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Kurt Vonnegut said there are two types of writers: Swoopers, who dive in, get it all down, and then go back and painstakingly fix whatever doesn’t work; and Bashers, who go slowly, trying to get it right, one sentence at a time.

I’ve worked both ways. But, for longer pieces, I’m primarily a Leaf Raker—from the research phase to the final draft.

I discovered this when we lived in a house in the country with two large fields. One was so rocky it barely needed mowing. The other was larger and wide open; bordered on three sides by sugar maples, along with a few oaks and a beech or two that had snuck in while the maples weren’t looking.

The maple leaves began to fall in late summer. At first, I’d just watch as they collected in little clusters under the largest trees.

During one of those late summers, I began working on a large project—a documentary. My colleagues were more familiar with the subject than I was, so they began suggesting books and articles for me to read and sharing their preliminary ideas for the script. I’d listen, print out key emails and documents, pick up random books, read a few pages, and jot notes on the pads scattered around my office. After a few weeks, however, it was time to get serious. (I.e., I got a signed contract.)

The key to raking a large area is to create small piles and rake them together into increasingly larger piles. It sounds simple but there’s some strategy involved—where to place each pile on the field, how close they should be to each other, and how big they should be before starting a new one.

There are many ways to organize large projects. I’ve used most of them—starting with the index cards on which I wrote notes during Junior High School and organized in a small gray metal box with carefully labeled dividers. Since then, I’ve used multi-level outlines, multi-sized index cards, and multi-colored sticky notes arranged and rearranged on walls or whiteboards. Nowadays, many people use scrawled collections of boxes, arrows, doodles, and charts called “mind maps.” They don’t work for me. I’m trying to organize all that chaos in my brain, not turn it into a work of art.

Rakes come in a surprising number of sizes and materials. I prefer old-fashioned bamboo rakes. That’s what I used when I raked my parents’ lawn 50+ years ago, so they’re nostalgic as well as natural. Plastic ones are more practical—they tend to be wider but the leaves don’t come off as easily. Metal rakes are great for scratching every last leaf bit out of the grass, but that feels a little obsessively suburban.

As summer turned into fall, my fellow filmmakers increasingly inundated me with ideas, suggestions, advice, books, magazine articles, and quotations. Fearful of succumbing to information overload, I hurriedly began to collect them into more targeted folders, subfolders, and files, (I use a program called Scrivener to organize projects. It’s so good, Microsoft Word should slink away in shame and take its multiple menus and obscure shortcuts along with it.)

Just as I felt I was making progress, the leaves on the maples began to drop in earnest, joined now by the beeches. It was no longer enough to have a few small piles. I needed five, then six, then ten. A friend offered to lend me a leaf blower, but that seemed like a sacrilege. Another suggested I just mow them all. I tried that once. But it created a big mush of brown. Besides, I like raking.

The background information kept coming, but my basic organization held together pretty well. Occasionally, something simply didn’t fit so I created a new folder or threw the information into what my colleagues call an “icebox,” which is kind of like a teenager saying they want to date other people but aren’t ready to talk about it yet.

One of my favorite raking moments is when a strong puff of wind hits the leaves just right so a cluster floats up in the air and does a pirouette before falling back to earth.

By late September, I began to rake all the little piles of leaves into one big pile.

And, I began working on a draft of the script.

One night in late October, I woke up and heard a howling north wind. By morning, my carefully sorted piles had disintegrated into one inchoate mess.

As I began to write the script, I sat in on two long interviews with experts and received some preliminary feedback from colleagues, both of which made everything I’d written so far appear appear to be one big disorganized, incoherent jumble of sentences.

I’ve learned not to panic at times like this. You just have to take a deep breath, pick up your rake and get back to work.

The next draft can be rather grueling. But the situation may turn out to be less dire than it seemed: The general organization may not be a tear-down, just need some structural work; some of the good sentences may still work as is. By the third or fourth draft, you might even be able to do a little swooping and bashing.

But you can’t get overconfident. Most of the oak leaves won’t start falling for another month and even continue, often past the first snowfall, when they’ll scatter, rust-colored, across the pristine white.

Just when you thought everything was perfect.

My father Elmer—a rather odd moniker for a Jewish kid from Pawtucket, Rhode Island—taught Shakespeare at Brown University for almost 40 years. He taught me the crucial difference between what I thought my words were saying and what they actually said. In the former, writers really only listen to themselves, leaving the reader to watch from a distance as phrases and sentences careen unchallenged around the writer’s brain, trapped in self-referential loops. In the latter, the writer listens along with the readers. They may not agree. They may not even like each other. But they are at least on the same page.

The thrilling conclusion to Season 1 of The Man Who Woke up the Buddha, where we learn what just bumped into Sid, where to find dinosaurs, why it’s probably not a good idea to talk to strangers, and the esoteric wisdom of Raggedy Ann.

The thrilling conclusion to Season 1 of The Man Who Woke up the Buddha, where we learn what just bumped into Sid, where to find dinosaurs, why it’s probably not a good idea to talk to strangers, and the esoteric wisdom of Raggedy Ann.

Sid continues his peace-is-every-step practice in spite of the unexpected obstacles that fate puts in his way, particularly an alluring yoga teacher who triggers a brief present-life regression, and an overwhelming desire for a cinnamon scone.

Sid, suddenly feeling abandoned by the Buddha, decides to try "peace is every step." After a minor mishap he ends up in a hardware store where he contemplates the uses of rope with a famous Inquisitor.

While doing research at the local library, Sid and the Buddha discover that they haven't been given credit for many of the books they wrote; are almost run over by an oblivious teenager pushing a cart full of books; try to determine the difference between "Idiots" and "Dummies"; and eventually deconstruct and reconstruct four of the famous Eight Realizations.

Early one morning, Marcus and Sid walked to the general store to get the paper, coffee, and cider donuts. After finishing the obituaries, Sid and the Buddha collaborated on updating the Four Noble Truths.

Things get a little wild in the MRI machine at the midwest cancer center when Sid passed out, leaving the Buddha alone with one of the most murderous dictators in history.

After wandering aimlessly around the atrium of the cancer center, admiring the art and architecture, Sid is inexorably drawn to the information desk, where a Bodhisattva in the guise of a volunteer helps guide him in more ways than one. Even the Buddha is impressed with her compassionate nature.

In this week’s episode of The Man Who Woke up the Buddha, Sid learns more than anyone needs to know about golf balls, testicles, and tumors He's then joined by LJ, a "park person" who shares his theories of life and marketing and gives Sid news about the latest overdose in town. He, Sid, and the Buddha shake their collective heads philosophically and speculate on how the person will reincarnate.

Sid, Di, and the oncologist discuss his rare cancer anaplastic ependymoma, as well as the technicalities of road biking including a ride in Vermont called L.A.M.B. which features more than 10,000 feet of climbing over 112 miles. The Buddha provides color commentary while musing on the cycles of life and death.

It turns out learn that the Buddha is part of a long lineage of dead poets, politicians, warriors, and holy men and women who, over the years, have temporarily set up shop in Sid’s boundless imagination—including Agamemnon, Torquemada, and Harriet Tubman. Which, at times, was embarrassing for his kids and could wreak havoc at the dinner table back when he tried to get them to help him guess who the hell was invading his porous imagination. Click here to read the episode.

Sid gives his first “Dharma talk." It's by invitation only...and the only people invited are his five grandchildren, except that Di insists on attending to make sure he doesn't go off the rails in his description of the night of his stroke. Zoey keeps interrupting with know-it-all facts about Buddhism until her big sister Courtney convinces her to be quiet before her brother Junior hits her. This is the first real introduction to all the grandchildren.

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Marcus returns home in time to have a nightcap with his wife Leila who, in some ways, knows Sid best of all. Together, they reflect on Sid's idiosyncrasies including the times he impersonated Teddy Roosevelt...and later, Al Capone.

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Marcus stops by to see Sid before leaving the next morning. Finally, after doing endless errands for Di, he escapes. He spends most of the ride thinking about his history with Sid which includes Sid’s rather complex relationship with Marcus’s sister Julia. He calls Julia to give her an update.

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Sid talks to Marcus’s more-or-less enlightened friend Kesey who runs a Zen monastery in New York State and is able to give Sid some pointers about being the Buddha.

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Background on Kesey and Marcus's relationship.

Marcus looks on helplessly as Sid and his nurse Ivan engage in some spiritual one-upmanship over Sid’s claims of Buddhahood during which Ivan the Terrible makes a brief appearance. Ultimately, nurse Ivan leaves shaking his head and Marcus suggests that Sid consult an expert on Buddhism...namely, his friend Kesey who's allegedly a Zen master.

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Having heard that her grandfather is the Buddha, Sid’s precocious 12-year-old granddaughter Zoey embarks on a quest to learn everything she can about Buddhism in order to prepare for discussing the situation with her “Uncle” Marcus. But soon he’s asking her difficult spiritual questions even she has trouble answering.

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The episode begins with background on how Sid became Marcus’s de facto big brother during Sid’s college years after a chance encounter during a frisbee game. Then the scene returns to Sid’s hospital room where, ultimately, after extensive fooling around, Sid gets serious and confesses to Marcus that he’s the Buddha.

Click here to read the post.

In late September, I speculated on the “odds” of four of my friends making a major life change in the next 24 hours. So far, all bets have been off. Chuck turned out to be a shameless manipulative liar with the total complicity of his partner Vicky. My friend Melissa’s relationship with the truth was equally tenuous, although more complicated. Which brings us to Trish. [I’ve been calling her Sally, but she told me to use her real name.]

In Street Cred #5, there’s a photo of Trish standing on a street corner. I blurred the image, although probably some people could tell who it was by the location and her posture. When I asked how she felt when she saw the picture, she laughed, “Dude...I got it hanging in our tent!”

I love Trish. Everybody loves Trish. Well maybe not everybody. After all, unless you’re afflicted with aspirations and/or pretensions of unconditional love, you might not care all that much about (let alone love) a woman who looks tragically forlorn, half-heartedly holding a cardboard sign. Especially when you notice she’s missing a couple of front teeth—often the sign of addiction and/or poverty. The fact that she’s had ten kids (all of whom are placed with relatives) would seem not to make her particularly more lovable.

Let’s face it, on the surface, Trish tends to trigger all the familiar tropes, judgements, and biases about homelessness.

So you got to wonder why some people who have vowed never to give any money to anyone on the street again, still give money to Trish. Or why there are coffee shops and restaurants that simply can’t afford to keep giving food to every hungry person who walks through the door, still give food to Trish.

Why? Because behind that outer scrim of darkness she’s such a bright light…

One day we were at the Co-op. I was drinking coffee and she was eating ice cream—her drug of choice these days. With one notable exception,* Trish has been successfully on methadone treatment for over a year.

As she drew in a little sketchbook I’d gotten her, we talked about life at the sober house up north where she had just moved. Then, a little boy came over, put down a bottle of juice, and walked back to the table where his mother was sitting facing the other way.

Trish explained, “Whenever he sees me, he gives me something, maybe juice or a soup. I tell him not to, but he says he wants me to have it…that it’s important for him to do.” She told me that one cold morning he came up to her while he was on his way to the arcade and handed her the money his mom had given him to play pinball. He said that he’d rather she had it.

Maybe he loves Trish more than anybody.

* I didn’t learn about the exception I just mentioned until a few weeks later, when I saw her standing outside the Co-op. It was cold so I suggested we go inside to get coffee (and ice cream). She told me she wasn’t allowed inside there any more…at least for a while. This surprised me because, as indicated, even places that don’t welcome anyone welcomed Trish. Well, she confessed, she had overdosed in the Co-op bathroom. What??? She told me that when her parents had visited recently with her two youngest kids, she’d learned one of them had serious cancer. That was the final straw: being away from all her kids; people bad mouthing her on the street; struggling to stay on methadone; the fact, that she, too, had cancer. She’d had enough. She impulsively bought way too many bags of fentanyl and tried to OD.

I not only love Trish. I trust her. Why do I trust her even though, while she often tells me the truth, I know it’s usually not the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Partly because she calls me “dude,” and “bro” and she gives me a delighted grin when I make fun of her.

But the main reason I love Trish is that she has such a big heart. When you see her face light up when she talks about her kids, and how she calls them whenever she can, and how they’re doing at school, and how they just want her to get better, and what she’s doing to try to live with or closer to them…you can tell, for all the trials and tribulations she (and they) have gone through, they were born in love.

When we left off in What are Odds? #2, Trish had allegedly moved to that sober living house, but had begun to show back up in town way too often because she needed to/wanted to:

* Get her methadone dosing transferred;

* Get clothes she had left down here;

* Get her mail from the Drop-In Center ‘cause they aren’t so great at forwarding mail for people with no fixed address to a new unfixed addresses;

* Go to Economic Services because her Snap Card [food stamps] wasn’t working;

* Give a presentation on homelessness at Youth Services;

* Talk to her lawyer in person for some reason and/or go to court for the same or other some reason;

* Go to the final meeting of a photography class she’d started down here;

* Go to a NA group meeting here because she really liked and trusted her sponsor;

* Talk to friends and see some familiar faces. (Those days usually ended with her telling me that she never wanted to come back here again.)

How did she get back and forth? Medicaid rides, she said. Often, when I saw her outside the Co-op, she’d tell me she was “waiting for my Medicaid ride.”

But even a rube like myself suspected that someone living in a sober-living house two hours away couldn’t leave or get rides that easily or often. I knew something was wrong but I couldn’t figure out what was right.

Trish usually didn’t ask for money. She just wanted me to buy her some ice cream with whipped cream (and assorted other nutritionally-deprived snacks) since she had to provide her own food at the sober house. But she talked enthusiastically about living there and how her caseworker was helping her look for a job.

I finally I texted her saying I needed some proof if I was going to keep helping her…preferably something like a picture of her next to the sober house where she was allegedly staying. I didn’t hear anything so I kept writing her the same text daily.

[I’ve abbreviated the following for brevity and clarity. Especially clarity. The twists and turns in Trish’s life are so circuitous I’ve told her she should be writing novels instead of texts to me.]

Me: Don’t tell me you’re lying too. You keep on saying you're different from the others. Where ARE you? The longer you go without answering, the more I think you're using me...and dope. All I want is the truth.

Trish: No I haven't relapsed yet at all. Okay truth is I got thrown out of the program because I showed up late too many times…I did not want someone else being disappointed in me so I was waiting to tell you…I didn't want to get judged or yelled at so I was waiting. I'm sorry. There you go…that's everything you asked me to tell you so if you're going to start judging me yelling at me and cutting me off just do it now please I already feel like it worthless piece of s*** that's why I didn't tell you I didn't want you disappointed in me cuz I have no one else.

Me: All I ever wanted was the truth. This sounds like the truth. i don't judge whatever that is. It's when people lie to me I'm disappointed.

Trish: I'm sorry that I didn't tell you sooner I was worried you would be disappointed in me.

Me: Well I hope you believe me re truth…I figured more than a week ago maybe longer that you had probably been thrown out of the program. That's OK it must've been tough to suddenly find yourself up there in the middle of nowhere. Now tell me the truth…Do you have cancer?

Melissa and Vicky have both told me they have cancer and I’m virtually positive they don’t. I’m pretty sure Trish does—ovarian that hasn’t spread yet…But yes, she knows she needs regular treatment and a hysterectomy, both of which she keeps finding reasons to delay.

Trish: 100% I definitely do.

Me: Have you been able to start treatment anywhere?

Trish: My last treatments were when I went to Baystate.

Now she was going to return to the hospital for treatment and wanted some money for food and stuff. I gave her some but then she realized she needed more.

Trish: Okay so my new methadone clinic I will be starting at tomorrow morning instead of it being $15 a day for dosing it's only $7. Tomorrow is my first day of dosing so: $7 and then $7 for Saturday and $7 for Sunday, and then on Monday they will start dosing me for free. So can you please help me with $21 so I can pay for three days of my methadone and then I'm good to go from Monday on. I just don't want to go outside and hold a sign because it's a big trigger for me and I don't want to be around everyone right now because they're all using drugs and I do not want to relapse.

After that, we had a few more spreadsheet-defying back and forths about how she’d spent the money I’d given her and what she needed more for. On the last one she wrote:

Trish: I'm betting that you are yelling at me right now and probably going to tell me to go f*** myself but I really need you.

Me: Will you stop f-ing acting like such a f-ing victim about how mad I'm going to be? Just ask for what you want and I'll say yes or no but STOP saying you're a piece of sh-t. and STOP saying I'm gonna tell you to F--- yourself. Grow up! Ask for what you want and what you need and take whatever happens. Enough! Now, what do you need?

Trish: Ok. I need $25 more for food because they still haven’t sent me a new Snap Card. And I really really need a cheap phone so I can stay in touch with my kids. Thank you for answering I love you.

The last I knew, Trish had moved into a shelter near the hospital where she has a really good caseworker who is helping with logistics while she receives the treatment she’s put off too long.

What are the odds?