Summer snowflakes

Listened to the thunder a long time last night.

Storms upset people. Violent bursts of rain and electricity. Disruption. Danger.

In a way, though, I find them relaxing. It makes me wish I still had a front porch. So I could sit out in the remains of the day and watch the rain.

I thought tonight about Pat Conroy, particularly about his book "The Lords of Discipline," about the young girl that sends the cadet the broken sand dollars through the mail. I thought about her a long time. I thought about the symbolism of pieces of a romance, shattered and scattered, all that's left of the round, perfect summer snowflake.

The human heart is a funny thing. It has such a capacity to care, to love, to empathize. But, it also has the capacity to hate -- and to break.

Maybe that, in the end, is what bonds us together. By knowing the pain of loving and losing, we better cherish the beauty, the kindness, the woman who comes later to make you forget about the past.

It's funny. I once agreed to go out with a girl, back in high school, because I didn't have it in me to tell her no. The thought of upsetting others makes me sick. I cannot stand to see somebody cry.

I don't know. Life is one strange trip. I guess what you have to do is balance the blue skies with the gray. Chances are the scales will tip the right way.

Points pondered on a rainy night.

My losing season

Leave it to Pat Conroy to be able to sear into my soul, penetrate that part of me nobody sees, expose my hurts and fears, force me to be honest with myself.

Didn't go to the UT opener tonight. Didn't feel well. Came home from work, curled up in the easy chair, and slept.

I did watch the game. The Vols look good, even if Chris Lofton didn't. It's going to be a fun year. Temple has a couple of players that are darn good, I'll tell you that.

Anyway. Enough of that. I didn't come here to talk hoops.

Watching that basketball game tonight reminded me of a Pat Conroy book I read a few years ago, back during one of the worst bouts of the Black Dog I've ever experienced. Called "My Losing Season," the book chronicles Conroy's senior year at The Citadel, when youthful dreams of basketball glory gave way to the stark realization that this shy, insecure boy was destined to become a writer.

It isn't as good as Conroy's masterpiece, "The Lords of Discipline," but it's pretty darn near wonderful. If you love sports books, or basketball, or reading a wordsmith at the top of his game, run don't walk to Amazon or some such place and find a copy of "My Losing Season."

Conroy says he's haunted by the boy he used to be. And, in a lot of ways, one can relate. To this day, I can't pass by a group of people and hear a gaggle of laughter without wondering if it's me they tease. I watch baseball on TV and remember a forgotten summer at the community park. Every time I gaze at a photograph of a woman I loved and lost, I'm back there, too. Isn't that silly?

But look at it like this -- if I'd gotten the girl and been able to hit a curve ball, I wouldn't be a writer, would never have gone to work for a newspaper. I know that just as sure as I know the sky is blue. Happy people don't write. They raise a family or make money or attempt something normal.

I get irritated at Conroy because I think he keeps writing the same book over and over. Dad was bad. Dad beat boy and mom and siblings. Boy gets pissed. Boy goes nuts. Charleston looks beautiful in the moonlight. Yada, yada, yada...

But he writes so well and with such honesty; that makes the nervous breakdown that is reading one of his novels worth the arduous journey. I'm remembering a poignant moment in "Lords of Discipline" involving an envelope of broken sea shells and am having to fight this strange wet sensation around my eyes. Read that book, too, by the way, if you've never gotten around to it.

I remember where I was and what I was doing a year ago tonight. And I miss that girl more than a thousand words could ever tell and a lifetime of trying will never forget. Why do we forever love the ones that got away, or never were quite in one's grasp?

I don't know, but I suspect that the answers lies with that shy, awkward little boy -- be his name Conroy or Mabe or whatever.