Bruce Douglas Reeves, Author

  • HOME
  • Bio
  • Books
  • Excerpts
  • Stories
  • Blog

Walking, Meeting, Talking

11/30/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
            Every day, I walk through my neighborhood, often beyond.  Walking is how I get most places.  It has its advantages.  It’s healthy and, even in a drizzle or fog, it’s enjoyable.  Blue jays, bush tits, and other birds appear and disappear.  Squirrels dart in front of me and shiny black crows scold from tree limbs and porch roofs.

I’ve got to know my neighborhood and see how it changes over time.  This house is getting a new roof, that one has a new fence.  Another house is getting a new foundation (this is earthquake country, after all) and the one across the street is adding a second story.  A block away, a garden of native plants is emerging, replacing the old lawn.  And along the way I’ve met people, got to know them a little, even have become friends with some of them. 

This town and neighborhood were designed for getting around on foot.  Automobiles were relatively new when it was growing, so it wasn’t assumed that folks would shuffle from house to car, drive to a point, get out, do whatever they needed to do, then drive back to their door.  They’d walk or take the streetcar, unlike today’s suburbs with no sidewalks or places to walk to, just streets lined with big garages.   

A few blocks away, a long street offers a supermarket, post office, drugstores, clothing stores, coffee shops, bakery, several types of restaurants, banks, a video rental store, a bagel shop, an independent book store, an office supply store, a dry cleaners, and a jewelry store.  A branch library stands just two blocks away the other direction. I’ve become friends with people who work there and on speaking terms with people who live on those blocks. 

During my morning walk to buy a newspaper, I often meet the same people each day, sometimes on the way to work, other times walking their dogs.  Later in the day, I see people working in their yards, shopping, walking their dogs again, pushing strollers, at the post office, having a cup of coffee.  Often when we pass folks say Hi, exchange pleasantries, stop for a short conversation.  Gradually, we learned a little about each other.  Some of us became good friends, visiting each other, doing things together.  I also became friends with clerks in the market, the woman at the post office, the man who owns the stationery store. 

Often, when I’m working in the garden in front of my house, people walk past, smile, say hello, comment on the plants and flowers, whatever they feel like talking about.  Sometimes, they’re neighbors or other acquaintances, but just as often we’re meeting for the first time.  A few words easily turn into a conversation, an invitation, a friendship.   

Today, there’s lots of talk about polarized government, religious and racial hatred, economic injustice, anger leading to violence.  Maybe people need to get out of their cars, walk around, meet each other, talk, get to know each other, in their own neighborhoods and beyond.  Meet people at home, in other cities and towns, other countries, too. 

Can you fire a weapon at someone you’re friends with?  Can you let someone you’ve shared a beer or meal with starve?  Just questions.  No answers, yet.


Click to go to Books
0 Comments

Thanksgiving 2014: Who's Giving Thanks?

11/26/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Thanksgiving is an American holiday, but it’s a good time to think about who across the globe has reason to give thanks.  And why.  Palestine?  Afghanistan?  Lebanon?  Ukraine?  The poor in the United States?  A lot of people may be thankful that they have just survived in these troubled times. 

When we were in Ukraine a year ago much of the country seemed divided between joining western Europe on one side and Russia on the other.  Now, the Ukrainians are fighting over the direction it will go.  The public demonstrations we saw have turned into battles, with Russia pursuing its own agenda.

            Everyone we spoke with last Fall was frustrated with the situation.  After 21 years of independence from the Soviet Union, the economy still was struggling.  Everyone was equal under the Soviets, but some were more equal than others – as George Orwell pointed out.  This class system still prevailed in Ukraine, with a minority thriving but the majority struggling.  Some young people seemed better able to cope with the changing world.  They had both the energy and the skills to meet the demands of a free market.  Older men and women had, for the most part, been left behind.  They were the ones we saw in menial jobs or behind tables and stands trying to sell souvenirs to tourists--often their own possessions.  We also encountered angry and restless young men who weren’t able to get a start on the ladder upward.

            Most of those under forty wanted to embrace the West, join the European Union, abandon the patronage of Russia.  To them western Europe meant progress, hope for the future, the freedom to lead their own economic lives.  They also saw the EU as way to escape the corruption plaguing their country.  They hoped for a stable currency and fair wages once they become part of Europe.  Above all, they yearned for a government that would respect them.

            Some older Ukrainians, however, feared the West, its materialistic values and lack of morality.  In Kiev, we saw a parade of priests and nuns and Orthodox Church followers marching on the main boulevard, carrying banners and passing out leaflets condemning homosexuality.  As the New York Times recently reported, conservatives there worry about “European” values and equate the EU with loose living and perversion. 

            Memories are long in this part of the world.  The Soviet Union, after all, deliberately crippled the Ukrainian economy when Stalin instigated the great famine of 1932-33, demanding that Ukrainian grain be sold abroad to support industrialization elsewhere in the Soviet Union.  People reminded us that more than seven million peasants, mostly children, starved to death in one year.  They also told us that when the Soviet Union was collapsing the Ukrainian Communist Party bosses were the first to personally embrace the free market and privatization of business and industry.  As a result, some Ukrainians today definitely are more equal than others.  We saw clusters of big black cars and the husky men dressed in black who invariably came with them, while other people rode old buses and trams or drove ancient Soviet Ladas that were a joke 30 years ago. 

            This past year, many of the people in eastern Ukraine have embraced their ties to Russia, which has moved aggressively to claim the eastern chunk of the country as theirs.  No one we spoke with predicted this, but now it seems to have been inevitable.

            If the people of Ukraine did celebrate Thanksgiving, I suspect that they’d be giving thanks for having survived thus far, as well as mourning those who have not.  Maybe none of us has a reason to be complacent this year.  Although the United States economy has improved greatly during the past six years, many people here are struggling to survive.  Like Ukraine and all too many other countries, we have the Haves and the Have Nots, those who are “more equal.”

            Maybe what all of us most have to be thankful for is hope, hope that tomorrow will be better, that some kind of justice will emerge, and that we’ll continue to survive—and perhaps find a little more security and happiness. 

 

Click to go to Books
0 Comments

Explore the World--Why?

11/22/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
My first trip, like so many folks today, was from the hospital to my parents' home.  I've been traveling and exploring the world ever since.  Maybe my last trip will be in the reverse, different home and different hospital, of course.  Meanwhile, with my wife, I've explored more than sixty countries and haven't stopped.

Why, people ask, do I wander the world?  Why do my wife and I spend time in other countries, seeking out places that are different from those we’re used to and are comfortable in?  To start with, traveling gives us perspective.  As we engage with the world, we come to realize that our way is not the only way, or even the best way.  It’s just one way. 

 A Kurdish wedding in Eastern Turkey.  A Santaria ceremony in Cuba.  A Buddhist temple in  Burma.  An Easter celebration in Bulgaria. A voodoo priest in tribal India.  We see them and wonder, but all of these countries are full of people muddling along, trying to survive and find a bit of joy along the way.  Leaders may be misguided, even worse, but what about the ordinary men, women, and children?  Maybe they use funny toilets, eat with their fingers, dress in their own way, have different ideas about where humanity came from and where it’s going.  Is that reason to fear or hate them?  Or for them to hate or fear us?

 There’s no pleasure to compete with the thrill of wandering unfamiliar streets, of discovering villages and towns unlike any back home, of meeting people who look, dress, speak, and think differently than we do.  They’re different from me.  Why are they different?  Why am I different?   

 SNAPSHOT:   Mashad, Iran.  An octagonal pit four feet deep and twelve feet wide in the center of a large room, nine boys ages 11 to 13 performing strenuous exercises as a man plays on a drum.  Flushed and sweating, the boys spin and jump and chant and perform ritualized calisthenics and acrobatics.  After more than an hour, each boy receives a handshake, a hug, and a reward in this local “House of Strength.”  In 1220 CE, the Mongols invaded this land.  The Khan decreed that no male could carry a weapon or train for war, so underground gymnasiums called Zor-Khaneh were developed for mental, spiritual, and physical training.  Now, Houses of Strength flourish in many Iranian towns, giving boys today opportunities to train and prepare to become leaders in a quite different world. 

 SNAPSHOT:  Croatia, a farm near the border with Montenegro.  A stone-walled kitchen, hooks for meat hanging from the ceiling, antique stone sink, Luko the farmer and his wife Mira.  He’s tall, big-bellied, with salt and pepper beard.  She’s slender, shy.  They show us photos of the devastation to their farm during the war with Montenegro and the Serbs.  They had no warning when Montenegro invaded, Luko tells us.  They never imagined that such a thing could happen. 

 “We thought they were our friends,” he says.

 Now, years after the war, we see almost no evidence of it, but it hasn’t been forgotten.  Proudly, the middle-aged couple shows us the vegetable gardens, the new vineyards, the pastures and the sheep. 

All this raises questions, not necessarily doubts, but a search for truth – one of the goals of  travel, not only diversion or amusement.  Can you tell me more about that?  Why do you think that happened?  Are we better individuals if we learn more, understand more?  Why does the world seem to be breaking into opposing camps?  Them and us?  What’s going on?  As a writer, I want to know.  As a human being, I need to know.

SNAPSHOT:  Beirut, Lebanon.  A sidewalk café in the rebuilt, once cosmopolitan city center, crowded with men and women, many of whom are too young to remember war, glasses of wine or espresso cups in their hands.  A country part Christian, part Moslem.  Armed soldiers still visible and, still, in the hills nearby, a Palestinian camp, surrounded by soldiers.  How long have those men, women, and children been there?   

Rebuilding is still in progress across Beirut and Lebanon, many years after the wars – the civil war between Moslems and Christians and the war with Israel.  Will downtown ever again be the Paris of the Middle East? Over it all lurks the tall, burned, shot-out shell of the Holiday Inn, where journalists hunkered during the wars, a vivid reminder visible from many parts of the city.

History is relentless.  Exploring the world can raise questions, as well as provide answers.  Maybe questions are better than answers.  Maybe people are too quick with answers. 

SNAPSHOT: Small towns all over Iran:  Martyr’s Memorials with photographs of young men who died in the eight-year war with Iraq, women in black still mourning their sons and husbands who died decades ago. 

We travel because every new experience raises questions, because every answer is also a question in disguise.  As Rick Steves has pointed out, it’s harder to fear and hate people if you meet them.  This is one of the themes of my book, DELPHINE, much of which takes place in the Middle East.  Delphine discovers as she travels the world, particularly in Turkey and Palestine, that the better she knows people, the more she’ll come to care for them, perhaps even love them. 

When I travel, my point of view is stretched, my eyes are opened to the variety of the world.  It’s hard to be close-minded if we’ve met, eaten with, and talked with people who’ve grown up with different traditions, cultures, viewpoints than our own.  Whether or not I write directly about any of this, my stories and books are richer and, I think, better, because of it. 


Click to go to Books
0 Comments

    Author


          I've been writing at least since age seven, making up stories before that, and exploring the world almost as long as I can remember.  This blog is mostly about writing and traveling -- for me the perfect life. 
          Please Bookmark my blog, so you won't miss any posts.
          My most recent book is DELPHINE, winner of the Clay Reynolds Novella Prize.        Recently, my first novel, THE NIGHT ACTION, has been republished by Automat Press as an e-book, available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other sources.  CLICK here to buy THE NIGHT ACTION e-book.

    Archives

    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014

    Click HERE to buy DELPHINE
    Click Here to buy new e-edition of THE NIGHT ACTION

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed