Tesserea

Tesserae, plural of a tessera. Tessera, one of the small squares of stone or glass used in making mosaic patterns. This was originally written in 2012 and can be found on this blog as Soulbreak.

You said it felt like your soul was breaking.

Something shattered, never to be whole again.

All the goodness gone, leaving you empty

for eternity.

I wonder what soulbreak feels like.

Heartbreak is one helluva thing,

it can rip that heart straight out of

your chest, leaving you bleeding and

gasping for air, just a pile of

skin and bones all splayed out in the

open for carrion to pick.

But heartbreak is not soulbreak.

I never want to feel it,

but I wonder what it’s like.

I’ve never lost someone I could

not quit. I kicked smokin’ a while back,

a few days later picked it up

again. On again off again

diminishes my resilience,

exposes me like a wind-swept

hill in a desert countryside,

continuous fret over some

chemical I need freedom from.

But addiction ain’t soulbreak.

I never want to feel it,

but I wonder what it’s like.

Like the “lucky one” who didn’t die

in a missile strike, you carry

on like you just walked out of a

bomb blast. Everything is ravaged,

outside stimulus is padded,

like experiencing life in

a soundproof room, pulsin’ to the beat

of a heart, on adrenaline.

Love is a battlefield they say,

but especially the dyin’ part,

the end of something as cherished

as life or love, that shit isn’t pretty.

A battlefield ain’t soulbreak.

I never want to feel it,

but I wonder what it’s like.

I’ve seen it happen, in movies

repeatedly but only twice

in reality. Vanished love,

leaving a vacuum for despair

and black anguish to flood, to fill

a missing gap that use’ta be

shaped like someone you cherished even

more than yourself. The soul breaks when

you emotionally realize

your love, the love, is over and

through.

I ain’t ever been through soulbreak

I never want to feel it,

I have seen what it feels like.

Luckily, for those that don’t put

a gun in their mouth and pull that

tempting trigger, life moves forward

shit gets better, and best of all,

them godforsaken memories

that broke your soul will fade. Keep on,

one foot in front of the other,

you will find something new to shove

in your chest right next to your heart,

that you can cherish, like no other.

Sex and Violence

(Confessions from the Ancient Professions)

I watch her eyes flash hazel-green
in my direction as she sips cheap
scotch in a fog of cigarette smoke
in front of me.

She thinks about how to phrase
what’s inevitably coming next,
“So, um, have you ever killed anyone?”

I roll my eyes and slide back into my side of the booth.

Trying to find an invasive question
to throw back I say,
“Have you ever fucked for money?”

Her fingers flinch into balled fists,

her gaze shifts from mine.
Her eyes jump nervously as she waves down
the waiter to order another round.

Quietly, she leans back into her side of the booth.

We stare at each another
through a fresh cloud of chained smoke.

The waiter drops off the hooch.
She downs it with a raised finger lifted asking for another
and says, “That’s kind of rude, don’t you think?”
I tell her what I think,
“Yours was just as rude.”

She doubles down,
“Show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”
I grin behind my silence.

She takes a big drag off of the cigarette
that’s been smoldering in the ash tray.
Done with the quiet she blurts out,
“Yeah I’ve fucked for money
and I use to make pretty decent cash at it too.”

She told me a substantial part of a life rarely shared.
I listened intently to her tale,
it was in every single way

a human story filled to the brim
with tragedy and laughs, love and hate,
pain and pleasure, bad mistakes and no other ways.
It was about surviving another day using whatever it took.

It was reminiscent of many stories I’d heard,
not necessarily the fucking for money part,
but the stories of hard-working survivors,

are my favorites.

Lives lived with a longing to itch that scratch,
to experience beyond where society or culture demand
the lines should be drawn. Those of us who say,
“Nah, I got this. I’ll forge a path of my own”

Those that do for themselves what they think is right
because on close inspection
the world’s view of morality is lacking,
many of us have been harmed by the touch
of ‘civilized life’.

Lives of those thrown into the muck
a life filled by harshness and bad luck
the beat-down trodden-on soul that refuses to give up.

We harm each other we harm ourselves,
there is no code no law that can’t be broken,

even the ones they say are god’s divine laws can be snapped
easy a twig
as soon as desire or anger or apathy or greed
or anything else human is brought into play.

I asked her if she regretted the shit he’d been through.
She looked at me like a battle-tested soldier,
resolute and strait in the eyes,

“I don’t. All the bullshit that I’ve been through

made me who I am.

Life throws its punches, I’ve learned
how to take the hits. I ain’t gonna off myself so
I might as well learn how to enjoy this shit and admire
the scars that’ve developed over my old wounds.”

A life in the margins,

what life looks like from the gutters,
living life in a manner meant
to live another month, week, day, or just
another moment can make life look pretty clear.

We’re all just winging it,
from top to bottom.

We’re all just humans living and breathing, existing and experiencing,
nobody understands the full complexities of this life

or the intricacies of context,
we must just do our best with what we’ve got
and try to make it one more day, so that maybe

we’ll get a break
and be able to try and make it tomorrow too.

Nomadication #2 – Road Trippin’ with SMG

It’s been a long time since I’ve been above the Mason-Dixon Line. My family and I stayed the month of July 2025 right north of it. We crossed the line regularly during the month we stayed in a rental house in-between the little towns of Meyersdale and Berlin, PA. The house is in Somerset County, a rural area hours away from any big city. At first glance it’s not a likely place where traveling Texans would lay their heads for a month. When our travels came up in conversation folk tend to ask along the lines of, “why are you staying here of all places?” Summer and I learned the easiest explanation is, “we kinda threw a dart at a map and landed here.”

            The longer explanation is that throughout our trip we’ve booked places we could afford along with the mortgage we are trying to unload back in Texas. We looked at rentals offering a reasonable monthly rate in an area we kind of want to stay and narrow in on something that’s at a price range that seems reasonable. Our stay in Somerset County was a little different though. My last couple of semesters in grad school, before we started this cross-country jaunt, I made a point to meet with my professors. One of the questions I would ask was, “if you could go anywhere in the U.S. to stay for a month where would you go?” My architectural history professor Peter Dedek mentioned Cumberland, Maryland due to its interesting architecture.

                        The area around Cumberland seemed like a reasonable place to start an extended nomadic adventure. We found our rental house in Somerset County, Pennsylvania about 35 minutes north of Cumberland across the Mason-Dixon.

            Intellectually, I understood that Appalachia stretched beyond the southern United States and into the northeast. I heard the Appalachians were, during the time of Pangea, the same range as the Highlands of Scotland and the Atlas Mountains of Morrocco. I could see on a map, the Catskills of New York and the Green Mountains of Vermont were part of the larger Appalachian range. I just never thought of the mountains north of West Viginia as the same mountains that my ancestors moved out of in covered wagons, leaving Tennessee as they pushed into and colonized East Texas. But Appalachia they are, and we connected with their ancient beauty over the next few months from different vantages. The mountains in the chain we stayed near in Pennsylvania are called the Alleghenies. The name evokes in my mind visuals from Allan Eckert’s book The Frontiersmen.

            The area we first called temporary home is referred to, tongue-in-cheek by the locals, as “Tri-State.” Their Tri-state is where the borders of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia meet. That land is historically and culturally rich and we had a great time for that month of July.

            The house we rented is on a farm in a valley between two ridges of the Allegheny Mountains in an area called the Brothersvalley Township in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. The view from the front porch is a sight to see. It’s a lovely area, rolling hills of land under harvest, covered in crops in the colors of July. Every shade of green, gold, and violet in fields arrayed in lines and rectangles. Colorful hills of cropland stretch out into dark greens and browns of forested tall ridges capped by a dozen or so towering wind turbines, their slow cycles harvesting wind with massive blades that cut silently through low clouds and fogs that roll into the little valley that farming families call home.

            The whole of this Tri-state was once very active in coal mining and lumber. Apparently hills were taller and forests fuller before both were hacked away to fuel industrialization. I could picture the land from times before in the pockets of preserved forests and the names of roads and locations. One example was the Belin Plank Road, I was informed by a local history buff that the road was once actually made of wooden planks. The former wealth of the land is apparent in many of the old buildings that stand in honorable and steadfast architectural styles that vary through a limited stylistic era, before industry exhausted the area and went further west in search of fuel to fill its endless hunger. Churches and some of the other important town buildings are cared for and looked after, even through the toughest times.

            Many of the houses were old but maintained. The small towns are well kept and driving from one town to another you will spot lonely, beautiful churches still used by farmers on Sundays, surrounded by seemingly endless fields. On HGTV they talk of houses with “good bones,” the towns of Somerset County have good bones in spades. Their days of affluence when the stone churches and the brick homes were built are behind them, the future seemed caught in some space between hopeful and uncertain as we traversed the roads and crisscrossed up and down the Mason-Dixon.

            One historic feature that dominates the history of the area is the National Highway. Now, mostly two-lane thing, which stretches from Cumberland, MD to Pittsburg, PA and beyond, was once a path cut through a dense forest intended to get a band of British troops to siege a French fort. It was carved out by humans under the command of long dead generals in a war that some claim to be the first global conflict. Summer and I had our sixteenth anniversary out on the National Road, or Braddock’s Road, or the place of George Washington’s early speculative investments[1], however you like. Before dinner we visited Fort Necessity National Battlefield where a young Colonel George Washington fought and lost, his soldiers firing out the first shots of the Seven Years War.

            There are old inns that dot the old road that have been giving quarter, rest, and ale to wary travelers since the road became “pacified” through investment of luminaries like Washington who remembered the site of his first fame, or infamy[2], and marked the road he helped carve out for future investments. We had dinner as a family for our anniversary in one of the inns, apply named The Old Stone Inn. It was the kind of place you knew was haunted, not just by the ghosts of history but if the waitresses and workers are to be trusted, by spirits that wish to remain in the consciousness of those who still alive and kicking.

            Old bridges, ancient toll booths, grave sites, and unquieted memories dot the landscape everywhere you look around these parts. It is a place where the past is still very much alive and the future is something that is distant and to be weary of.

            In the next installment, I will talk a bit more about the region, the sites we visited, and the people we met. From visiting not one, but two, homes designed by Frank Llyod Wright, making an unexpected pilgrimage to the Flight 93 Memorial, Cumberland, Frostburg, Sommerset, the land of diners, quilt patterns, battlefields, Confederate flags, and the welcoming flicker of candles in the windows of Pennsylvania Dutch homes.

[1] Washington was tasked to help carve a road out of the wilderness, straight through from Cumberland to what is now Pittsburg. It was a densely forested region at the time. During his time in that once wilderness as a young British officer, he took note of the rich opportunities that lay not just in the region but along such a potentially profitable road connecting the headwaters of the Potomac in Cumberland to the Ohio River Valley. His lobbying and monetary speculation are paramount to that road becoming the first highway paid for and maintained, for a while, by the national government. It is a fascinating history and one which the Fort Necessity National Battlefield does an incredible job of interpreting. Worth a stop, considering it is right down the road from Wright’s Fallingwater.

[2] There is a great controversary of Washington’s assassination of a French officer sparking the first shots of the Seven Years War that is worth further investigation for any history hounds out there.  

Figure 1: View of the Somerset, PA courthouse from an old Georgian Estate now part of a shopping center know as Georgian Place.

Figure 2: Credit to Summer, sign reads “The First Iron Rails”. The old railroad is now an amazing bike path called the Great Allegheny Passage or just the GAP.

Figure 3: Credit to Summer, Church in between Meyersdale and Berlin, PA

Figure 4: Ft. Necessity, the museum is great, the fort recreation is interesting to see the small scale of such an important event.

The Ringgold Ghost

Here is something I wrote and I will be doing a spoken word of soon.

Ringgold Street, West Hartford, CT

I had an exciting walk the other night. I took one of our dogs, Nugget, for a long, brisk walk around our little city neighborhood just past midnight. We walked down the street and cut through a little wooded area then went down through the park behind it. The illumination was high as the moon was near-full in the sky. Since we’ve been at our flat on Oakwood Street, we often scout the area on walks.

The park stretches into a large grassy area right past the little woods. The grass in the park rolls for a spell to the end of a cul-de-sac that ends at a street named Ringgold. On Ringgold there is a cemetery, I’ve walked by it few times now, mostly in the day, and a couple of times past sunset. I hadn’t made it down on one of my night patrols yet.

Ringgold is a quiet street. It starts three or four blocks up from the cul-de-sac at a T intersection at Park Road which connects the main areas of West Hartford and Hartford proper. Park Road is only busy during business hours. On one side of Ringgold starting at the T intersection is a small city bank, two or three blocks of a quiet condominium community, a small street leading to a neighborhood of mostly three-story multi-flat homes, then a few well-kept old homes with lovely lawns, then ends at the cul-de-sac attached to the large grassy park.

On the other side of Ringold, across the street from the bank is an older still well-kept home. Down much that side of Ringgold the rest of the land is fenced off, like it and the house are one property. It’s an odd tract of land in the populated eastern parts of West Hartford. The space is well maintained but still retains a sense of old to it, like it remembers wilder days before the encroachment of city and suburb. Most of the land is a seasonally dry watershed with overgrown trees near a center drainage basin, like an old creek.

Near the basin grows one of the most beautiful willow trees I’ve ever seen. A few days earlier I properly introduced my son to the willow on one of our walks. I haven’t met a Willow of note since my childhood, I was excited to show him how cool the shaggy trees can be. We snuck through an opening in the fenceline to see what it felt like under its thick canopy of wisps. It was worth a little trespassing, it was safe. We snuck in through a gap in the chainlink where the property belonging to the house’s fence stops and a different one surrounding the cemetery begins. In a fenced area about a block wide, lies an old, unmarked cemetery. Its gravestones face toward the watershed basin away from view from Ringgold Street.

The cemetery is closely manicured, just grass and gravestones. At the center of the formation of fifty or so white stone grave markers is a tall statue of a cross. The gate to enter the cemetery is locked up without away to easily sneak in without jumping the fence. In-between the cemetery on the cul-de-sac next to the park is a small, deeply overgrown tract of land, its trees and plants look defensive and unwelcoming. Next to that is the cul-de-sac, then the grass that flows up a tall hill into the park I like to stride.

Nugget was behaving in a way I appreciated. He was alert but not overly curious, just the way I like my little patrols to go. With Dax, our older pup, I used to be able to walk around with him off the leash. We were a team and we acted as extensions of that team. I felt like Nugget and I were moving as a team, like we were using each other’s senses to detect and respond to the night around us. He’s a good pup. When we’re in tune, he’s a lot of fun to get to be around.

We moved through the park onto the cul-de-sac. I like to stay on the side with the cemetery. There isn’t a sidewalk on that side but I like to be off on my own. Doesn’t hurt that the dogs can get a good sniff of interesting things and they don’t piss on pretty landscaping.

The cemetery seemed still even though the nighttime critters were all a holler on the humid August air. All the stone was vibrant white under the Moon’s clear shine, contrasted by the dark lush green on midnight grass. The night blasted a beautiful chaotic harmony of sound. The cemetery always seems quiet, but that night it was the embodiment of stillness. It was nice. Sound all around it but its solitude was like a wall against the night’s noise. Sounds seemed to spill over it from the woods in the watershed basin behind it.

The pup and I began to transition from the fence line that separated the cemetery from the lawn that my kid and I snuck through. We heard gentil footsteps behind us on the other side of the fence. The steps sounded like they were walking on top of the dew saturated grass and walked right through the fence that separated the lawn from the cemetery. The grass didn’t move, but Nuggets ears were tall and probing the night like radar dishes that found an incoming craft. His pointed nose caught as much sense as my eyes.

With nothing there and the night becoming louder, we moved past the cemetery farther down Ringgold toward the bank, the old house, and the busier road. I did what I always do when confronted with nighttime creepies; I took a deep breath, chest out, shoulders square, I kept my senses alert, and I briskly walked to a place I had more control over. We moved down the way across the street toward a brightened area under a yellowed streetlight. The footsteps matched our pace and continued behind us. Nugget’s head was on a swivel but carried on with our walk without a pull.

Moving forward I’d lost track of the feeling of those steps behind me. We continued to walk until we got under the streetlight. I brought a joint with me. I lit it up, took a deep drag, and took a nice long look around. Nugget took a shit in a little bit grass on the further edge of the cast light from above. I bagged Nuggets business up for disposal and we made our way back home, down Park Road and back toward Oakwood Street.

Weird feeling man. As creepy as the experience was, when I no longer heard the steps, I immediately missed them. I longed for the anticipation I felt in my bones caused by that weird moment in an otherwise normal experience.  Existential realization momentarily manifested and disappeared with the footfalls of ghosts. Real or imagined but rawly felt, none the less. Night creepies can make a normal walk feel exciting. I bet New England is super creepy in the winter. I look forward to experiencing it someday.

Addendum.

My Mom and Aunt Mary came to stay with us. I told them about the Ringgold experience. My Aunt told me she “bet dollars to doughnuts” that the cemetery was part of an old church. Sure, enough I added new search parameters to my investigation, and it is the cemetery for a convent that has been recently sold and renovated into apartment housing. I should’ve remembered my history training instead of relying on google-fu.

Lessons:

Be bold, be brave, have a plan for escape.

Take your camera and use it. The pictures you take are yours and not copyrighted by someone else.

Trust your training (experience) and try to apply it where ever you can.

Links:

Article about the nunnery becoming apartments.

https://www.ctpublic.org/news/2023-10-25/hundreds-of-west-hartford-apartments-open-on-nunnery-grounds

The order of nuns who use to run the site. They seem like cool people, the Sisters of the Neighborhood, trying to help people where they are.

https://catholicarchives.ie/index.php/sisters-of-saint-joseph-chambery

Corner of Ringold and Park, go south on Ringgold to Tract 40 that is the cemetery. Don’t forget to use digitized public records.

https://westhartfordct.mapgeo.io/datasets/properties?abuttersDistance=300&latlng=41.755387%2C-72.717418&zoom=17

On Melancholy by Hans Scholl

I wrote a paper for my MA on antifascist resistance to Nazi rule by German youth looking specifically at a group of young people called The White Rose. I came across this while reading Nazi resistor Hans Scholl journal, found in the collection of journal and letters from Hans and Sophie Scholl titled At the Heart of the White Rose, on page 252. I could not find a copy online, so I transcribed this entry from his journal here.

A monument to the White Rose in Munich. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose
A monument to the White Rose in Munich. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose

On Melancholy –

It isn’t melancholy that drives a man to suicide. By the time he’s ready to surrender by engaging in a last, monstrous act of self-destruction, melancholy has entirely deserted him, because melancholy was insufficient to restrain him. The melancholy man ceases to act altogether. He’s chained to the immense and unfathomable depth of his own soul by a hundred anchors, so to speak, and every tempest rages over him unnoticed. Melancholy is both things at once, the spiritual abyss and the anchors that keep him there – indeed, it could be said that the man himself is both, one being inseparable from the other. The more unfathomable the abyss, the more his melancholy weighs. And here we meet a paradox that instills fear and brings the average person out in a sweat: The man whose soul grows steadily calmer as the storm rises, until it finally attains an outward state of deathly repose, it is truly melancholy, truly great and profound. His average, superficial counterpart merely drifts, tosses hither and thither, and his soul bobs on the surface like a rowboat on the waves.

But not every great man is capable of waiting so steadfastly, trusting in the immense force that holds him in place. Unwilling to return to the shallows, he aspires to penetrate his own depths and go farther. Violently, with an effort that passes all understanding, he smashes his soul and acts once more. When that happens, destruction and deliverance are near neighbors.

Russia alters its appearance just when you least expect it. It’s as peevish as a child and as capricious as an old maid.

In quest of a comparison, you find, after three grey, rainy, miserable days in the dim half-light of the dugout, that Russia most resembles an old man forever gazing wearily at the same corner of his death, waiting calmly and patiently for the end that must surely come. And then, contrary to all expectations, the wall of clouds, overhead parts and the dawn light peeps forth, fresh as a baby, and within a few hours the sky is blue all over. A gentle breeze stirs the birch trees. Like pearls, a thousand droplets glisten on the leaves once more and are promptly, heedlessly flung to the ground.

Nomadication #1 – Road Trippin’ with SMG

6/1/25 – 6/30/25

  1. Prelude, May 2025
  2. Cedar Hill Farm
  3. Alaska
  4. Bouncing Around Texas
  5. M&G Road Trip, TX – PA

1. Prelude, May 2025

May was crazy. As we were attempting to sell our house, we moved everything we owned from the 2-bedroom apartment we were renting into a storage unit, three large foot lockers, 3 small foot lockers, four suitcases, and a truck. I graduated with my master’s degree in public history. I got to take part in the tradition of jumping in the San Marcos River in my graduation gown![1] Garrison mastered both of his STAAR tests for the fourth grade, “A – B Honor Roll” for the entire year I might add. Summer killed it at her job and received Quarter 1&2 2025 Dobbs House MVP for her stellar service to the family and outstanding achievements as #1 team player. The old dog Dax wins “Best Boy” for being so chill with all the moving his whole life. The young dog Nugget received “Needs Improvement” only because he’s still an anxious pup and needs to chill.

2. Cedar Hill Farm

We moved to my in-laws Paul and Lisa farm, named Cedar Hill Farm, out near New Ulm in beautiful Colorado County as we got ready for the big trip. I began to implement my secret plan to understand and participate as a better community member. I learned a lot about the 5Ws of community and have developed my own theories about the concept working through grad school and well, just being a community member whether I liked it or not, whether I was good at it or not, or whether I even realized it or not. Summer received the Starlink she had ordered and began to navigate the complexities of working from the road. I employed my son as a research assistant. He has been such an incredible teammate and research assistant. My dude is a blast, and we are lucky to get to be his parents. His work on the flora and fauna on the farm will be invaluable, I am sure.

Paul and Lisa were great. Lisa’s sour dough bread is insane. The farm looked amazing, and I was grateful to Paul for showing me how to use some of the equipment and I had a blast doing some farm work. The work was invigorating. We popped over to Houston and got to see G’s cousin Blakley perform in another great theatre production. I am posing a short write up of a San Felipe, TX trip I did in a different post on my blog.

3. Alaska

We went on a cruise to Alaska. It was beautiful and inspiring, I can’t recommend it enough. I am posting a couple of things separate from this newsletter from that trip on my blog. It started in Seattle and maneuvered through the archipelagoes that are abundant on that part of Earth. We were excited to take part in a bunch of excursions. In Skagway we hiked a bit of the Chilkoot Trail through an old growth forest and rafted down the Taiya River. Another day we disembarked from the cruise ship onto a smaller craft in Holkham Bay and boated up the Endicott Arm to experience its glacier. It was awesome to see the reality of climatological change as you go deeper into the fjord arm closer to the glacier. In the bay proper, the trees are tall, the world green and wet. As you delve deeper, the walls of the fjord are increasingly scraped clean of vegetation. When you get close to the glacier, the stone of the walls are bare, the air cool, and the sound vibrating as you hold your breath to hear the creaking from the blue and white wall of ice. It was life changing and I want to be a better human because of the experience.

In Ketchikan we visited the Tongass National Forest HQ, which contains a magical museum. In Juneau we encountered a charming town, and the most incredible sightseeing adventure of my life. We saw, helped identify, and heard a group of seven humpback whales feeding in a group. Our guide explained the balance of the ecosystem that allows the humpbacks to feed and continued to come back to that part of the world time and time again.

4. Bouncing Around Texas

Plans that had been laid out to get our family truck outfitted met logistical issues, so we wound up popping around Texas more than anticipated and left later than planned but it all worked out. We visited our friends Billy and Amy and their two great pups. Our dogs, Dax and Nugget made some new dog friends. We got a nice visit with my mom in Malakoff and even got to see some of my side of the family before we hit the road. Back to San Marcos to get the truck outfitted with parts that had finally arrived. Back to Cedar Hill Farm for a night and final load up and out in the morning!

5. M&G Road Trip, TX – PA

Summer had a business trip and unfortunately missed the fun part of the road trip from Texas to Pennsylvania. G, the dogs, and I loaded up and headed out. The goal was to spend two or three nights on the road, we did it in two. G and I coordinated to note what he wanted to see so I wasn’t just forcing him into museum after museum. He wanted game stores, comic bookstores, and sandwich stops included in our journey. He has been leaving google reviews for the places we stop. The trip itself was fun, the stretch of land through Arkansas and Tennessee I’d seen blast by my window a few times, but the views through Kentucky, West Virginia, and the Panhandle of Maryland were as new to me as they were to Garrison. I sure love the way Appalachia looks, especially flying down the highway at 75. We pulled into our spot in Somerset County Pennsylvania, in between the little town of Meyersdale and the smaller town of Berlin. The stretches of cultivated fields interspersed with heavily treed small Appalachian Mountains, called the Allegheny’s, capped by massive wind farms was the breath of fresh air we were all looking for and didn’t even know it.

[1] I also got to knock out that big one off my bucket list. My goal of graduating from TX State goes back to when I first moved down there after I got out of the Army. I tried to go using my G.I. Bill benefits but flunked out as I had no idea what I was doing and had yet to learn to embrace my past as a high school dropout.

On Trump: A Letter to a Colleague – February 2024

I wrote this letter to a colleague during the latest election cycle. He was trying to promote that Trump was the correct pick for president. I disagreed with his assessment of the situation. Just a note, the question I asked at the end has still not been responded to, I have not heard from this human who I have deep respect for since I sent this to him. If he ever reads this, I still have mad respect for you, and it was an honor serving communities with you. One love homie.

Also, I have edited the document for cussing, as I realize that it takes away from the point I am trying to make and it is offensive to some folk in honest political debate.

4 February 2024

Hey man, I hope this finds you well. If you ever want to talk long form debate and conversation about anything we can totally meet and talk but texting is not, nor has it ever been, an ideal form of communication for me for long form back and forth in-depth conversations. I am also always looking for a “pin pal” if you want to email and don’t want to meet. Anyway, Trump talk is especially frustrating for me on text because I have things going on and I have already decided that he is devoid of good character and I would never lower my moral standards by supporting in any of his grifts, especially that of supporting his presidency.

Anyway, I figured I would just address the things you messaged me and give my take for them.

While I agree that the American system is not at all ideal, destroying the delicate balance of compromise, negotiation, and law creation as society evolves with the support of a constitution is paramount in creating a just and free society. I don’t know if you were kidding or not about wanting to see it burn, I am guessing you are kidding, but it was telling that your initial lean was to imply to burn it all down. I see Trump as that burning agent, and I think most Trump supporters do as well, I don’t need to guess, I have heard y’all say it for years now. As we have seen from our own history, when imperialist billionaires take over the usual best check to that power is not an elitist billionaire, it is usually a mass movement of concerned and marginalized groups. Now usually an elitist rich dude who sees it as an opportunity to bolster a political career and jumps in, but it is the people’s push that slowly drives change.

You say Trump didn’t act as a dictator, but I see that patently wrong. Just because he was bad at taking dictator power, he most definitely acted like a dictator as his family and the ultra-rich were the biggest winners of his presidency, he treated all political opponents with violent rhetoric, and quite literally when he lost the election he tried to hold on to power and still won’t admit openly the legal transfer of power. Just because he was bad at being a dictator doesn’t mean that he didn’t, doesn’t still, want all the power for him and his.

You said you can’t defend Trump’s personality, but his is a cult of personality you can’t have one without the other. That is the game HE created, and it is dishonest to say you prefer to debate his policy not his personality. I am voting for a human being and that human being has shown me time and time again he is a human devoid of moral character. I would prefer the imperialists, which I detest, to stay in power longer than entrust our future to this human waste of energy. But you do you dog.

You say judge a man by his enemies, I mean I guess the entire strata of the executive branch is the bad guy now. Ok. Fair enough about the political parties. As for the media attack, he deserved every minute of it and he loved every second of media exposure, so ok. Let’s also not forget one of the largest of the mainstream sources, Fox licked his boots deeper than they did George Bush’s even when it came out his administrations justification for Iraq was predicated on not a mistake but a lie.

I will agree that some of the things he did in office were beneficial, hell even necessary. To your point NAFTA was in dire need of being renegotiated. I am in the camp that the NAFTA renegotiation was political theater and didn’t change much, if anything at all. I was glad to hear about getting the US out of the TPP. I really liked some of his cabinet picks… until they resigned because of his policy decision and because the dude is a huge piece of **** (read James Mattis’ resignation letter).

You asked me specifics on what policies I disagree with, his tariff war was ridiculous and was bad for the U.S. Getting out of the Paris Accords was a huge mistake. His immigration policy was trash. His entire handling of the major crisis of his presidency was absurd and enough to not vote for this man. His pull out game in Iraq and Afghanistan hurt the US, and also abandoned the Kurds who had our back. Do you remember the government shutdowns? He acted like a dictator to get his way to pay for that lame and ineffective wall. His policies drove good people out of government and many of them, like James Mattis who I respect, gave us very clear warnings of who this dude really is, as it turns out he is the angry little man-child he plays on TV.

Need I remind you this dude is one of the Epstein people we’ve been looking for? He has been proven to be a creep in court. I could go on, about him, policy and personality, but I really don’t want to and you have to know the truth, you are capable enough at honestly looking at both sides of an argument, but I feel like here you and millions of others are caught in some weird culty echo chamber where you are trying to convince yourselves he is the right choice. From my perspective he is not.

This man basically spent his presidency golfing, talking crap, and messing over the country and millions of people including you just decided to buy wholly in to the cult think of Trump. It is weird. I wish you Trump people could wake up because the only person he is working for is himself and will con and grift anyone to get his way.

Let me ask you, what did Trump do while in office, what policies can you point to that you disagree with?

Myth of a Texan: Speech to City Council of San Marcos – 6 May 2025

Hello, My name is Matthew Dobbs. I am an Army veteran; I am the fourth generation of Texan to serve my nation in times of international conflict. I am a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, teacher, dad, and husband. My family has been in Texas since the 1800s, for what that’s worth. I have been a resident of this lovely city twice now in my adult life, first in 2007 when I moved here because I heard the river was a peaceful place to heal and collect myself after I got out of the military. I moved away to Houston, when I met my future wife who was, is, Houstonian. We chose San Marcos after we sold our house in Houston after Hurricane Harvey. I love this town, I just completed my Masters degree at TXST, my wife and I had a house built here, we’ve been raising our son here.

I am here to have my voice heard and my name recorded that I stand with my city government as they navigate treacherous waters. Our state politics is full of people that have no desire to govern, just the inclination to rule. I’ve read the city of San Marcos resolution, updated May 2nd and I have read Greg Abbott’s threatening letter to this city. I cannot wait for the day where my fellow Texans are done with the lies of “small government” as the one party continues to rule us, as they make a mockery of the Republic.

I care about human beings. I care that people were murdered by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023. I care that the response of the Israeli government was to destroy the lives of men, women, and children for well over a year and a half now. I care that some people call Palestinians animals. I care that Democrats gave lip service to the bombing of homes, the killing of children, and didn’t attempt a thing while they wielded national executive power. I care that Republicans stand in support of the cleansing of Gaza of the Palestinian people.  I care that people laugh at President Trump’s AI mock up of what the rich and powerful would like to see Gaza become. I care when many pretend it doesn’t matter, then shrug when it is announced that Gaza is being stripped from the Palestinians. I dang well care that my city government is trying to do what it thinks is the right thing to do.

I am proud of y’all for even having this forum, I am proud of those who would stand for this resolution. I am proud of the folks who came out here today.

I am really looking forward to the day where my fellow Texans embody the myth of what a Texan should be like. The myth of being a Texan tells us that we are independent, tough, and willing to do the hard things to get the dang job done. The myth of Texas tells us we aren’t willing to be pushed around by government men. The myth of Texas is that we are homesteaders who are trying their best to build a better world for us, our families, and our communities. The myth of the Texan is that we are willing to do the right thing, especially if it is the hard choice. The myth is that we are willing to stand up, be counted, and fight to keep what we care about safe from being exploited by the greedy thugs that want us to submit to their rule.

I hope we stop letting the greedy and those who expound the virtues of Jesus but continue to seed hate to control us through the politics of gangsterism. I care about the people of this city, I care about the people of this state, I care about people. I hope more cities and states take a cue from our, from the San Marcos city council and have government that stands for its people, not just its wealth generation capabilities and those who wish to profit from those capabilities. I care about people who care about We the People. I care, and I am glad to see so many other human beings who care, are here.

Thank you for your time, your effort, and I am grateful for each and everyone of y’alls service to this city. Protect the river and keep San Marcos beautiful, physically and mentally. This is a special place that many of us have held sacred for thousands of years and if we are decent stewards, thousands of years more. Thanks y’all.

SMG Nomadication #0

View from the Meyersdale, PA rental house

Hi y’all! I wanted to give an update on the Summer, Matt, and Garrison family road trip 2025 (which I am calling here, SMG Nomadication). If you have any questions, please reach out to me. Considering this is my first update I should explain what is going on in a little more detail.

The 5Ws: Summer, Garrison, and I collectively decided to hit the road last fall. G and I were at home hanging on the couch and Summer, working from home, poked her head out of her office after an exhausting set of meetings and said something along the lines of, “Y’all want to sell everything and hit the road?” Me a G consulted through glance, and agreed, we were (we are) game. I was hell bent to be done with my masters degree by May ’25, I have a year left on my teaching certification, G was down to adventure, and Summer ordered a satellite internet device.

We spent a lot of time at RV shows and RV dealers. We had lots of conversations. Do we sell the house or rent it? What kind of truck to pull an RV? What size? By December/January the politics of Texas continued to shift more anti-women, more anti-1st Amendment (especially the freedom from religion aspect), more anti-public education laws, and generally less individual freedom for everyone except a narrowing version of white dudes. Texas is a trip all on its own. We were looking at a Texas that we both recognized and were becoming wearier of. We understand the future is, as it always is yet only rarely grasped, unwritten. We’ve become more aware as the years move forward, that our generation is rapidly becoming older adults within the living cohort of our species’ existence. As parents we understand that one of the most important things we can do is to provide our kid the best education we can. We also wanted to find a place we could call home if we’re seriously considering leaving the one we already know. Would we find fulfillment of that goal somewhere other than our home state of Texas?

A friend of the family, Alejandra, mentioned that she and her partner had spent a year on the road going from AirBnB to AirBnB around the country. RVs seemed like a lot and the RV culture/experience I was exploring online wasn’t my vibe. I come from an old school road trip family[1] but the stability of a home for Garrison and Summer, as she works remotely, would be paramount. So, we began to explore the world of house rentals. We had already got rid of my old truck and were in process of selling off Summer’s car. We consulted with the realtor we work with and figured the house would sell better if we weren’t in it. Easy right?

Houses were flying off the market and we were hopeful ours would get snapped up quick. We moved into a two-bedroom apartment and a storage unit, this was the true start to the nomad life we were embarking on. We asked G where he wanted to go, he said Hawaii, we compromised on an Alaskan cruise in June with my mom, aunt Mary, and cousin Henning. The move to the apartment was awesome, Sum working, G in school, me finishing up my MA. Our San Marcos house went on the market in March. As soon as we put the house on the market, interest rates hiked and it turns out FEMA just updated some flood plain maps and the land our house sits on got reclassified. It’s mid-July as of writing this and we have had a total of 2 people even come to view our house. C’est la vie.

Our trip is paid until the end of September, and if the house doesn’t sell, we’re heading back to San Marcos to plot more, mostly adventure and rebelliousness, and continue to build home with each other. Until then, let me update you on the actual trip. I will go into more detail about the trip in future newsletters. For now, let me just timeline it out then share some pictures.

June 1: moved out of the Apartment into a few footlockers and a truck. I forgot to mention we have two dogs as well, Dax (our old man) and Nugget (the anxious Malinois mix}. Headed to stay with my in-laws, the ever-amazing P&L on their farm out in Colorado County, TX.

Mid-June: Alaskan Cruise, it was pure amazing. Glaciers, hikes, history, romantic views, culture, humpback whales, and a big ass boat. Dude.

Late-June: Back to TX to finish outfitting the truck and final prep.

June 26th: Road trip to Meyersdale, PA. It was a road trip for the ages. Visited the Mom and Pop Game Shop in Texarkana, the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, comic books in Lexington, KY had, epic Appalachian views, and father son talks for the ages.

June 29 – July 31: Meyersdale, PA. Beautiful country, lots to say. So far trips to Cumberland, Gettysburg, Frank Lloyd Wright houses, meeting old friends, local and community history, architecture, French and Indian War history, the history of the National Road, politics of a swing state, and ice cream… so much ice cream.

July 31 – August 3: Philadelphia

August 3 – August 31: Hartford, CT. G has been into researching bionics and prosthetics. He watched a vid about a disabled sea turtle named Charlotte with a problem called “bubble butt syndrome” (I am a product of the 90s and I still can’t get Mack Daddy’s hit out of my head) and a team of people who developed the prosthetics to help the turtle swim again. I reached out one of the companies in the video and scheduled to tour the 3d printers’ facility in August with G as a VIP! I am reaching out to MIT and Harvard to see if we can’t tour.[2] We hope to tour Boston, Mystic, New Hampshire, Vermont, and so much more if we can (Sum snagged tickets to see Bad Religion and Dropkick Murphy’s in NH)!

September 1 – 30: Craryville, NY. Should be dope, hoping to see the leaves begin their change (maybe a little early), Hudson River Valley adventures, a weekend in Seneca Falls then Niagara, then Canada so we can get our new passports stamped. We are venturing into NYC for a weekend. Hoping to see old friends and family. I also start homeschooling G for his fifth-grade year, on the road or not!

October: If the house sells by September we will continue to plan for the next leg of our journey. If not, we will move back to San Marcos and continue to venture out when we can to continue to plot on adventure looking for a new place to call home. I am also for sure teaching G his fifth-grade year.

Stay Tuned!

[1] A prompt for a short

[2] Beats the time I had the Marine Recruiters show up to the house when I was a kid. Sorry again for the early heart attack mom!

DobbsHeadMed #1

Pale Blue Dot from Cassini image: http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=52392, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4400327

Image: Pale Blue Dot from the Cassini Spacecraft, found on Wikipedia “Pale Blue Dot”

I thought about the centuries of collapse and rebuilding and maneuvering left in the power vacuum that was the Roman Empire. All these little peoples clamoring to control little plots of land slowly turning into nations wielding the power of the future evolved in the wake of cultural collapse. Little ripples on the surface of human civilization and our time on this world.

Each existence interacting with a timeline not of their own but belonging to the deepest moments of the universe itself. We clamor to adjust to every tectonic movement, world spinning gravity and ultraviolet waves adapted to over the course of billions of years of failed experiments that successfully selected long enough to exist for various lengths of time. Eventually remembering, dreaming, and inventing each little lifeform existing with their own unique ways to survive on a planet. A planet which dances around a star which flows around, with its hundreds of millions of glittering siblings, around a super massive black hole.

Here we are dude, breathing some more.

Focus on your breath. Be part of it all once again.