guess the progress

maybe i expect too much.
possibly i don’t see things clearly.

people are unsolvable puzzles to me. pieces make up us all. some of mine are here. this one is of colors and shapes that make no sense to me.

i think that i mistake the feeling of people who are friendly with thinking that they are my friends. i confuse the feelings of my love for somebody with their love for me. i only see what i see and trick myself into believing it is what you see too. i think that if i choose words carefully enough i can tell you what i think and what i feel.

what i have found is that sometimes the harder you try the less effective you are. the less you tell the better you are with people. they do not want to know what is in your heart. sometimes they are too absorbed with what is in their own. i am no different. maybe i am worse. are we simply selfish creatures?

somehow things fall and things happen. what is in my heart doesn’t matter. people will be people and this is how life goes. no matter how much you want things make no difference in whether you get it or not… no… in fact it was easier to get friends when i really didn’t care. don’t give a crap about somebody and they try hard to change your mind. try hard not to hurt someone and push them away in the middle of it. my mind is messed up right now. i have been totally confused to find how people see me. it was nothing like how my reality played. some people i thought were friends were/are angry with me. thought i did them poorly by losing it within myself. some were extremely gracious… and not the ones i thought would be.

i guess i really don’t know much. i guess the progress i thought i made was really an illusion. you confuse me the most. i think you have told me why and yet i still don’t know. no… maybe i wanted that too much.

monday

this happens all the time. i’m tons more energized tonight [and might actually do some work] than all freakin’ weekend. i don’t get it. i haven’t had any coffee since yesterday, i swears. 

other matters. i can’t seem to spell today at work to save my life, can’t use pronouns in a way that you can determine the antecedent, and insist on writing passive sentences. but the day is not over. maybe i can remember how to write before the sun hides behind the mountains. maybe.

location and potential

i remember a while back a friend inadvertently called me a fixer-upper. i took the statement out of context and yes, i know it was not meant as a slam. the truth is that i am and in a way it was a compliment.

as i thought about the comment i pictured people shopping for mates like couples shop for a house. there is a lot of different types of homes and lot of different factors in how that decision is made. cost and condition, location and potential, the list is complicated and indeed becomes emotional. i can understand the concept of a fixer-upper when dealing with a home. i just was having a bit of difficulty translating that into shopping for a partner. i guess that stems from the basic premise that we can influence the direction of development in people. maybe we can. i guess i was never confident enough or even smart enough to think of changing somebody else. i had a hard enough time dealing with who i am.

i also think that my vision of relationships is not so glamorous. not the development of a comfortable abode but the selection of a partner that will help make the travel through life more enjoyable. go ahead and yell at me now as i describe it more like the selection of an automobile. styles and colors, features and abilities, needs and desires all making that selection best for you. 

[think of all the mismatched couples that you sometimes wonder about and then think of that little man getting out of a huge pickup truck wearing his shit kicking boots or this old man driving an exotic sports car with a walker jammed in the almost storage area...]

so a fixer-upper? i thought about it. what is a fixer-upper? not that house that you see that needs just a few basic repairs. not that huge mansion on the hill overlooking the ocean. not that ranch so rugged and lean sitting on a rich plot of land. not that sophisticated condo in the city. a fixer-upper! was it neglected through time or mistreatment? was it a house with basic potential but in need of a lot of sweat and tears to make it livable? raw and pliable so that you could make it fit your needs and tastes a bit better? was it simply cheap? 

the house my father bought was indeed a fixer-upper so i can see how the sweat and effort makes it feel like it is a bigger part of you. maybe that is what was meant. a lot of yourself goes into a fixer-upper. maybe i am worth the effort?

taste of early mornings

there is something about early mornings that i really miss. 

i caught a taste today when i woke up early early, and it flashed back all sorts of fine memories. not the type of memories that burn in your brain. i am talking about the type of memories that chill in your body.

when i was young and filled with unbounded energy, i got out of bed as early as i could muster. darkness slipping away to the start of a brand new day. the morning chill being swept away by the bright rays of sunshine. i quickly slipped on clothes and shoes and headed out to greet the day.

my feet would start to pound against the ground as i ran to kristin’s house. my lungs would expand pulling in the crispness of the morning. my brain would simply echo the thump of my feet. i would feel whole and alive. no thoughts. only breathing and running. slowly the day would begin to heat up as the forces of a new beginning demanded their existence and i would feel their magic pass through me as well. i reveled in the participation.

its like as we sleep we compress ourselves to a single point. our existence simply the reverberation of a single letter, a single syllable, a single perspective.i. like the closed up petals of a flower that begin to unfold to greet the day, we unfold from that point to greet the world. slowly and carefully making sure that each and every petal stretches to bask in the sun.

i think that in the hectic pace. i think that in the pressures that we face. in the desperation and the exhaustion that we fall into at the end of each day … i think that we forget. i forgot. i forgot the splendor of just that simple connection. i forgot the exhilaration of a simple flex of a muscle. i forgot the taste of early mornings.

click

there are moments when a thought just clicks in your mind and there is understanding. i swear that when that happens i can even hear the sound. click…

with me though it sometimes means nobody else gets it. maybe because i am like that little girl on that “cheez-it” commercial. it may not had grabbed you the way it did me. the girl is explaining to her parents how they get all that cheese into a cracker. as the cheese wheel rolls down the hill and runs over a cracker she says, “cheez-it” and looks up with expectation and complete understanding of the concept. at the same moment wondering why it did not translate.

i love her expression.

of course maybe my understanding of things are just as bizarre as hers but… hey it could happen that way.

as i was editing some photos to place in some ads that i was working on i heard that click. one of the tools i use is a polygonal lasso tool that allows me to precisely select sections of the photo. normally the tool is used as a selection tool. manipulation can be done on that section. click. i understood that i was using it as a protection tool. working close to some objects i did not want to harm. the selection was more of a unselect of the part that i was protecting. i could then do my stuff without worrying about harming the section i did not select.

sometimes i do that in life.

i say mermaid

the window was open so i stopped for a second and watched the sun set. when it had slid all the way off the horizon – the leftover light spun watercolors across the sky. at first it was just shades of salmon, some cherry and periwinkle colors streaking out into vague water lines, but then the mermaid started to take shape. she was winged and arched and swimming, and it looked like she had freed a flock of birds, like they had flown in ripples from her fingers. she kept transforming; more wings, less water, more water, less wings. less human and then more. always strong, gliding and reaching.

even after she disappeared from the window her form stayed, pressed strong against my eyes. when i closed them i could still see her, translucent fingers, periwinkle sternum, flying through streams of cherries and roses.

i think the loss of magic these days has a lot to do with the loss of imaging. when billboards, magazines, and tv are all that we see, of course they become our faerie tales.  we suddenly stop noticing anything else and believe them. i think if we want a different story, we have to replace the images of perfection and money and wealth with new ones. we have to show ourselves pictures of new things to believe in. sometimes making new images means using our hands creatively and living our life loudly outside the lines. and sometimes it just means learning how to really see the world from your own angle; some would say sunset, but i say mermaid. the new images we make or see create room for characters nobody has written before, faces nobody has captured, destines free of certainty. when we remake our images, we remake our selves. we leave a little less room for perfection and a little more room for magic.

genuine

some things ring clear and true. genuine: possessing the claimed or attributed character, quality, or origin; not counterfeit; authentic ; real…

i cannot help but marvel at the taste and flavor of things that i encounter that are so crisp and clear that there is no denying that they are genuine. i was lurking by a table when i was working last night, its always interesting to overhear people. one couple came in and were talking and i was clearing a table nearby but could not help but smile when the man said “did you hear about the couple that won the lottery? they were newlyweds and were recently unemployed and down to their last two dollars. the husband went into the store for cigarettes and decided to buy lottery tickets instead”.

i could not help but get drawn into the story. i am sure this was not a recent story, it sounded like something i had read a while ago. he continued and i could hear the thrill in his voice. “the next morning they woke up and had won 3.5 million dollars” his wife added “i am always glad when people in need win”

maybe it was me or just their excitement but i felt that they really cared about people. genuine.

i am learning

i am learning that perhaps the most important thing you can do is be there for others, help them believe in themselves, offer real compassion – not the condescension of charity – when it is needed. i am also learning that there is no formula for this. mercy comes in the least predictable forms and from the most unexpected sources. often it takes a person who has suffered something similar to be able to offer real succor to someone in distress.

i think this is one reason i have come to appreciate the fact that we all have chosen different paths and suffered different things, even things that seem to isolate us – why there is a place even for a spoiled wealthy kid, a homeless drug addict, or even lovers who have lied and different situations – for who else could relate to others in those difficult situations. who else is going to offer them guidance. or hope.

i think all too often i have my own hands full dealing with my own pain, too consumed by bitterness and confusion to be able to offer others anything, least of all mercy. this makes me feel like it is all the more critical that i [we] do not miss the opportunities we have to be good to others – earned it or not, understand it or not, or whether or not we even think it will make a difference