Christ, it has been a while since I have done what I am now doing, which we can call writing. It is not possible for me to let the years change and not feel compelled to write something, anything. If I waited until tomorrow, it would already be 2017 and I’d feel like shit for not coming up with anything worth sharing with you before the damn year ended. In addition, this entry will definitely cover a couple of days because I feel inclined to take myself and you through the time transition and finish it up on the other side. It’s like going to sleep at night and waking up in a new year. Oh, wait, never mind.

My grandson, Shane, just visited here for around a week. This eight year old delight was accompanied by his father, my son Andy, and his stupendous wife, Andrea. Now, you probably think I am gong to launch in to a multi-paragraph story about our time together. Whenever it was I decided to share my words, I made up my mind not to disturb other people’s privacy. What I want to tell you is I owe my whole writing thing to Shane.

For some stupid reason, I decided to get Shane a Hawaiian style bone-carved, fishing hook for his second birthday. It was a very practical decision. If you’ve ever seen these hooks, you would quickly see they could puncture an eye or do all sorts of damage to a little boy having no idea what the concept of sharp is. My friend, Michael, knew someone on the Big Island, who carved them from cow bone. He offered to build a frame to showcase this flesh puncturing weapon, until it was safe to hang around his neck. Then, he unknowingly changed my life by suggesting I write a letter to Shane and sequester it behind the framed, fish killing tool. So, I asked my son to send it back to me. It now resides on my altar until it is safe to return it to Shane.

I started thinking about this letter business and it dawned on my pretty early in my deliberations that a letter would not be long enough, because there was so much I wanted to tell him. I made up my mind that I wanted to somehow get him inside my head, but where to begin and how to bring it to life?

Right around Halloween 2011, I was in Portland, OR on a weekend date with a woman I had met at a wedding on Kauai, a story I have told too often. Imagination can be perfect, but living never is. We agreed to go to a movie on my last day there because it was a good distraction, following a discussion about how we were not for each other. The film was Rum Diaries, with Johnny Depp playing the Hunter S. Thompson-like character, a screenplay discovered after Thompson’s suicide. Depp is a broken down writer, who also narrates. He repeatedly says he needs to find his voice, liberating his self-expression.

My perfect imagination locked on to this concept and my voice instantly came to me. I was going to be myself, how’s that for easy? I called the style, ZenGonzo, a collision between the clarity of the Buddha with the avenging angel, Thompson.

On the plane ride home from Portland, I started to write my story to Shane. When I sat down at the computer the second time and continued writing, I knew it was going to be a project. I stayed with it for nearly a year and a half, writing at least every other day. I called it Halloween in Portland and subtitled it Diary of a Mind. I have shared it with quite a few people, always giving it away. The discipline of the writing stayed with me, so I turned to a blog these past few years.

I finished the book about my life a couple of years ago and I am still alive. I could never write another one, but I could still keep going in that direction. Spending time with Shane on my island triggered the idea of writing letters to him because there is more I want to share with him. This New Year is going to provide an endless diet of material. When I am writing to my grandson, there will be only love in my heart, tempering my response to outrage and there will be outrage in 2017.

Other than starting each piece with Dear Shane, I’ve got no plan.