Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Shhhhhhhh...


This morning, as I often do, I stopped at the convenience store to get a cup of coffee after I dropped Megan at school. I never have been a fan of Starbucks; I’ve never bothered with trying to learn the lingo (“Grande Double Mocha Skinny Latte Dolce Frappuccino, please.”), and I found it difficult to pay four or five bucks for a dose of caffeine I could get for considerably less money. Flavor seems irrelevant.

Well, not totally. I still reached for the darkest roasted coffee the shop had to offer, despite the fact that I had not had caffeinated coffee in several days, knew that I was reaching for the blend with the most substantial jolt, and didn’t mix it with the decaffeinated that I usually use to lighten in up. In doing so, I ignored that little voice that told me I was going to regret it later. And I did.

It was only about an hour and a half later that I got up from writing at my computer, and I could feel it, that sudden odd mixture of blood pressure and dizziness I recognized from before. It is an uneasy feeling; I dislike it, and I predict it every time just as surely as I choose to induce it, but I still fall into its trap every time. You would think I’ve learned by now. But in knowing it will happen, I also know it will pass, just as easily. I know it as surely as I knew I was ignoring that quiet, inner voice.

These days, when I run, I run quietly. I don’t mean that I run with light footsteps and inaudible breathing, I mean that I run without an iPod, or music or sound-producing gadgets of any kind strapped to any appendage or other body parts. I most often run alone, and I usually run a route that is away from heavy traffic, other runners, or the busy sounds that seem to permeate even the suburbs. At least half of my shortest route is on a gravel country road, and if I want to rack up the miles and do so with as much quiet as possible, I’ll avoid my longer routes and just circuit back over the short route. It runs out of a pretty quiet neighborhood, past a school, and out into the countryside and into the farm fields before it returns me to a main drag. I like to run it, as often as I can, around dusk or after dark. It is even quieter then, and darker, which makes the solitude of it almost palpable.

When I run, it takes concentration, and the quiet helps me focus on efficient running techniques, like trying to maintain a mid-foot strike, not extending my stride, lifting my knees correctly in height so as to pendulum and not force the lower leg, and my arm position and stroke. All of that is a great deal to try and keep moving in the correct manner, and I can’t say that I am able to do all of these things correctly in unison, but I know there is no way I could if I had any sort of distraction.

As an added benefit, the quiet also affords me the ability to hear my breathing, and my heartbeat, which I listen to not only as a measurement of how my body is reacting to the stress I am subjecting it to, but also as a anatomical equivalent of a metronome. Funny, but I feel some reassurance in being able to hear all of that.

When I move about in my neighborhood, and on that rare occasion when I encounter others on my runs, I see runners with iPods mounted and earphones firmly implanted, and I have to ask myself why they wear them. I mean, I understand why, really; they run with them so as to enjoy music while they run. Or so they tell me. But, they also tell me that it helps pass the time, that it helps them forget the long and dreary amount of time it takes them to run for any distance or any minutes. I have even met runners who measure their runs by the length and the number of songs they have in their favorite running playlist. In passing each other as we run opposite directions, I’ll wave and mete out a “Hello” from my breath if they look up to make eye contact, but most often they don’t, and even if they do they seem unable to say the same in return.

It is possible to argue that these musically cocooned runners and I are both trying to isolate, trying to tune out the rest of the world so that we can accomplish what it is we are so stringently focused on performing. But, I think there is a significant difference in seeking solitude in the relative quiet and trying to drown out everything else with noise. That’s not any judgment of their music selection, or music in general; it’s just the way I see what they use to overpower every other sound, internal as well as external. That is the part that puzzles me, and makes me wonder if they have ever tried the opposite, and if they did, why they didn’t like it.

I worry about this noise thing. I worry that we have ramped up our lives so much these days, with the inability to enjoy relaxation or quiet or a less frantic pace of activity. We—and to a degree, I have to include myself in this—keep our communication devices close at hand, wherever we go. There is no place our cell phones cannot invade, and with their convenience no place to feel free of them.

At home, it’s easy to keep the television on for our every waking moment, many times simply on for its own sake, or for background noise, or to keep us company. I can’t tell if we are trying to drive out the quiet, or if we are trying to drive out the solitude, or both. I have to ask myself if we need the distraction, or if we have become addicted to the pace and challenge of multitasking, or if it is that we actually fear what we might hear in the stillness, or fear being alone. Which is it that we are trying to drown out?

I used to be a news junkie. Whenever I was home and without the girls, I would always have the television dialed in to CNN. It was a way for me to stay wired and current with the outside world. I have long ago forsaken newspapers—a tragedy in itself, I guess—for the more immediate gratification of the constant feed. It looks like I’m not alone in that; newspapers across the country are on their way out because of people like me.

But, by accident, I discovered that I could write better, with more clarity and focus, when I did not have the television on at all. Then, not long after that, I discovered that I could no longer write at all with it on, even if the sound was turned completely down. From time to time, when there is something big and breaking going on in news, I’ve even tried to do both at the same time, and I cannot. I can’t even listen to the iTunes on my computer while I write anymore, which is a little bit disturbing, because I can remember a number of things I have been able to do during my lifetime with music simultaneously playing. Not any more, it seems. Except drive; I seem to still be able to drive with music playing in the car.

I don’t believe that I am an eccentric, nor do I want to believe that I am any kind of Zen master who should or wants to convert us all to a life of meditative silence without media, or electronics, or all of our other modern conveniences. It could very well be that I simply lack the ability to concentrate and focus as I used to be able to do, or that my mind is a little slower than it used to be and can’t absorb all of the sensory bombardment to which I have been previously accustomed. Now that I think of it, my mind might not be as fast as it used to be. But, I’m okay with that, honestly, if that is the case.

And, I am betting I am not the first, last, or only person to ponder some of the things I inquire about here, question whether or not we move too fast and too loudly nowadays. I’m merely someone who has stumbled onto what it can do for me, what I can hear, when I am still enough.

© 2010 Cody Kilgore. All Rights Reserved worldwide under the Berne Convention. May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

The Long Way Home


I have this little exercise I put myself through anytime I feel a regret coming on, one where I try to turn the regret into something I instead appreciate. It’s kind of fun actually, to try to reverse it from the negative to the positive, and you can apply it in almost any situation. I would, however, suggest you perform this exercise the same as I, and only do this with an internal monologue.
    “Why thanks, officer! I was likely going to spend that seventy-five dollars on something frivolous and wasteful, rather than have it going into the community coffers for some good. I appreciate this chance to do my civic duty, and the reminder that my driving was unsafe and too fast.”
    “Nice. I am so fortunate that Totally Hot Latina Mom—who is almost always there when I pick up Kylee from school and has chatted me up a couple of times—was able to see me in my sweats, ball cap, and three-day-old beard this morning. Now I never have to worry again about her seeing me at my worst. What a relief!”
    “Mr. Bathroom Scale, you are such a great friend. How else would I have ever remembered how that weekend in Kansas City (replete with Mary’s incredible cake and all those calorie-laden Stouts) was going to throw me totally off of my training plan for this year’s running season?”
See? It’s easier than you would think. And, if anyone tells you that what you are saying is a rationalization: first, turn off the volume on your inner voice, because it has escaped you, then, tell them to go away and quit eavesdropping. Your conversation with yourself, voiced or not, is a private conversation and not meant for others to hear. Then, if they are old enough, remind them of this scene from The Big Chill:
    Michael: I don't know anyone who could get through the day without two or three juicy rationalizations. They're more important than sex.
    Sam: Ah, come on. Nothing's more important than sex.
    Michael: Oh yeah? Ever gone a week without a rationalization?
(Just a side note here: those of us old enough to quote scenes from The Big Chill are now more likely to insert longer time frames into Michael’s last statement.)

By now, I have likely convinced you, and if I have not then I probably never will. The fact of the matter is: I have instances where I still can’t convert something I regret into a benefit. Where I struggle the most is with this thing we all call Buyer’s Remorse. That one nags me for days on end after I have splurged on something.

Like many of us who have had to be more expense conscious during recent economic times, I try to minimize the splurges and stick to the necessities. Nowadays, I always ask myself if something I see in the store (and dammit, I work in one of the best) is a Need To Have, or A Want To Have. I have several motivations for this questioning of every purchase.

The primary concern is, of course, over money, the preservation of it, the need for it to be spent on essentials, and the fright I have experienced a time or two in my life of not having enough. Second to that is the desire to teach efficient and effective spending habits to Megan and Kylee. With Megan, it is likely a lost cause, because she has never seen a shoe shop or a shoe department that she could not empty of styles her size if ever given the resources. Kylee is another matter; she has control of impulse buying down pat. Lastly, I am just trying to practice less consumerism and leave as little a footprint on this planet as possible.

And a little confession for you: sometimes, when I buy something that I think is an impulse or a splurge, I leave it sitting there on the desk unopened for a while, in a pristine return state, in case I feel too guilty and get the urge to take it back. Ever do something like that?

Remarkably, one of the things in my life that I least regret is my marriage to my former wife, Michelle. But, that is probably not hard for anyone who has children to understand; I have two living, breathing little inspirations who offer me daily reminders of the meaning of my existence. Personally, I am not sure how anyone can regret a marriage that resulted in children, unless they are unable to see past their own selfishness, or is guilty of the mindboggling act of abandoning children to their spouse.

But there is more to it than that, actually. My marriage was bookended by two periods in my life which were less than rosy, and so it is framed and defined as one of the best times of my life. I know you might wonder how that could be, if it didn’t work out, but by comparison it shines. I also remember it as a time of my life—eleven years worth, to be exact—where I was a part of a complete family, and that had long been a lifetime goal of mine. Okay, so it didn’t turn out to be a lifelong achievement, but it was good while it lasted and still offers me rewards, to this day. And we’re still family, the four of us. We’re just a little different family.

Travelling home is what brings up most of my regrets lately. We have fun there, seeing friends and family, are very comfortable there, and on the drive home I inevitably begin to wonder how I ended up where I have, how I got there, why I so readily left everyone and everything behind. What would life have been like, and what have I missed out on by not being there all this time? And, almost as soon as the questions arise, I know the answers, and I know it is more than just the two other people there in the car with me.

Despite my difficulties with all things metaphysical, I still have a tendency to believe that everything happens for a reason. I could list a plethora of people, events, lessons, rewards, trials, and victories great and small, all of it being things I had to go through to be the person I am now—as we all have. Whoever I was yesterday helped me prepare for who I try to be today, the same as what I experience today will prepare me for tomorrow. Skip out on any part of it, and I am not the same person, and the same person would not experience or interpret or act or react to everything based on the perspectives formed from previous experiences. It’s a necessary chain, with each delicate link no less vital to the support and beauty of the craftsmanship than any other.

So, in short, the reason why I’ve enjoyed going home now, and why I did not get to enjoy it all those other years, was because I could not enjoy it in the way that I do now, or as the person I am now. I wasn’t ready.

© 2010 Cody Kilgore. All Rights Reserved worldwide under the Berne Convention. May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Seeds


Deep breath. Exhale.

My mother was bipolar. I did not see her, and rarely spoke with her, the last 20 years of her life, and I did not attend her funeral.

When I say that, I don’t share it as a badge of courage, or to elicit some sort of reaction. I also know and understand that, for many, that last statement might seem unfathomable, that it represents a distinct disconnect. To me, it is just a fact, and while I recognize it as obtuse, I still see it an aspect of my life that is no more significant than my brown hair, my hazel eyes, or having two hands. I have, however, carried that one thing around with me, back in the far recesses of my thoughts, and allowed it to sometimes bubble to the top as a tiny little fear.

Like yesterday. Yesterday was one of those odd little days that just seemed like a jumbled rush of things to do and not enough time to do them, or too many things to do at the same time. One of those things necessary to do yesterday: sleep. By the time I got home from work—slightly later than usual, that morning—I had already been up for thirty hours straight. Because I had to pick up Kylee from school just five hours later, it meant I was also not going to recover enough to be operating at my best mental capacities. And, whenever I don’t sleep, or get enough sleep, it produces a fog, within which I am always slightly distrustful of my temperament, thoughts, and feelings.

In the middle of the afternoon, I forced myself out of bed and stumbled into the shower, and tried to muster motivation for what needed to be accomplished. I was really only successful, however, with the shower part. And when I got ready to leave and Megan—who was home sick with me that day—reminded me that Kylee had an after-school activity and I was an hour early on my intended errand, I laid back down. I thought I could catch another hour’s nap, but never expected my thoughts to intrude on that nap.

But that was when they hit, those thoughts and ideas and scrambled pieces of consciousness, and along with them came the small shot of adrenaline that served as just enough to keep me awake, to make it impossible to sleep. Usually they are welcome, these thoughts, and that was the case this time as well, because they brought with them more than the usual internal dialogue and questions and explorations that I jot down, contemplate, and compose for sharing later. This time, they brought something bigger to work on, however, and so I turned on the light, reached for paper and pen, and I scribbled furiously for the entire hour I still had left before I had to leave.

It wasn’t until later in the evening that I stopped to fully examine what had happened in that hour, what it could be, why, and how it happened. When I did, I found myself a little frightened by it, actually, and that set off an entirely different chain of thoughts. What astounded me, as I looked at it, was the intricacies, complexities, and volume of ideas and notes that were the end product of merely sixty minutes. It seemed immense compared to the time. It seemed out of whack. I was grateful for it, but at the same time, I was taken aback by it.

At some point, I asked myself if what I had experienced in that hour was the creative process of a fertile mind, or if it was something else. I had experienced it to that extent one other time before, but only once, and it was smack in the middle of one of the most emotional periods of my life. Then, just as yesterday, it produced a volume of notes and ideas that filled—not only a notebook—but a large sheet of craft paper plastered to a wall, with thematic approaches and character developments and plots and subplots and outlines. When it was all said and done, I was ready to flesh it out and develop it. But, as usual, life got in the way. Things bigger than my ambition ate up my time and thought. That notebook, along with all the diagrams, got shelved, waiting for me to revisit them. And, one day, I will.

Yesterday’s episode also did not halt in that hour, but instead resumed itself the moment I was alone in the car, driving to have dinner with my friend Shari. In fact, it was as if I couldn’t turn it off, as if it were a stream of consciousness that had taken on a life of its own, ideas triggering one after another and becoming sentences and strands of words that tumbled into rhythms in my mind. When I reached Shari’s, I had to ask her for a piece of paper and pen and a few minutes of time to write things down I had thought of in the car on the way there, so as to not lose them and try to retrieve them from memory later. Those thoughts on the drive turned into a page of notes that later became this piece.

Remembering that previous explosion of ideas, and seeing its similarities to the one I had just experienced, led me to the thought of patterns, of behaviors, and , eventually, my mother. That is how that bubble once again surfaced: what, of my mother, am I?

This may be a little hard to understand for people who have never had those kinds of challenges in their family or their family history, or who have never been around or exposed to it. But when you have, and when it has been as close to you as your parent, the person in your life as a child who is supposed to represent everything solid, it is not hard to later wonder what small (or worse, large) portion of that was passed on. It is, after all, genetic, and we are all genetically and environmentally products of our parents, whether we want to accept that or not. It is not a big leap from understanding that and questioning what parts of your parents you did and did not inherit, or—of even greater concern—how those things might manifest in your children.

Although I have wondered about this from time to time, I have never really spoken about it—the concern of it—with anyone, except with my brothers. My conversations with them regarding this have always been safe, as we shared the history and experiences. Discussing it outside of that circle, however, required more courage and candor than I wanted to display with most until now, because I thought it might cause people to view me through that lens.

But at dinner that night, I thought that maybe I could, indirectly at least, get some objective input on those thoughts and concerns. Shari is an artist, an accomplished and awarded painter, and a teacher. I have known her for several years now, and she was someone who became a very good mentor and guide to me when I was first experiencing my divorce. So, I trust her advice, and I thought to ask her at dinner about her experience with the creative process. I was curious to know if she sometimes experienced this thing that you can’t seem to shut off.

“You mean being in the zone?” she replied. And then she went on to talk about “being in No Man’s Land,” and losing track of time, and sometimes not even realizing that you have not eaten because you are lost in your creative work. I explained to her how I was slightly disturbed by everything that had flooded my mind in that one hour, and how it related to my concerns about my mother’s mental health, wanting her perspective on that as well.

“You mean you’re paranoid about being bipolar just because your mother was bipolar and you experience creative spells?” I probably should explain that Shari is as subtle as a Mack truck, and that she usually speaks whatever is on her mind bluntly. Although her question and tone made me shrink back just a bit as my being just that—paranoid—I still felt some comfort in the fact that someone I trusted saw my concerns as unfounded.

In truth, I have always felt pretty safely sane, and I’m pretty sure that anyone that knows me—slightly, or with any depth—shares that same judgment. I do think there are things about my mother that I have inherited, but I think that they (most of them) are her better traits. Mom was creative, an amateur poet and painter, and she had an active imagination. She often looked inward and examined herself deeply, even though she may never have fully understood what it was she found there, or explored everything that she should have found during those periods of introspection. These things about her, and about myself, I have accepted. But I am fairly sure that is where most of our similarities begin and end.

So that small bubble of fear is yet even smaller after yesterday, despite that still frightening volume of notes I now see sitting on the nightstand by my bed. Looking back, I sometimes question why it ever surfaces at all. Maybe, no matter our age, experience, or confidence, we are all subject to small frailties and foibles, and minor doubts, and indecisions. It’s a part of life, this wondering who we are, where and what we came from, and where and toward what we are headed. Our personal experiences and feelings shape those questions for each of us individually and personally, but it is a healthy thing to ask about them and explore them.

I figure we’re all good, so long as we don’t hear the answers we are looking for being voiced by the inanimate objects around the house.

© 2010 Cody Kilgore. All Rights Reserved worldwide under the Berne Convention. May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Fairy Tales Lost and Found


“Dad, I know.”

Kylee was whispering. I was on my way to work and calling to say goodnight, and I had just asked her about how the day—or,more specifically, that Easter morning—had been for her. When I heard her whispering, though I heard her distinctly and correctly, I asked her to repeat it, because that father’s voice was going off in the back of my head. You know the voice; it’s the one that tells you you’ve just heard something really significant and want reassurance, or confirmation, of either something you know you’ve just witnessed or something you need to hear repeated before you rashly say something parentally stupid.

“Dad, I know. I know there is no Easter Bunny,” she continued. “ I know it was Mom that hid the eggs.”

Thus ended the Age of Unquestioning Innocence for Kylee, and for the second time in our family. I wondered, in a rush of thoughts, if the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus suffered similar fates that day, and would no longer be visiting our home to leave their sprinkling of magic. It was kind of a bittersweet moment. Not only did it mark the end of such things for Kylee and signify she was growing up (despite my protestations), it also meant there would be no more of it in the family, since she is the youngest.

And, in Kylee’s whisper, I heard so many things. I heard a little girl who felt the empowerment of discovery and knowledge. I heard the freedom of being let loose from a child’s fantasy, and suddenly feeling like you belonged to the club of People Who Know Better. I even heard the appreciation of a little girl that knew her parents promoted such fantasies for the enjoyment and enrichment of their child.

With Megan it was about the same age as Kylee, but Megan let us believe our act was working for at least one more Christmas beyond her discovery. The next year, as we decorated the Christmas tree and Kylee was momentarily out of the room, she nonchalantly let me know that she picked up on a neighbor’s kid’s slip-up. I think, for her, it was one of the earliest signals I got that she was declaring herself a more grown up girl, something that I really never wanted to hear. Not then, not now.

As children, we all go through this ourselves. It’s that moment in time where we transition from believing to questioning—usually prompted by that school-age friend that plants the seed—and to finally knowing outright. I even remember it happening at too young an age for me; I must have been seven or eight at the time. I confirmed it by staying up on Christmas Eve, waiting out mom by pretending to be asleep, then waiting for as long as I could before getting everyone up to open gifts. I lasted an hour; it was one o’clock in the morning.

But Kylee’s revelation got me thinking about where it all leads from there, where the pragmatic life begins to intrude on fantasies, and then dreams, and maybe even the simplest of hopes.

Spin the clock back thirty years. We all had hopes and dreams about everything we wanted to do with our lives. It was just the other day that a friend of mine, Don, commented on how “we could take on the world.” The point he went on to make was that we—and I don’t suppose to speak for everyone—didn’t quite hit the lofty expectations we had for ourselves, all those years ago. Yes, some of us are living the dream, or some semblance of it, or a dream maybe a little different than we imagined back then, but still a dream nonetheless. Yet others are living that life somewhere on the sliding scale that ranges from pounding out an existence to comfortable happiness. We make our peace with it, I suppose, in whatever way we can. Sometimes our hopes and dreams rest or rise only in our own mind, or sometimes we attempt to recreate them through the lives of our children. I don't think either case is good.

I remember a point in time in my life where I was on the pounding end of the spectrum. I never planned on being there, my life just evolved to that point. I had long given up any hopes of writing and what it would ever do for me, would mean to me again. I let it go as a pipe dream. I was a father and a husband and I resolved myself to what I saw as the realities of that life; I had to be a provider. I couldn’t afford to pursue dreams that were either risky or low-paying, and so I had to shelve any aspirations of writing, to redefine them as something else that made me more comfortable with setting them aside.

Don’t get me wrong; that life was not an unhappy one, or one where I thought, on a daily basis, about what I was not doing with my life. I never even recognized where I was, what kind of existence I was living. In fact, I found new pleasures in life that helped me feel satisfied. There was much to do, being a father and provider, and I could keep my time filled with the many things with which so many of us preoccupy and distract ourselves. It’s easy to do, this being a good provider thing, as easy as sleepwalking. But it can also get out of hand.

Before I knew it, being a good provider meant the bigger house, the bigger car, the next promotion, the better pay raise. One carrot led to another. We always spent what we had available, and sometimes more. And long ago and far behind me, the hopes and dreams of something else I might have accomplished in my life—not in spite of it, but possibly within it—laid dormant and sleeping, possibly never to be resurrected.

So, as all of the rewards of that kind of life began to unravel, there was a void left, and that made the trauma of the loss that much more difficult to endure. At some point I must have seen it coming, because at the tender age of forty-one, before it was clear where everything was headed, I went back to school to finish that English degree.

That was a frightening endeavor, to say the least. Before starting, I imagined a classroom filled with much younger people, all faster, sharper, and brighter than me. I never was the most diligent student in either high school or in my previous college stint, and so I was not sure I had the study skills necessary to pull it off, or to even prevent me from looking like a fool. But luckily, my first professor in that first course was an incredible teacher and person, and he was both encouraging and helpful. His interest in me and my skills gave me an insatiable hunger for learning, discussion, analysis, and writing. By the time I got to my final year, he was nominating my papers for publication and for presentation at Modern Language Associaion conferences, and I graduated with a 3.98, magna cum laude. Go figure.

And that was how my desire to write returned, even though I still didn’t practice it in the same way I ever hoped. But, it did give me back the faith in myself that I could craft words, and make them useful, thought provoking and interesting. The problem was, I was never going to make any better living out of writing theoretical analysis papers on literature—my talent at the time—than I would by not writing anything at all. So my writing, well, just kind of moved a little closer to the front of my thoughts and didn’t really go anywhere.

That is, until now. Now, I write what I enjoy, in a personal voice, which is the voice at which I was always best. It’s my voice, no one else’s, really. It feels comfortable. It feels genuine. The voice I write with now may never earn me a dime, but I get more satisfaction from it than anything else I have ever tried to pen. So, in a way, my dream is a little more alive now than it has been for many years, which is good.

Maybe one day I will write something else, a work of fiction, from all those reams of notes I have stashed away here and there, and maybe not. Or possibly this voice I enjoy will take me somewhere, become something more than just an exercise in thought and words on paper (or screen). At this point, I feel like I am progressing toward that end and can make it happen someday. If it doesn’t, I have a lot of rewards happening for me right now with what I do, and with what the girls do, and that satisfies me.

Around here nowadays, it seems like we keep dreams not only alive, but thriving. I watch—with great interest—Megan as she launches her Facebook page showcasing her photographic skills, and I am reminded of my interest in photography in years past. She has a talent, that girl, and enthusiasm and ambition to match it. She believes, not only in her talent and in herself, but in all the possibilities that her dream can make real for her. I hope, with everything I have, that her dream will happen for her, and will do so at a much earlier time in her life than it has for me. More than that: I believe it will.

And Kylee: well, Kylee and a friend are putting together a little book of essays they are writing. I can’t tell you just how much that makes me beam. I have no idea if that will eventually end up being her dream vocation, as she has plenty of time for others to take shape. After all, she just ended things with the Easter Bunny.

© 2010 Cody Kilgore. All Rights Reserved worldwide under the Berne Convention. May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission.