earlier today, my best friend timothy and i were having a conversation about... well, things happening in our lives that seem (to me) impossibly hard to survive. And the best response I could muster was "dude, life sucks. through and through." and he responded timidly and firmly (only tim is capable of weaving those two together) "no it doesn't. it's beautiful."
i wish i didn't believe him but i do.
10 December 2009
01 December 2009
I was holding my 14 month old niece tonight while her mother was wrapping strands of lights around a beautiful spruce tree. I touched my niece's hand and said "dang Bella Bea, your hands are freezing!" I cupped her hand inside of mine and hhhaaaaaaaah-ed into it. Bella stared at me with her enormous eyes as I did this. When I was done, she so gently took my hand, held it up to her face and exhaled softly from her nose. My heart has not felt that warm in a very long time.
19 October 2009
call me back to bed.
wow. almost a single year since my last blog. that's wild. I guess I don't have a lot say (boy, this is going great so far). I turned 27 yesterday. dang. okay, now that I sit here staring at this blinking vertical line, I've had a few thoughts about what I could I say. I'm in a strange, terrible, exciting, tumultuous, and an altogether completely uncharted place in my life. I've squandered the beautiful influence in my life. And I may have lost her altogether. It's really starting to look that way. Or maybe I'm just now starting to peek from behind my hands enough to see that it is indeed her who has packed her bags and has left for good. And mostly due to my inability to reconcile all of my feelings, my fears, my trust/ mistrust, my boundless love, nor this damned tender and raw heart. So where do I go from here? The first time I've abandoned all strategies to get out unscathed and instead truly commit with every ounce of me, I find myself alone and reeling. Gangly and lost. Because I chose a less resistant path. Because I did things in the wrong order; meaning, I didn't do the right thing first thus keeping me from doing the wrong thing. So i've finally awoken this beauty within me only to find itself alone in a guest-room's double bed. Unable to coax himself back to sleep. I know there's a light to lead me out of here, and I'm seeking it earnestly.
29 October 2008
Show up early. But don't forget your socks.
In 1889, The Oklahoma Land Rush Happened. I was negative ninety three years old.
In 1989, Community Christian School, celebrated the one hundredth year anniversary with a mock-land run. I was six years old.
I dressed up like a small cowboy. I wore my white leather cowboy boots. I forgot to wear socks. I think I remember that day so well because all I wanted to do was sit down because my blistered heels were chewed all to hell by the shoddy leather sewing togethers on the interiors of those boots. I remember someone had a Radio Flyer, I wanted to lie down in it and be pulled to wherever my family would finally "stake their claim". I remember there were sandwiches. I drive by that school everyday on my way to work and remember those things in that order almost every time.
It's strange the things a mind will choose to remember. Because something hurt. Or something smelled good. Or it was a particularly bright day.
Strange indeed.
In 1989, Community Christian School, celebrated the one hundredth year anniversary with a mock-land run. I was six years old.
I dressed up like a small cowboy. I wore my white leather cowboy boots. I forgot to wear socks. I think I remember that day so well because all I wanted to do was sit down because my blistered heels were chewed all to hell by the shoddy leather sewing togethers on the interiors of those boots. I remember someone had a Radio Flyer, I wanted to lie down in it and be pulled to wherever my family would finally "stake their claim". I remember there were sandwiches. I drive by that school everyday on my way to work and remember those things in that order almost every time.
It's strange the things a mind will choose to remember. Because something hurt. Or something smelled good. Or it was a particularly bright day.
Strange indeed.
15 June 2008
Debtors Time Piece.
No one ever tells you when you're 20 what the hours of each day will have turned into by the time you're 25. Each one a cog in a gear, somewhere in between the part of my brian that tells time and the part that tells me if I'm using it wisely or not.
Lazy summer days of drawing, exploring, bike riding, swimming and life loving, I recall:
Lying with my head off the couch and watching upside down my roommate play some familiar 8-bit video game. None of us have shirts on because we can't afford to condition the air but we don't mind. And anyway we all have the bodies of 20 year olds so no one is self conscious.
Playing music and shows and enjoying it just for the community, the performance, the expression and never knowing there is potentially a dime to be made.
Drinking only two and a half beers and finding myself flat on my back laughing as the room spins.
Sleeping in, sequentially, days in a row, and there is no guilt. Time well spent and invested, not wasted nor shameful.
Having the time to watch bad movies just because we know they'll be bad and that's funny. Before we figured out how to be snide, we only knew how to make absolutely everything into a good time.
Now that I'm 25 I've accrued such a great debt, my hours are spent thinking about other hours I should be living, should be using to achieve other things. So now my life is lived out in an absentee existence. I'm not totally here because I should be somewhere else. There's not enough minutes in the hour to worry about the other minutes I've got to somehow figure out how to retrieve and reuse. Do differently. And thus time passes twice as fast. And perhaps this is how we all of the sudden find that we've grown old. chasing oblivion-bound moments into infinity. Rushing by and only groping at things that could potentially be memorable. Maybe that's also why when I run into old faces they only speak about the old days, the old friends. There's nothing they're doing now that can compete with the thorough completion, utter achievement, of those old memories. Relive what was good rather than live what is now.
Lazy summer days of drawing, exploring, bike riding, swimming and life loving, I recall:
Lying with my head off the couch and watching upside down my roommate play some familiar 8-bit video game. None of us have shirts on because we can't afford to condition the air but we don't mind. And anyway we all have the bodies of 20 year olds so no one is self conscious.
Playing music and shows and enjoying it just for the community, the performance, the expression and never knowing there is potentially a dime to be made.
Drinking only two and a half beers and finding myself flat on my back laughing as the room spins.
Sleeping in, sequentially, days in a row, and there is no guilt. Time well spent and invested, not wasted nor shameful.
Having the time to watch bad movies just because we know they'll be bad and that's funny. Before we figured out how to be snide, we only knew how to make absolutely everything into a good time.
Now that I'm 25 I've accrued such a great debt, my hours are spent thinking about other hours I should be living, should be using to achieve other things. So now my life is lived out in an absentee existence. I'm not totally here because I should be somewhere else. There's not enough minutes in the hour to worry about the other minutes I've got to somehow figure out how to retrieve and reuse. Do differently. And thus time passes twice as fast. And perhaps this is how we all of the sudden find that we've grown old. chasing oblivion-bound moments into infinity. Rushing by and only groping at things that could potentially be memorable. Maybe that's also why when I run into old faces they only speak about the old days, the old friends. There's nothing they're doing now that can compete with the thorough completion, utter achievement, of those old memories. Relive what was good rather than live what is now.
18 March 2008
A glass of warm milk for miles.
When I was a teenager, finally old enough to drive, I would ache for weather like there is tonight. My mom and I lived alone in a big house most of my teen years. My part of the house was upstairs where my sisters used to live and her part was the corner opposite down stairs where she and my father used to live. On nice nights I would climb over the balcony railing and scale up on top of the roof of our two-story compound and lay 30 feet above the ground watching the stars. But on nights like tonight, where the rain and thunder threatened all day but waited until my mother fell asleep to unleash, I would quietly slip out. Those stairs that led from my room to the entry way and the front door screamed more than they creaked. Something happened to me in the womb, or maybe in the excruciating and arduous full-day labor of my birth, but I was granted a great patience. Quiet breaths and careful steps. Adaptability. As I slowly crept step by step down that curved staircase it would feel like hours as I waited for a flash of lightning to sure my next footing shrouded in thunder clap. I would even count the seconds between the prior bright smack and its boom so I would have a better idea of when to set my foot down the next time.
I carried my shoes in my hands. Sometimes I didn't wear shoes at all.
14 shitty-grey steps with carpet nails poking through on the corners were the ladder of decent between our red-bricked landing and me. Once I got to those heavy oak and flimsy glass doors I'd slowly open the first, for a full minute just to be safe. All but shutting myself between them before opening the second door to keep out as much of the sound of the storm's spatter and gale as I could. On the porch I would focus only on my station wagon parked under the tree by the well house in the front drive because frankly the wooded darkness scared the absolute shit out of me. I'd run to the green Volvo, fling open the unlocked door and get in and finally slowly pull it closed until it latched, I'd properly close it once I was out on the street, where I'd also turn on the lights.
The late night drive out to the lake on the east side of town was my ultimate goal but the stealth and escape were equal parts of that sum. Driving in the heavy rain for six miles with no lights around save for my car's headlights was always bittersweet. I'd feel the tug of shame that I'd snuck out and the fear that my mother might wake up and find me gone with no way to find out where I was. There was no cell phone, but I wouldn't have brought it if there were. There was also the liberation of total solitude, driving to nowhere, meeting with no one, setting out to find nothing. Except for the eventual bridge that crosses the lake. That was the holy moment; dimly lit by orange floodlights illuminating thick, heavy curtains of precipitation hanging on either side of it. The water was out there on either side and below me but I wouldn't have known it if I hadn't had prior knowledge. Like the white-sheet tent built with ace bandage rafters strung between the bedposts and doorknobs in my childhood room, I was book ended by oblivion.
That was my favorite part.
After the bridge I'd turn around and make my way home, repeat the same process in reverse, still taking every careful measure to slip in undetected like a hungry mouse or careful ghost. Picking up each footprint I’d left behind. Crawl into bed, sleep a sleep of intent.
When I awoke tonight in a stir from a phone call and couldn't roll over enough times to fall back asleep I carefully slipped through the crack of my bedroom door which is at the top of the staircase in our downtown apartment which leads to a heavy glass door which leads to street. There was no rain; I have no car to run to. I still slowly made the climb down the wailing staircase and carefully slipped out of my front door. Now there's a cell phone and roommates that worry enough to come looking. I still leave it behind. I walked around this sleepy town, through the sleepy neighborhoods, listening to the far off thunder. Once I was far enough away for my feet to be almost too tired and the wind had cut far enough through my jacket to chill my bones the rain spilled over the brim of the clouds and it began to pour. So I turned around and began my walk home down the orangely-lit streets. My mother who lives across town must have finally fallen asleep.
I carried my shoes in my hands. Sometimes I didn't wear shoes at all.
14 shitty-grey steps with carpet nails poking through on the corners were the ladder of decent between our red-bricked landing and me. Once I got to those heavy oak and flimsy glass doors I'd slowly open the first, for a full minute just to be safe. All but shutting myself between them before opening the second door to keep out as much of the sound of the storm's spatter and gale as I could. On the porch I would focus only on my station wagon parked under the tree by the well house in the front drive because frankly the wooded darkness scared the absolute shit out of me. I'd run to the green Volvo, fling open the unlocked door and get in and finally slowly pull it closed until it latched, I'd properly close it once I was out on the street, where I'd also turn on the lights.
The late night drive out to the lake on the east side of town was my ultimate goal but the stealth and escape were equal parts of that sum. Driving in the heavy rain for six miles with no lights around save for my car's headlights was always bittersweet. I'd feel the tug of shame that I'd snuck out and the fear that my mother might wake up and find me gone with no way to find out where I was. There was no cell phone, but I wouldn't have brought it if there were. There was also the liberation of total solitude, driving to nowhere, meeting with no one, setting out to find nothing. Except for the eventual bridge that crosses the lake. That was the holy moment; dimly lit by orange floodlights illuminating thick, heavy curtains of precipitation hanging on either side of it. The water was out there on either side and below me but I wouldn't have known it if I hadn't had prior knowledge. Like the white-sheet tent built with ace bandage rafters strung between the bedposts and doorknobs in my childhood room, I was book ended by oblivion.
That was my favorite part.
After the bridge I'd turn around and make my way home, repeat the same process in reverse, still taking every careful measure to slip in undetected like a hungry mouse or careful ghost. Picking up each footprint I’d left behind. Crawl into bed, sleep a sleep of intent.
When I awoke tonight in a stir from a phone call and couldn't roll over enough times to fall back asleep I carefully slipped through the crack of my bedroom door which is at the top of the staircase in our downtown apartment which leads to a heavy glass door which leads to street. There was no rain; I have no car to run to. I still slowly made the climb down the wailing staircase and carefully slipped out of my front door. Now there's a cell phone and roommates that worry enough to come looking. I still leave it behind. I walked around this sleepy town, through the sleepy neighborhoods, listening to the far off thunder. Once I was far enough away for my feet to be almost too tired and the wind had cut far enough through my jacket to chill my bones the rain spilled over the brim of the clouds and it began to pour. So I turned around and began my walk home down the orangely-lit streets. My mother who lives across town must have finally fallen asleep.
10 March 2008
South, South West
Well, I'm making the journey to SXSW this week. This is the first time I'm going and not playing so it should be quite a different experience. Not that playing SXSW was ever a glamourous experience for me, there is no where else in the world where people care less about your band then in Austin Texas during the week of South by South West. If they can get into your show they probably don't want to. everyone looks like they're in a band, acts like they're in a band, and usually acts like their band is cooler then they actually are. I've always opted to seem as non-rocker as possible while down there, once you're surrounded by an oceanic expanse of people who think they are and should make it in rock and roll you start to feel small. But also smarter, more often then not they take on the blasé I-look-this-dumb-and-boring-on-purpose approach to milling around the streets, waiting to play for people that will be too drunk to remember. Anyway, I feel like I'm rambling. Even though this isn't a tour experience, it is a road one so Keep up with the ROAD LIFE, I'm going to try to update it daily and regale you with tales of the adventures my girlfriend and I take on.
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