turning the corner

as i sit here looking out at the world there is a part of me that wants to scream about the revelations that have been slowly settling in my soul. peaceful fellows they are. heavy indeed. heavy enough to anchor me in faith that we all need to hold. a blurry bunch though. just like my words and yet more appropriately a bit more like how i exist.

simple. again, a reflection of who i am.

steady.

i want you to know that i walk steady. that i have found a comfortable gait that suits me. my future is but one step away with the rest falling away in a blurry fog. i hold no map but there is only one path in front of me. i do think i will surly take that one instead of the wild ones my youth had sometimes insisted.

as i sit here starring at all my belongings in a four by eight trailer, there is a part of me that understands that i gained something valuable here and i hesitate talking too loudly in case there is such thing as a jinx. so somewhere between a scream and a whisper there is my voice. it would be nice if you heard it but part of the treasure is knowing that it is no necessary. walking that balance beam of caring but not needing and certainly welcoming if ever the case.

the distance i have covered here has made some things appear clearer and some things fade into the background. there is a sense of strength in me as well as a weariness that i have never known. i turn the corner and i leave some things behind. i know the next steps i am going to take, but as i sit here there are things i just seem to get without really understanding. there are words .. there are the wordless whispers. there is knowing that as i sit here.

wonder on

sometimes life feels like a kid’s game where a bunch of your friends grab hold of you and have you close your eyes. they spin you around as fast as they can until you start to get wobbly. push you forward and let your eyes pop open to all the color and glitter spinning around you. the sensation grabs hold of you confusing your legs with what you see and before you know it you are staggering around the grass until you fall down hearing everyone laugh at you. it takes a bit before the world settles down and your eyes can focus on the clouds above you. maybe a friend will plop down beside you and laugh as they tell you how funny you looked as the ground spit up and smacked your head.

i try to wonder on those moments.

headed back inside

i am always amazed at how little i really know. 

i am not a stupid person. there are times that i find that i can be brilliant. get me on a roll if you want a lecture and stuff comes out of me that you won’t believe. some people at [my old] work cringes when i am in this mode. i am filled with passion and energy that just blows people down.

but then there are other times that i find myself in the company of people who really possess intelligence. they speak and write with such precision, with such poetry that i am hypnotized. i feel the rhythm. i feel the truth. i am subdued when i realize that the paltry knowledge that i possess is a mere pittance. it makes my head hurt. 

then there are other times when the situation is not complicated. in fact it may be quite straight forward. like this morning. i ran out to get something out of my car. i opened the front door and grabbed my ipod out of the center, opened the back door and reached to the floor to grab my water bottle that had fallen to the floor. i closed the door and headed back inside. i turned back – the inside car light was still shining? i opened and closed the door and the light remained shining brightly throughout. i went around the car and checked to make sure that all the doors were closed. all tight and right. i reached into the back and switched the lever to the center and the light shut off. i pressed the lever further and the light turned back on. but the door was open so that was OK. when i closed the door the light turned off like it was supposed to. 

now i was confused. i didn’t accidentally hit the switch. it slides and you have to go past two clicks to get it to the on with the doors shut setting. the car had started right up. i had driven home after dark last night. i would have noticed an interior light on. if it had been on since i climbed out of the car, i’m sure that i would have had trouble starting the car. so now i feel stupid. how did that light get turned on? 

so many simply things like this that grab hold of me, shake me and remind me that “you don’t know nothin”.

october

i think i lost september. i know i saw it around here somewhere, but it slipped by me so fast that i’m feeling a little disoriented.

so i keep clicking on the time in the top bar on my computer, reading again the date that is revealed and trying to convince myself that it really is october. that whirlwind of packing, and traveling, and living with c-rock that happened in the earlier weeks did actually culminate in the last week of september. and now -october. october is here. october – the month i pack up and move to washington. it’s here. 

hum.

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’s ride

mondays are always a difficult day of the week.
there is no safety in monday. 

the speed of existence is always more intense. the comfort of home and the gentle pace of family are left behind. i scream on roller coasters. they take my breath away as the car plunges toward the ground. i hold my breath as they screech around corners. i feel my heart beat as we climb once more to take the drop. i don’t scream out loud in pleasure. i scream in silence. i hold my breath in anticipation of the ride being over. it’s not that i don’t like roller coasters. i actually enjoy them. i enjoy them in part because i know that the ride is short and that i will have time to allow my stomach to calm down before we ride again. 

mondays are a long roller coaster ride. they never allow your stomach to calm down. you are simply forced to hang on and survive the ride. pray that you don’t get sick. hope that the other riders don’t see you turn green. keep smiling and wait for the ride to finally stop and allow you to go home. 

as i ride the beast on this particular monday, it occurs to me that we define ourselves a lot by what other people think of us.  i drove to work and fought the pipeline of cars riding down ft lowell. holding my breath as i face the merging lanes and watch the faces of the drivers around me. some hold anger for me being in their way. some hold triumph as they skate past a pack of cars and gain those precious seconds. i scream in silence and wonder what others will think about me simply by the time i make it to my office. 

i feel my heart beat as i make my way to my desk. looking for that blue voice mail button, stacks of paper in my inbox and unread email. what problems do i face? monday’s ride is just too fast. a small hill here, another there and then the long climb as you boss walks in the office door. try to keep from looking green. pray that you don’t get sick. hang on as he talks to you about a job going wrong out on site… 

and once again you feel the rush of the ground approach as you start to train the new “professional” to do your job. all that you can do is feel the pain of another piece being left on the ground. 

… sick and depressing i know. but it’s monday and that is how i feel. i guess that i don’t handle the transition from home to work too well.

something is lost

if you read the bible you may hear the tunes that i hear.

i see the written pages try to give god characteristics of man. we see his anger when he isn’t getting enough devotion. we see his wrath as he destroys cities and nations, all for different reasons. we see his devotions to specific individuals even when they treat him poorly. we see the patience. we see the frustrations. we see emotions. 

is this how we should really perceive him? i know that man was made in his image. do we then see the lord as anything less than perfect? if the bible is the word of god can we see it as anything but perfect? i must then conclude that if these two premises are true, then something is lost in the translation. i must be reading it wrong. i must be seeing him wrong.

during my questioning of these thoughts at one time, i got an image that made me think|feel that maybe the lord uses only things that we would understand. we perceive emotions in him as a symbol or example of how we would feel in that situation. 

a guess its just a matter of faith. 
when there is nothing in you, there is no faith.

pretty petty

i’m ashamed.
i’m ashamed at what i allow to affect my self-esteem. 

having a bad round of golf. balancing my checkbook. looking into the mirror. yes, even that little number down near my links that seems to be frozen in time. i’m ashamed. and i don’t play fair. although they cut me down when they show no promise, they do not lift me up if they are shining. 

it does make me wonder what we use to define ourselves. maybe i focus on the petty so that i do not have to face the grand. how would you describe yourself? do you start with the physical? do you start with your job? do you start with your family status? 

tell me, i really want to know.

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.

set out to understand

sometimes it feels like life is a big secret that everyone knows about but me. like the secret handshake to a tree house club… i swear sometimes i can hear people whispering among themselves as they talk about the secret. they laugh in glee at their understanding of what it is all about. i can see them looking my way knowing that i still don’t know. everyone being so careful that i don’t overhear a word about it.

life must be a big secret.

it has been a strange journey the last few years. three years ago i set out to understand. to prove to myself that it was the character of a person that mattered and not the gain. i strove to discover what was at my core. i thought that i found it. a rich vein of compassion and caring. honesty aglow… a lot of ugly layers had to be removed to find what i believed was at the center of who i am. life tested those views.

not all of those views proved true. some parts of my core simply crumbled under the test. some lost their shine and showed their flaws that were so deeply embedded. still… they were real and i had a choice to embrace them or to cover them up with the layers of pretend that had worked so well for so long.

i want to know the big secret… to belong to that club.

but more… i want character to matter. i want good to triumph over evil. i want others to mean more than self. i want to believe that caring and truth can make a difference. so… maybe i am crazy for continuing to do the same things and hoping for different results or maybe the big secret is giving up trying to get a hold of that big secret and accepting that we do the best we can. that caring is right. kindness is king of character and living means living with who you are.