June 18, 2026

Please forgive me for a lengthy preamble to this installment of "A Life In Words Mostly Unread." A few grains of sand have gotten stuck in my hourglass.

My sister just returned from a trip to Montana to attend the memorial for our Uncle Buddy. While my other sister and I had unavoidable conflicts preventing our attendance, we all knew it was important for Uncle Buddy's oldest sibling, our mother, to be represented. It also allowed Jen to visit with our mom's youngest siblings.

None of the three of us get back to Montana enough, especially me, and inevitably when one of us does, our conversations turn to questions about our family history (my mother came from a big extended family; my father was the only child of only children, so most of our history's tied to the Atchison side). In addition, Uncle Buddy was the one sibling of mom's we saw the least. Jen had a question about a relative she wasn't sure she had ever met until the memorial; Lisa thought the same, while I had hazy memories of meeting him two or three times.

Of course, this drove me to the journals our mother kept faithfully all of her adult life, starting well before she chose Public History as a career path (in retrospect, no surprise there). While all three of us have thumb drives with these journals, I seem to be the one who most frequently goes to them for guidance. And I offered to do that in this case to see how often mom recorded visiting this relative when one or all three of us were with her.

I found one reference to my mother seeing this relative (coinciding with one of the three instances when I thought I had met him). She provides no indication that this was the first time she had seen him, which would have seemed likely. Overall, I was surprised how details from some of these trips are lacking. The specific family history is not important here, but her documentation (or lack thereof in this case) through these journals is. Most difficult to read was her saying in 2014, "I wonder if this will be the last time I get back to Montana" (it was, as she passed, completely unexpectedly, in 2015). As I wonder if my sisters and I will get back to see the remaining older generation of Atchisons, I can't help but turn to reflection.

So, here's the point: mom had her journals; I have my poems and blogs. Why do we write about we write about? Just as significantly, what do I make of what we don't write about? Given my mother's love of family (and appreciation for journals), I might have thought she'd written about this relative in absentia. (Note that she also had a file about her family history, although it focused mostly on the original immigrants to the U.S.) These inclinations to write or not write are not defined simply via some hierarchy of importance; or from some need to dispel personal demons; or even just because of spontaneous inspiration. Something in the processing brings us greater understanding. I know this is true for my mother (and me).

The one thing my mother and I most share (beyond this love of history) is that we at heart are/were intensely private people, a notion I captured for myself with An Intensely Private Man, a poem I cranked out in the mid-1980s after seeing on the street a woman I dated briefly. While the verses are not too remarkable (or even truthful), at least the central conceit was accurate:

You see, I am an intensely private man,

For years has stayed within his bounds.

Any opportune time to express a feeling,

I withdrew with nary a sound.

I don't remember if I shared this with my mother (probably not, as I was still pretty private even with my parents at that time), but I have no doubt she would agree. And in agreement, would either of us, then, have challenged the other on our inclinations to still put some of the private stuff in print (even if for only our own eyes)?

What was it that caused both of us to still want to record our lives with so much detail? In my case, this website contradicts the whole idea that I am a private man. 12,000 words already written on my life unread; probably another 12,000 words produced for the 2024 series capturing my fictional counseling sessions; and then who knows how many words about my life as captured in my general blogs, most of my poems, and even throughout much of the Pandemic Panoply song series. Via this series, I have even started transcribing some of the earlier (frankly, immature) stuff to The Blog Under The Bed. One could argue I've left nothing unsaid.

In short, I might have done the worst thing possible and left nothing private off the internet. My mom was at least smart enough to capture these on thumb drives that only went to her family.

A very good friend once noted that most of the people who worked for me (or with me) probably thought they knew me but really had no idea. It's an applicable hypothesis. Someone entering my office would notice dozens of pictures, knick-knacks, and other personal items seemingly revealing a lot about David Fleming. In addition, the David Fleming who ran meetings, or spoke up for colleagues, or joked around in the break room was perceived as easily accessible. However, away from work, I adopted a guarded reserve, a protective wall around my true self.

In fact, as I look back, I might argue that I started using this website as confessional in 2014, first with the passing of a pet, January 2014's "Requiem," written in memory of our cockatiel, Bartleby. People knew we had a pet bird and knew a little about his bizarre origin story (at least, his origin with us), but I certainly had used his passing to confess a number of things:

• My wife and I are generally an unromantic pair: "Bartleby . . . was probably the most romantic gesture two unromantic people . . . could ever generate."  Generally, my marriage has been off limits, a topic rarely discussed, not because it isn't a strong marriage and partnership, but just because it's no one's business and one could easily misinterpret the way my wife and I work together.
• I can make decisions based upon impulse and not thoughtful research: "note how two well-educated people 'educated' themselves on cockatiel ownership after the fact of buying one." I could hardly be considered the model academic (or pet owner) with such flippant approaches to acquiring a pet bird.
• I can be woefully unobservant, again a less-than-stellar trait for someone destined to leadership: "After setting up the cage, I went to get him from the bag, took a nasty bite to my finger (gee, Dave, why do you think the owner wore the freaking glove?), and half-flung him into his cage."

All in all, as "Requiem" attempted to show, we overall provided Bartleby a fairly dull life. Given he was already at Birdland when we acquired him, I take some solace in believing that it was a life slightly better than some of his cage mates lived. We'll never know of course. However, expressing that solace in this public sphere seems akin to telling the priest, "Yes, father, I sinned with Margaret Mary, but it was done out of love!" Or, maybe more accurately, I will confess to a little bit of guilt, but stop short of opening myself to full atonement. Even as I write my own revelations through this series, I feel like I can't escape my own unreliable narration.

In addition, maybe if my confessional priest asked "anything else, my son?" I would have answered, "hold my beer." In some ways, "Requiem" opened the floodgates. Within a few months,I was spurred on by needs to memorialize even more losses in my life: a favorite professor ("Restoration"), my parents ("Airplane Mode," just for starters), or even passing acquaintances ("Of Hearts And Spines").

After while, I didn't even need someone to die to put them in my public literary realm, quick references to damaged friends and acquaintances in 2017's "Cardio Cant", later a more specific lament for one specific former friend (2018's "I Can't Help You Anymore").

Along the way, I have tried to protect people who have been players in my various narratives, but they are there. I have made a conservative estimate that about 175 real people from my life have been referenced, directly or obliquely, through my lifetime of writing. Still, there are gaps. Why have I never written about this distant relative (or even my Uncle Buddy) when I have written about a guy whose name I can't remember who had me listen to Triumph over and over at a party (Day 69: Triumph "Lay It On The Line")? Why have I never written about the woman who was my graduate student composition teacher at WVU who several years later invited me for a lovely dinner at her house in Pt. Marion, Pa, while I did write, twice, about a woman I spent 12 hours (purely by accident) with on a bus trip ("Turned Off And Away" and Day 51: Prince "Little Red Corvette"). Maybe the answers are obvious because the reasons seem obvious, but that's only because of the way memory frames these experiences.

Salman Rushdie once wrote "never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things--childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves--that go on slipping, like sand, through our fingers.”¹ Why are some clumps of sand slipping all the way through, while others get shaped into something artificial? My memories of the bus trip and the dinner in Pt. Marion are not dissimilar at their core (and incredibly similar in their rarity), and yet one drove me to almost instantaneous poetry and lengthy reflection almost forty years later, while the other can't even drum up a shadowy form or a name. I refuse to believe that it is simply a Prince song that makes the difference. Although, of course, it does. Psychologists have noted the relationship between music and memory for years. Still, I vaguely remember listening to good music at the house in Pt. Marion. I fear I am blocking some things (maybe I need to reschedule with my fictional counselor).

In my last installment of this series, I rather brazenly wrote "a life in words mostly unread means a life with words mostly unsaid. And I am o.k. with that." Well, father, I have sinned, because I am a liar. Clearly I am puzzled by the things my Mother never noted in her journals (assuming things could have been noted) and outright bothered by the things I haven't said. I'm not going to live forever, and these memories aren't getting any sharper. I may just need to get a knife in there to dislodge the stubborn bits I keep holding back.

I don't know how many more grains of sand need to fall through my creative hourglass. Each day, it feels like there are fewer and fewer. Yet, motivation can come in the simplest ways. While working on this blog, I read a memoir by Morgantown's Owen Davis (a great musician in his own right) about his time in the Peace Corps (Fred MacMurray On Safari), which reminds me how rich the memoir genre can be. As with other great memoirs (Sherman Alexie's as mentioned in Part Three of this series), blood and guts are left on the page, with Owen not appearing to leave much out from his honest recapture of his experience. His book is a reminder of the commitment writers must make.

Luckily, as with so much in life, I end up with a certain synchronicity here. When I finished the 365 songs a day series, Owen was on the outside, kind of like my freshman composition teacher. I hadn’t written about Owen (or his first band, Gene Pool) for my Pandemic Panoply. Why hadn’t I dedicated a day to one of his songs, “Fred MacMurray On Safari” or “Harry The Barstool,” the two most likely?² In that series, I often lamented how difficult it was to find an angle in which to frame the discussion. Since I had already been inclined to write about the local music scene in Morgantown when I was there (Day 175: 63 Eyes “Never Alone”), I couldn’t come up with a new angle.

Hmm? I guess writing is all about angles of inclination. Damn, I should have paid more attention in Mrs. Van Horn’s algebra class. Or at least asked Mrs. Van Horn to work with Mrs. Hilary, my English teacher at the same time, to make the connection for me.

In whatever years I have left, I need to stop being so cagey with my writing. People respond to connection, even when it's not their own. With this blog, the number of people I have referenced in my writings creeps toward 185. If you’re wondering when your time comes, stay tuned. In the meantime, I need to figure out that old composition teacher's name.

¹Rushdie, Salman. Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991. London: Granta Books, 1981. p. 277.

² Maybe this shout out (see owendavismusic.com) can be my act of contrition for Owen.

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If interested, fuller readings of the sources mentioned here are linked below (with poems available at the ever-expanding "The Blog Under The Bed").

An Intensely Private Man

Requiem

Restoration

Airplane Mode

Of Hearts And Spines

Cardio Cant

I Can't Help You Anymore

Day 69: Triumph "Lay It On The Line"

Turned Off And Away

Day 51: Prince "Little Red Corvette"

Day 175: 63 Eyes "Never Alone"

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A Life In Words Mostly Unread Series Home Page (with all 7 installments as of 6/18/2026)