christmas at frickin' dennys

It doesn't escape me that my favorite christmas song is also one of the saddest songs I know. It's not a lyric I can relate to in a literal way, I just love the writers take on the holiday.

I understand that to is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year and all that; and I will concede that I do have some wonderful memories of this time of year, but it is by far my least favorite holiday. I hate the rabid consumerism associated with it but that is not the main reason. The holiday just has never really clicked with me on a base level. Norman Rockwell I am not. This year has it's own set of unique circumstances associated with it that in no way make it likely to change that – seven days out it is shaping up to be the consummate example of “just another day”. I do not find this depressing, I am merely dispassionate about the entire affair. This is not generally much of a conversation topic among my friends and I – most people take my feelings about it as a reason to try and “make it better”. I see the reasoning, and appreciate their motives. I don't think of my lack of christmas cheer as a problem, however, it is just the way it is. To be brutally honest, the only thing I really love about this holiday is watching my children tear into their gifts, and that isn't on the menu this year.

Joyeux noel, everyone. Peace, love and good happiness stuff to you all.


“they got Christmas Muzak
piped in through the ceiling
and the refills of coffee
are always for free
and the waitress on graveyard
and the surly night manager
are wishing that all of us losers would leave

there’s a star on the sign
at the Texaco Station
like the star long ago
on that midnight clear
as I look all around
at these cold, empty faces
I doubt that you'd find many wise men here

and I'm dreaming about
a silent night
holy night
when things were alright
and I'm dreaming about
how my life could have been
if only, if only, if only
but somewhere down the road
I gave up that fight
merry Christmas
it's Christmas at Denny's tonight

once I had a home
and a wife and a daughter
had a company job
earning middle-class pay
then Lisa got killed
by a car near the schoolyard
and my wife started drinking
just to get through each day

I will never forget that little red wagon
turning to rust all alone in the rain
one morning I flagged down
a truck on the highway
I just couldn't bear to go back there again

and I'm dreaming about
a silent night
holy night
when things were alright
and I'm dreaming about
how my life could have been
if only, if only, if only
well, it's not just the blind man 
who loses his sight
merry Christmas
it's Christmas at Denny's tonight

they say
life's made of cruel circumstance
fate plays the tune and we dance
dance til we drop
in the dust and we're gone
and the world just goes on

the cop at the counter
he's the guardian angel
he watches these orphans
through dark mirrored shades
and the register rings
like a bell sadly tolling
for the fools we've become
and the price that we paid

oh when I was a boy
I believed in Christmas
miracle season to make a new start
I don't need no miracle, sweet baby Jesus
just help me find
some kind of hope in my heart

and I'm dreaming about
a silent night
holy night
when things were alright
and I'm dreaming about
how my life could have been
if only, if only, if only
but I'll still be here
at the morning's first light
merry Christmas
it's Christmas at Denny's tonight
merry Christmas
it's Christmas at Denny's tonight”


~Randy Stonehill

Dream Away

“All you good-doers lay your weary heads
Thorn filled pillows on feather beds
Sing your love songs on Sunday morning
Close your eyes and we'll
Dream away, my love knows no boundaries
Dream away

All you lonely hearts will you ever love
Diamond rings stained with red-rose blood
Sing your songs about valentine mourning
Take my hand and we'll
Dream away, my love knows no boundaries
Dream away

Shine your light
Can't see too good at night
But I know
I know where they come from
Where they go

All you still unborn hide your pretty faces
Mother's dirty nails don't care about you
Comatose in your private nightmare and
You're not far but one
Dream away, my love knows no boundaries
Dream away”

- the northern pikes


Ok, so I have been avoiding writing for the last days.

Luckily, its not like I have an avid readership or anything, so no harm done.

The last few months have taught me that I have a serious love/hate relationship with being alone – and also that I am far from being actually “alone” - which is a really great thing. I am blessed to have people in my life that are wonderful – I know that I am loved, even that I am indeed lovely. (wow that sounds pathetic as I read it back, true as it may be)

If you are reading this (and I am pretty sure you are at this point...) I hope that it is evident that I don't really like to bitch and moan about things. Honestly, I don't. Anyhow, I am realizing even more these days that there is a really fine line between knowing the right thing to choose and actually choosing it. I would like to think that I can make that choice correctly when required, but a large part of me thinks I am totally full of shit for thinking that. My ape brain self is still at heart a hedonist – and there are plenty of situations in life where it has a LOT of pull in my decision making. I suppose that this is true for a lot of us even if we choose not to admit it. Sure, we all want to believe that we are strong enough to be in control of our actions on a conscious level and that our decision making is unimpaired. Most of us are at least strong enough to take responsibility for those actions.

The real trouble is that we often mistake fear for strength. We cave into our base level, knee-jerk reactions and then justify ourselves after the fact by stiffening our spine and telling anyone who will listen what out reasoning was.

“they did blah, blah, blah.”

“they failed to do yadda, yadda, yadda”

“I couldn't do this because...”

It's all the same bullshit at the end of the day. We do what we do. Very few of us are in a situation where there is a gun to our head at decision time. We stand alone at that moment and we choose what we will do, whether or not we will consider the result; we choose our own outcome. Pinning our situation on another is not strength, it is the highest form of cowardice.

Snake

I have a somewhat closeted and extremely underexposed love of poetry. Saw this today and loved it, so I thought it wise to share.

-----

A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.
In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough
before me.

He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down,
over the edge of the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.

Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second comer, waiting.

He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,
And stooped and drank a little more,
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.

And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.

But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet,
to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?

Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him?
Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him?
Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.

And yet those voices:
If you were not afraid, you would kill him!

And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid,
But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.

He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.

And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders,
and entered farther,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing
into that horrid black hole,
Deliberately going into the blackness,
and slowly drawing himself after,
Overcame me now his back was turned.

I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.

I think it did not hit him,
But suddenly that part of him that was left behind
convulsed in undignified haste.
Writhed like lightning, and was gone
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.

And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.

And I thought of the albatross
And I wished he would come back, my snake.

For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.

And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.

Taormina, 1923
D.H. Lawrence

Meet the Author Day

“can I be myself in the presence of people who don't understand me?”

This question was posed at a book signing/open discussion I attended tonight. It struck a chord in me when I realized that until recently I would not have been able to answer “yes” to it honestly. I spent a good deal of time (well, a long time) very uncomfortable in my skin. Insecurity was/has been an issue for me since I was a kid, for as far back as I can remember I had the sinking feeling that sooner or later someone would realize that I didn't belong, that I was somehow not deserving of my position. It gripped me in a way that is difficult to explain; in a way, I suppose I allowed it to define me.

Then one day I woke up.

“One day” might be a bit of an overstep... it has taken time for me to realize who and what I actually am – and even longer for me to accept what I am not. But, regardless of the timeline, my skin has gotten comfortable – it fits me well these days. Finally.

Hoping you can say the same.

"These are good times to put down the sword and pick up the pen.”

That was a part of my horoscope for tomorrow, but I think I might adopt it as a more long term mantra.

Writing is therapy for me, whether it is for public consumption or just for myself it is one of the most effective ways I process anything. Conversation can be great as well, but involves another's opinions by default. When I write I am forced to face my own thoughts, my own opinions. These unfiltered snippets reflect me, more often than not I read this stuff back and think “ah, so thats what I really feel about that”. It's a bit like wandering around a new town without a map. Sometimes I wish I were better at it, whatever that means, but this emotion fades quickly. It isn't a job for me, and it is something that I do that seeks no validation. I simply do it because on some levels I have to. There is no real process or method I follow, no deadline, no expectation – it's one of the few things in my life that I do for me and me alone. I am not going to try and come off too detached, I am certainly aware and appreciate that you read these words – but that is not the reason I do it. Lord knows that if it were I might consider that I should give a flying fuck about things like grammar and form and sentence structure... mercifully for me, given my “ability”, I could really care less about any of that.

What I do care about, is that I still feel like I have something to say.

Generally when I write it is based around an idea or concept that starts churning around in my head and will not stop. The best metaphor I can think of would be that it is like having an upset stomach – you ignore it as long as you can and then eventually you realize that you are going to purge. Usually this makes things feel much better.

This also seems to often apply for me when I read back the outcome that is left on the page afterward. (self-effacing tendencies in full swing...)

letters to the dead

I'm writing letters to the dead, saying things I never said
You can hear me, your words echo right here on my arm
When I felt the needle pierce my flesh
I knew you never left

Paths divided, miles were crossed -
Regret is not a concept for the faint of heart
Never knew your happiness, his song wasn't mine to hear
Your voice transposed and transplanted to whisper in her ear

Dreams, like youth and twisted metal, can't carry on forever
The waking hours fall silent now as they have for years
No caustic wit. No brazen laugh. No brother's well placed word.
Just a missing smirk, an untouched drink and memories remain.

11/9

So I just realized that today is my ex-wedding anniversary. Its an odd day for me each year – I really look forward to forgetting this date – but I'm not sure I ever will. It is etched pretty deep.

It doesn't bring pain, nor happiness – its just another day really, just a day that reminds me of what I once thought was a good idea...

It shines an interesting light on decisions I am making in the present tense that I feel are also right and good.

It's basically a big fucking beacon that says - “you were wrong then, jackass. what makes you thing you are right now?”

I know in my head that thats bullshit thinking, but its tricky to argue with the logic, I am too smart to know any better.

In my head, I know that the past is just that, the past. It doesn't have to frame the present. I spend a good deal of time reminding myself of that fact. Hopefully that isn't time well wasted.

In the real world, though, it is THE major thing that attacks my confidence. It DOES frame my reality to some extent. I have been so very wrong before – and this silly box on the calendar serves to remind me of just how serious the consequences are when I misjudge at that level. It serves to remind me that there is no such thing as a trivial choice. In a way November 11th means more now then it did when I was still married. It stands no longer for an eternal union. It stands no longer for love, commitment, joy... It stands as a grave marker to my decision-making. There are times when I believe what it has to say about me, even though everything I am cries out for it to be wrong. My actions often argue with me on this.

Anyway, happy anniversary to me is in order – raise a glass if you have one, I am sitting this toast out.

hey buddy, spare some change?

I know, I know, another “change” post. What can I say, it's a reoccurring theme for me. Well, reoccurring is the wrong word, it's is THE theme.

When I first started down this road, I hated change. Even feared it. My life was riddled with compromises I had made simply to maintain the status quo. It is as if I thought that I could prevent the tides by simply ignoring them. That approach does appear to work for a time. You shift, shimmy and juggle; you sell off small pieces of yourself and fight tooth and nail to maintain things the way they are. However, you eventually recognize that there really isn't much left to sell. With that comes the knowledge that although you have kept those things around you, you yourself have changed. Your “death by a thousand little cuts” is complete and the rotting husk of who you were is left to wilt in the sun.

That pretty much sums up the position I found myself in (that I had put myself in) when I first sat down and started this blog. I looked in my face in the mirror that morning and as I had done many times before asked my reflection “who the fuck is THAT?”...

Somewhere inside me a voice actually answered and said “I have no idea, but I don't like him at all”. Mercifully, I actually listened.

In the next two years, my life was turned upside down. I got divorced. I moved. I have changed jobs. I have made new friendships, disposed of some others. I started looking for the bits of me I had sold off and took them back into myself. I questioned everything that I took as fact (alas, this one doesn't stop). I have loved deeper than I thought possible, and learned what it is to let that go. I have fought. In some ways, I have won, and in a lot of ways, lost. I have learned that the only true way to hold anything is with an open hand. I have discovered strength, and I have embraced my weaknesses. I have found comfort in my own skin.

Above all, I have learned that change is not an enemy. It just might be the dearest friend and teacher I have encountered. Yes, it is merciless. It is relentless, committed to accomplish it's task at all costs. Change works tirelessly to show us life's hidden constants. To reveal to us the things at do not change, the foundational truths that hold the essence of who we are together. I wish there was a universal list of these for me to share, but it is something you need to find within yourself.

Alternately, of course, you could just go on doing what I did all those years, and simply choose to believe your own bullshit for a while longer. There is always tomorrow, right?

Well... not always.

a still, small what?

There is no longer such a thing as a small voice. If you have it to say, say it – it will be heard.
Often, and most importantly, even if no one else does, you will actually hear yourself say it. Listen, take it in.

Write. Sing. Dance. Paint. Build. Create. Clean peoples teeth... Whatever.

Do it with honesty. Do it with passion. Pour yourself into it and stop wondering what the response or result will be, stop doing it for someone else. Life is short, moments are fleeting – leave a mark on them.

Stop waiting for the time to be right – it probably won't appear to be until it has passed.

And the Term of the Year Award Goes To...

par·a·tax·ic distortion (pr-tksk)
n.
An attitude toward a person based on a distorted evaluation, usually due to identifying that person with emotionally significant individuals from the past.

find me one situation in life that this doesn't apply to - and in the immortal words of Orsen Wells: "I'll go down on you"

stuck in...

a moment.

you know, the one that you immediately regret.

it's amazing to me how easy it is to spot when it happens, and after the fact how clear the signs were leading up to it when you reflect on them.

not so easy is heeding those warnings before the fact. that takes practice, awareness – that takes time.

something to ponder, something to do on the next go around - if you are lucky enough to have one.

and now, another lyric.

from: the gospel according to darkness

i know there's a place that you call your own
and you're safe and warm and you feel like you're home
and the peace of it and the faith involved
and you go to say...but there's no need to explain it
still you try then you see that it's okay. you're on your own

i see you lookin' around at the people on the street
well, things aren't what they seem.
if you push them hard enough, you'll find that most of them do not feel worthy of love
now how did this come to be?

~ jane siberry

Pardon Me

A little while back I emailed these to a friend who said "those words scrape my insides" - thought about them again today, so i thought I would share. They are by an artist who started in the '60s named Larry Norman. They pretty much speak for themselves.

Larry passed in feb of '08 - miss you friend ~ hope the next leg of your journey has been everything you expected it to be.

----

Pardon me, kissing you like I'm afraid
But I feel I'm being played with
And you'll leave me when you get the chance.

Off you'll go, in the darkness of the night
Like a bird in freedom's flight,
You're thinking only of deliverance.

Close your eyes, and pretend that you are me.
See how empty it can be
Making love if love's not really there.

Watch me go, watch me walk away alone,
As your clothing comes undone,
And you pull the ribbon from your hair.

- Larry Norman (sometime around 1971)

words with friends

To those who know me, its no mystery that I like to talk. It's how I process.

(Hell, if you read this blog, it's most likely no shock to you either.)

Knowing this about myself makes this next truth difficult to swallow -

There comes a point when words are mostly useless.

Actions still count, for the most part. So I guess there is that.

Now, I don't want to seem bleak – I don't feel that things are bleak at all. Life is movement, it ebbs and flows, winding it's way along until we all reach wherever we are supposed to go. This isn't an endorsement of pre-destiny, our actions are our own. We choose every day whom we will be and what we will become. The consequences of our actions follow us downstream long after our realization of their success or failure has been revealed to us – often showing up long after the fact; much like lost luggage. Perhaps baggage is a better term. In the same way, our corrections often times aren't apparent without the passage of time. As an added twist they tend to overlap.

All we can do is keep moving, keep trying to make better choices, eventually the cache will clear.

Or it won't.

Either way, we will know where and what we are – what we appear to be will take care of itself.

Outer Body ptDeux

When I first started this blog I honestly had no idea what I was doing, or why. (proof that some things never change) I knew that I was starting out on a leg of my personal journey that I needed to talk about and this seemed like a good outlet. It has served me well in that regard, there are things I have said in here long before I had the courage to speak them aloud or an available ear to listen. What has absolutely astonished me is that there have been others benefit from it, every now and then one of them contact me and it is pretty amazing to hear their perspective on what they have read – they aren't always positive, but they are great to receive.

Anyhoo – in my last post, “Outer Body”, I talked a bit about reclaiming the pieces of ourselves that we have given away or lost. I got a message a bit after posting it; asking:

“When you talked about reclaiming..how do you know when it's time?”

To over-simplify it, it is time when you notice something missing. It's important (although sometimes difficult) to remember that the other person hasn't taken anything from you, you gave it to them. They haven't wronged you – in fact it may well be quite the opposite. That is why I think the more important thing than the time, is the intent... It is hard to think of “reclaiming” something without attaching an air of finality to the act. In my perspective, this is not necessarily the case. While attaining closure can certainly be a motive for this sort of thing ( it defiantly was in some of the cases for me), it can also be looked at simply as a “reset”. In other words, if you decide to sever ties or close that door you can, but merely reclaiming the parts of yourself is not the same thing. Just like anything in life, it is the choices we make as we go along that determine that outcome. To maintain wholeness requires resolve. If you don't have it, manufacture some – takes a bit for it to take hold, but it works just the same.

Outer Body

Generally when I get the urge to write here it is centered around my own
need to process through something or other. Tonight feels a bit different,
as I am just going to describe an experience I had this week that has been
pretty life-changing for me. I have omitted some names and such - it seemed

like the right thing to do.

This is not the type of thing I generally share, but here goes -

I sat on my bed, cross-legged eyes closed, palms up... instantly I felt
as if my arms and upper body were being lifted, similar to the
sensation of floating through a very thick fluid. Then the weight was
pulled out of me, It felt as if a body was pulled from my body. This
happened two or three times. I stayed with it, in my mind I kept asking

“Come to me, reveal yourself.”

Things started to get a bit hazy and then a picture started to form in my mind.

I reached out my physical hand and in my minds eye saw her laying,

naked, on her bed. My hand passed into her chest and pulled a hand full
of, something, from her, clenching it tightly I drew it back towards my
mouth. When my hand got near my lips I opened it and inhaled deeply,
I could it filling me, as if the parts of myself I had left with her were returning
into me.

(If you have seen "The Green Mile", it was similar to the manifestation

that John Coffey experiences when he uses his gift.)

This happened twice more. In my minds eye it seemed that she
noticed something missing but was not sure what had happened. The
fourth time I reached out I saw another laying there, and although
it required much effort I also retrieved something from her and inhaled
it in the same manner. One final time I reached out and removed a
piece of myself from yet another person. The appearance of this last one

surprised me a bit.

After I consumed the last bit, I sat a moment and realized now that I
needed to remove the things from myself that I had been using to fill the
spaces that had been vacant. First I reached towards my heart, and in
my minds eye I saw that there was bitterness towards my the second person there.
I forced my hand inside my chest and pulled it slowly from myself. I
then saw her laying there again and almost returned it to her, but
then realized that I needed only to blow it out of my hand as one
would blow ashes off of their palm. I did this and she faded form
view. I next reached behind my head and “grabbed” the top of my spinal
cord/brain stem and pulled it up and away from me. When I did this I
saw the first, still laying on her bed, but with back arched and head
thrown back. When I had pulled this from myself I opened my hand and
blew on it as well., watching as she settled back onto her matress. When I first
“removed” this, my head fell to one side and it seemed like I lost all control of
my upper body – what seemed like a few minutes passed before I was able to
move my head and neck again. Next my hands moved and seemed to pull something
from my lower back and legs, I also blew on my palms after this and felt it
dissipate.

After this was over I sat on the bed feeling like I was awash in
the same thick fluid – I was breathing very deeply and slowly,
letting it wash over me. It felt very soothing, and very filling.

After a short time came out of this, and felt very strongly to
write this down, so here I am...

Anyway, curious as always to your thoughts... I feel like I am buzzing right
now, in a good way. I kind of always do after I have these
experiences, now that I am back in my head and all rolled out, that
was unexpected and pretty intense. They have been happening with increasing regularity
lately - things are changing at a pretty rapid rate these days.

I am a pretty strong believer that when we are with someone, we give that person a

piece of ourselves, just as they do to us. We are generally all aware that in order

for us to maintain wholeness we need to reclaim these pieces when the time comes.

What some of us don;t seem to realize is that if we do not do this, we are no longer

fully ourselves. We remain bound to them - and we are not able to offer ourselves

completely to another. We can try - we can even believe that we are - but sooner or later

things start to wither. Sooner or later these bonds surface, and rarely does it go well.

Marcellus Wallace wasn't alright either

You work hard to let go of the need to be in control. You learn to forgive. You empty out all the ego from your life that you can. After some time, you even start to feel comfortable in your skin. The tears stop, as does the fantasizing about disaster – by all accounts you are doing pretty well. Things are better than alright.

Then there are days like today, when I just don't want to have to hold everything together myself.

I see parents with their children and it tears my heart out that I haven't so much as spoken to my own for but a few minutes in the last month. I want to be angry. I want justice. I remind myself that it will get better but my words ring hollow.

I want to talk and have nothing to say all at the same time, and no one to listen either way.

I start to write you, and my words leave me.

I want to cover myself in your warmth, but I am alone here, and so it is what it is.

I am not depressed – I do not cry. This pain is my own, I embrace it, observe it. I let myself feel it wash through me. There was a time when I would have held onto it, but no longer. My heart is open and it will find no handhold in me. Tomorrow will be another day and this ache will be gone, but today...

Today I am allowing to continue to at least partially suck.

Mama said to.

I am wrapped in peace and love and all manner of goodness, but rest assured, should the need arise I would still knock a motherfucker out.

I see no conflict in this. In fact, I may well be the most balanced I have ever been.

On a Sunday Morning Sidewalk

Ah, a rare quiet Sunday morning. There are plenty of things I really should be doing, but instead I find myself laying in bed wandering in thought.

I friend of mine recently wrote this -

"And, actually, even though it doesn't make a lot of sense, I find
that when I'm around more people, I feel more lonely than when I'm
more by myself or just with a few people." - SPV

I have started and stopped writing a blog post several times in these past weeks around the topic of loneliness, and when I read her words It actually did make a great deal of sense to me. Lately I have been experiencing a pretty intense experience to the people and environment around me. I am much more aware of them collectively, meaning their hearts,pain,joy... whatever. It's a hard thing to explain; and honestly I feel no need to explain it; but it is there. I am still at a stage where it is difficult to process all the raw data that comes with seeing into a group of people like that, I really am not sure it would ever not be that way to be honest. The strangest thing about it is that you simultaneously feel extremely connected to and yet isolated from those around you. There are no barriers, you see the essence of who and what they are. The mystery disappears, the illusion of newness is gone, the “clean slate of a stranger” shattered.

When you are with those you connect with, it is an amazing experience – when you are surrounded by those who are not, it leaves you about as isolated as you can get. This isn't really a bad thing; I am learning that there is a purpose to these times of isolation. It is then that I remember that I am loved, both by myself and others, and those bonds anchor me.

Spontaneous Haiku Injection

the lovers heartbeat
syncing as two dance in step
stillness and knowing

Alice said it would be easy

don't be confused by what you see
forget what it is you think you know
faithful step into silence
gravity isn't everything

clarity is misdirection,
understanding an infection
poetry lacking in inflection
navigation sans direction

strength is weakness
dollars worthless
currency and sanity
abandoned in your song

Stop. Breathe. Listen.

So, after a long time silent, I once again have been experiencing this urge to write things down. I am never really sure what or why, but it generally turns out to be (as I have said before) a relatively good therapy session. The hedonist I am at heart likes this.

Not sure if this holds true for everyone, but I can definitely detect a pattern to the messages that come into my life when I am living in a state of awareness (I am really not a fan of those sorts of phrases generally, but alas, the shoe fits) – it seems that the songs I am drawn to, the books I read, they all tend to point me in a singular direction. Not to say that there are literal answers; but the questions line up, and knowing the right questions is the tough bit. Once you are asking the right questions, your answers reveal themselves relatively quickly. One of the major themes to me lately has been love. It is a topic I tread lighting into and not a word I throw around loosely. Sure I will use it passively - “I love this food, this music, etc”, but to actually look at another soul and tell them of your love, to acknowledge that your heart of hearts holds for them a place that up till then sat empty and undiscovered; that is no small act. It is a word I respect greatly, and as I have been discovering as of late, have feared as well. As the quote says, we do indeed fear what we do not understand.

My ability to understand a thing is tied intimately to my ability to experience a thing. It has been this was as long as I can remember. I took apart (and successfully reassembled) my first radio when I was a small boy because I had to know where the music came from. I read instructions. I get my hands dirty, so to speak, whenever possible so that I can witness first hand how something is done. As Confucius said: “ I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand” I did not understand love, how to really receive and give it; because I lacked a base-level skill. I had failed to learn to love myself. In the midst of all I had accomplished, I still believed the old lie that I was not worthy. I held fast to the myth that although I was doing all right, I was a good enough person, but never that I was a treasure. Never did I acknowledge that I was a prize. Even writing it now is not easy for me, as I repeat the words in my head they sound vain, but yet they ring with a truth that we all need to hear.

It has been quite a journey for me to get to this point. I have lived a life out of balance, both good and bad sides of the scale rocking out of kilter. I have fought to hold onto things and watched them slip from my fingers. I have tried to walk away from others only to see them on my doorstep the next morning. I am learning that it is better to place yourself in the correct river than it is to fight against the current. I have realized that I deserve the rest that peace brings. With rest, our ability to dream is restored and our hunger to learn and grow is re-ignited. Within rest we find peace, and within peace we see ourselves as truly worthy of love, and we learn that the disconnect we have felt from that peace was our own making.

And so: love. For so many years poets and authors have sought to define it, religions and prostitutes have sought to profit from it, and our collective ego has sought to destroy it. This blog post has no goals so lofty – I am just here because I am beginning to understand a sliver of what it means to me, and because, as I eluded to earlier; it feels good to talk these things out.

Love holds no hostages, it relies not on response, it does not seek to conquer, it is fluid, it sees change as life, it does not deal in expectation nor assumption.

Also, as I learned just today, it is not ever found for long at 143.5 centimeters (or, 4 feet 8½ inches).

He Shoots! He Scores?

This week I did something that was surprisingly difficult for me. I dared to write down my goals. Before anyone gets too close to vomiting at that statement, I am not talking about career goals or some sort of Dr. Phil inspired body makeover. I am referring to the things that I have held so close to my heart that until today I haven't even felt comfortable putting them to paper – as if the act of recording them would cause some cosmic force to take a look and yell “No way you can have that!”

Well, I suspect that would have been less likely to have been said by a voice from the cosmos as it would have been my own self-depreciating ego. Either way, I sat down and made myself say out loud the things I have not said, and gave a name to my desires. I understand that to most, this might not seem like such an accomplishment – I mean its not exactly rocket science to say what you want right? But its taken me a long time to get to this point; mostly because I have looked at it all wrong. I understood having dreams, but goals were a mystery to me. I could see who I wanted to be, but the path forward was filled with choices that I consistently seemed to get wrong. Then a few days ago I read this quote in a book I am reading - “The only way to make the right decision is to know what the wrong decision is”. As much as I trust that things happen in their own time, I really wish I had learned this simple truth years ago.

Anyway, today I recorded my goals. It felt good. I read them back to myself and the steps forward started to get clearer, not easier, but clearer. I keep them next to something that was sent to me a short time ago that I use as an example of how to identify the wrong decision, and as a reminder fo the man I no longer want to be. My goals are my own, but maybe this will apply to someone else as well -

“Distraction by what doesn't matter
+focus on your emotional triggers
+no action on what counts
= your life”

Changes only happen when we go against everything we're used to doing

“Change. But start slowly, because direction is more important than speed”

“Life does not play with marked cards. Winning or losing is part of it”

-Paulo Coelho




Its been a heck of a year thus far, 2010 has pretty much been all about choices. Not just making them, but taking responsibility for them and dealing with the consequences both good and bad. An added bonus has been learning NOT to do this with the choices of others... Historically this has been a less than stellar area for me – The harder I tried to “do the right thing” the further from my goal I got. Once a situation started to get sideways, I would make every effort to fix it, inevitably causing more damage than repair. I spent a lot of time listening to the voice in my head tell me I needed to work harder. To change. To bear down and push through whatever was happening. It soon gets to the point where a hail-mary pass is the only option for success. For the record, this is not a sustainable model.

Before this all starts to seem too bleak, I will say this – my life was far from all bad. In fact, in a lot of ways, it was going better than it had in a long long time. The real issue with not addressing a problem at its root is that you risk having it become a part of a new foundation. In other words, the old bad shit can really fuck with the new good shit if it isn't dealt with, and when you finally start addressing those old choices you run the risk of uprooting things that you would much rather leave intact. Emotional/Relational Chemotherapy – kill off most everything and hope the good stuff was strong enough to survive.

If I were to push the analogy too far (which I typically do...) I would like to think that round one is done.
Verdict is still out as to if I will need another or not, but things are looking ok so far.


**I was recently introduced to the work of Paulo Coelho ( @paulocoelho ) – introduced might be a strong word; I saw a retweet of one of his quotes in I believe Portuguese from a friend and twitter's translation tool did the rest. I highly recommend you check it out. ( and by you I mean the one person who accidentally stumbles onto this blog in the year 2027 )

Happy

"I woke up this morning with a smile on my face,
and a great big hard on for the whole human race.
I love everybody and I want you to know,
got the world by the balls and I won't let it go.
And I don't give a damn if they take me away
Cause I'm so fucking happy
(He's so fucking happy)
I'm so godamn happy today"
- Randy Newman

Emmlyou Harris

I heard this song again today and the lyrics killed me - she paints such a vivid picture that I figured I should share... Jane Siberry's backing vocals are brilliant ( as per usual)


"In my imagination
You are my dear companion
And l'm the one you cling to
And your voice still calls my name
Before your heart began to wander
And mine was torn asunder
Before the fairer and the younger
Before the cryin' game
All those girls with their long dark tresses
Waltzing out in their Sunday dresses
All their sweet soft warm caresses
Cannot hold you like l do
And though you say you do notlove me
And your dreams are never of me
I will dream my dream of you
In my dreams you are the swallow
Coming back to Capistrano
And l'm the sound of the bells you follow
But in this world dreams don't come true
Still when you're lost out in the desert
When your fire's a dying ember
The last light you remember
Will be the light l shed for you
Mine is no ordinary star love
I see exactly where you are love
And no one else could shine that far love
To bring you safely through
And though you say you do not want me
And made no promises to haunt me
I will dream my dream of you
The sorrows flow down like a fountain
Over the miles beyond our countin'
More than the flowers of the mountain
Or the raindrops in the sea
But if Heaven?s just a dreaming
Surely my love will be redeeming
And you will dream your dream of me"

Shortcut

“There's one for the money and two for the sin
And three for the tongue when authority kicks in

There's four for the reason and five for the tricks
But nothing's going to save you from the six six six

There's seven for the days and seven for the nights
And seven for the heavens and the tunnel and the lights

There's a pattern, there's a pattern, there's a pattern there to follow
There's a pattern, there's a pattern, there's a pattern there to follow”

“Patterns” - Band Of Skulls


We have had an inordinate amount of snow this year, or so it seems anyway. Enough that there is about 1-2 feet of it covering every shortcut known to man. You know, the lawn you cut across on the way to the driveway, the quick path to lunch you take instead of walking all the way to the street sidewalk... its everywhere.

When I was a kid, I used to walk to my friends house across a big field behind my grandma's place. ( yep, thats me, Norman Rockwell's muse...) Once it got to be winter, you generally had 2 choices: get your feet wet by trudging through 2 feet of snow to make a path right to where you were going, or take some other persons meandering tracks and stay dry.

It took me way longer than it should have to realize that if I just wore warm boots I could walk any way I wanted. It's funny how some things haven't changed, like how good it feels to cut a path in untouched snow for example...

Try it, no point wasting time just cause you are afraid of getting your feet wet.

Eviction Notice

I heard a man say a long time ago that as we meet people in life our heart grows to accommodate them. I witnessed this with the birth of my children... with each child I thought there was no way I could love them as much as the last, but its literally like you see them and discover this whole other space in your heart for them... pretty stunning stuff.

But if the hearts ability to automatically expand is fascinating, it's inability to auto-contract is equally mystifying. There is no reset button, no auto format. It's up to each of us to make sure that we take back the spaces we give away, to make sure there is room left in our hearts for the ones still in our lives.

Besides, lets be honest; you might be better off with a little empty space to fill if it means you can evict the current tenants...