to never lift creates a beautiful pane through which I see the sun and moon awake. When I flew into Iraq from Turkey a month ago the dawn was a blanket of blues and pinks like I hadn't seen since leaving here years ago. Now a hazy crimson moon has been on the rise all this week. It lingers there...and bleeds down on me, as it rises out of the dusty haze and into the clear black night.

To say I actually love it here may seem like lunacy. But somehow I think I do.  I think only people who have come here from another world can understand what the desert does to you. I imagine I could ask 10 people back home who have been here in the last 10 years...serving in the war, as contractors, etc, and 8 of them would say they miss it. All 8 would swear that when they were here there were times that they hated it. I guess I would be #9. It's in my bones...the new marrow that I build an uncertain yet hopeful life upon.

-Jim Franks

A Lion in the Desert

T.E. Lawrence wrote in a letter to a friend:

“You wonder what I am doing? Well, so do I, in truth. Days seem to dawn, suns to shine, evenings to follow, and then I sleep. What I have done, what I am doing, what I am going to do, puzzles and bewilders me. Have you ever been a leaf and fallen from your tree in autumn and been really puzzled about it? That's the feeling."

An Army Captain I was working with turned me on to Lawrence and his “7 Pillars of Wisdom.” Before Hollywood made him into “Lawrence of Arabia”, he was, some say, the father of insurgent fighting here in the desert. He showed the Wahabi how to beat a superior fighting force by striking at them from dark corners then fading back into shadows. Then, it was the Turks of The Ottoman Empire. Today, it’s the United States and its Army of Infidels. It’s obvious why this Captain is reading Lawrence, the Lion of the Desert…because as a good soldier and leader of men he wants to know his enemy. But I have become drawn to Lawrence the poet, the desert daydreamer, the wanderer who felt more at home under the Arabian stars than he did in his native England. His writing inspires me to search for meaning here and to not be satisfied with a wind that buffets my lazy drift downward from what I feel is my own autumn tree.

-Jim Franks

Push Through

There’s something I miss about pouring my heart on to a shelf. I am tempted every day now to continue to write in the voice I know comforts me...the one that’s been my friend and confidant for 4 years now. It’s the one that’s been there with me in the trenches fighting and crying out for freedom and then helping me to chronicle it all. I feel it with me now more than ever, in every second of every day. We plot and scheme our next move and from what angle to best approach it. I’m amazed at the level of commitment I have now to get this decanter of flesh and bone ripped open so the cool fluid of truth can finally be freed to spill out and wash over me.  But we are not fooling anyone, my best friend and I. We know there’s something much bigger and more ominous we are meant to tackle here but still can’t walk up to. Actually, it’s me who’s stalling, not the Narrator in my mind. There’s no “we” about it. I pulled back the wizard’s curtain and saw my future. But I am, quite honestly, afraid of the next step. I have feared it my entire life. I know exactly what it is but the very thought makes me feel like weeping. Not fearful tears really. It’s mostly a feeling of deep sadness. Even to write about the idea of it now makes my hands shake. Maybe it’s all the same, fear and sadness. Yes, I’m sure it is. So I exhale the deep breath that’s been drawing in for a lifetime then raise my head and push my shoulders back to show that even in doubt I can find courage. Through the prism in my watering eyes I see a scattered view of my two feet. One leads out and takes the next step. I will push through now or break what’s left of me trying.

My father’s name was James…he left me when I was 8 years old and died when I was 35. I missed and longed for him every day in between, and have despised him every day since.

-Jim Franks

The Narrator

It’s strange; I started to write and got through a paragraph as Jim, the All Is Well Narrator. I paused and read over the thoughts coming out of my mind and suddenly realized there were two people in that peanut sized shell of a head of mine. There’s the man who dreams of days gone by and writes about the pain and angst of trying to find better days to come. And there’s the man who writes for entertainment, like he’s narrating a Discovery Channel show. I think that makes sense but it’s cloudy because I just realized that at the very least I am both men trying to find one voice.

I think I also finally admitted to myself that I’m afraid of the change that must occur if I’m to usher in this new chapter of my life...the one that finds me searching for a way to heal the wounds that bind me. I guess I have believed all this time that it would come easily once I simply admitted the truth. But I find myself shirking the responsibility. I have been so tired this week and have been using that as an excuse not to get started. That’s what I do though, that’s my M.O. It’s a trait I was born with and is shared by everyone in my family. We are avoiders, dodgers, procrastinators, and runners from the truth. I can’t do it anymore. I don’t want to hide from who I am and what made me this way. I want to live and feel and love, like a normal man.

But I want to keep my narrators voice too. I like sharing the everyday life I am living with the people in my life who care to know. Life in Iraq should be shared with all Americans, if for no other reason than they don’t forget we are here. It’s so easy to get caught up in our own rat race that we forget there’s a whole other world out here that lives and dies because of America. It’s partly why I wanted to come here back in ’07; to see for myself what America had gotten itself into and to be a part of what I believed then was my generations defining event. So I will keep journaling like I always do and do my best to convey the mundane and profound moments that I am lucky enough to be witnessing.

The question is how. How do I wrangle all these thoughts into one narrative voice? How do I take all that I am seeing and share it with my world? How do I find the man I want to be inside the man I am? And before any of that can happen, how do I reconcile the unmistakable notion that it all starts 30 or 40 years ago with the boy I once was? There’s been a common thread, a chain really, pulling at my subconscious mind for quite some time now. On one end is the Jim I am today. I’m a father, a brother, and a dear friend. I am a son-of-a-bitch and a liar, a lover and a rolling stone. I’m a writer and a storyteller, a dreamer, and a wanderer. On the other is the man who wants to be content with the everyday life we all struggle to live. I want picket fences and home cooked meals. I want to hold hands with the one I love and let the touch of her skin carry me to the light. I want to work hard and play hard and plan for a future I can be certain of. I want to see my child grow to be a happy and loving woman who’s as content as I strive to be. I want to see my grandkids play in green fields under blue skies and laugh as only children can. I have often spoke of the demon that lives inside my mind and know now that I won’t ever defeat him. I have been fighting a losing battle. Rather, I now know I have to make peace with him and find a place where we can coexist because to live any other way will ultimately be my undoing.

This is my quest now. Along the way I hope to find some understanding of the world I live in. These are epic times that we are passing through. I want to be keenly aware of what’s going on, if not directly out in front of it. I imagine most people want the same thing but know we all have different focal points because of our vastly different situations. I don’t think I’m alone in these notions or special for setting out to understand them.  I just am lucky enough to have had opportunity and time on my side. It wasn’t always that way so I’ll do my best not to squander my good fortunes.

-Jim Franks

Terra Ignota

I walk in the unknown landscape of my mind.

I read the Latin term, "Terra Ignota", and thought it would be a fitting title for my new blog. It means just that, "Unknown Land", and it describes where my head is at these days. Since coming back to Baghdad I have been trying my best to cover new territory in my quest for knowledge and truth. And I feel the strong tides of change pulling at me now, drawing me closer to that healing place I've wandered towards and away from my entire life. I have recently shared a large piece of myself with the people I care for and in doing so have given myself a strong, helping hand. It's one that I've reached out for many times in the past 7 or 8 years but could never seem to grasp.  Helping oneself, as opposed to receiving help from another, is liberating. It's made me really start to look for answers closer to home.

So as I begin to journal this new and unknown terrain I will say right off that even though it seems I know the general direction...the journey and final destination make me nervous, if not downright frightened. Living with fear is something I'm used to. Years past have seen that fear eat at my soul and chip away at the blocks that hold me up. But today there is a certain calm accompanying the demon who walks beside me. I try to find courage in that. I reach out to a God I know exists and ask him to help me find the answers and live with the fears. It's in His shadow that I write from today.

-Jim Franks