love, inc.

Love is all around - no need to waste it, goes that familiar charmer of the Mary Tyler Moore Show theme.  The Troggs (and later Wet Wet Wet) felt that abundance in their fingers and their toes.  Ever the common theme of interest to poetry folk, moviegoers, and many in-between, all I need do is look on my iTunes and find a seemingly endless string of love songs - love from this angle, love from that. As cliché as it is, this is a core human emotion. Till the dusk of time one might expect us to continue to be falling in, puttering out, or some variant in the general vicinity. The world just looks different through its lenses. Love comes fast, love comes quick, and it comes in colors we don't expect to wear.

Recently I re-watched When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle with my girlfriend. My first experience with the latter was on the big screen during a date with a girl in high school. She was my first love. I had harbored deep feelings, admiration, and crush-worthy lusting before in varying degrees, but this was the young woman that drew me to poetry writing, shedding of happy tears, and yearnings to simply share some of the same oxygen. It was the first time I felt such intensity for another person. To me, it was serious.


Back then promo-trailer worthy lines like it was magic or it's like coming home were phrases that felt like Nora Ephron going into her cheese cabinet for a look. After seventeen years and volumes of life experience, some of this really resonates with how I feel about the woman I have recently fallen in love with (or as Closer would suggest: chosen). We are both arriving at this moment out of splintered marriages, which are both currently hitting the paperwork phase. For a time we fought back our feelings, but ultimately kept stumbling into the feet of the big elephant in the room.

beetle mania

Last night while I was working behind the car rental counter, I was in the midst of checking a customer’s vehicle back into the system, I caught a glimpse of something dark in my peripheral somewhere along this place's nasty carpeting. A quick glance back down and I noticed it to be some sort of insect. A cockroach, probably. Doesn’t it just figure in such a squalid and psychologically bereft place as this?

I took a second glance while finishing up with the customer and I saw the thing make a sharp turn in my direction. It now seemed to be hauling ass. It was then that I realized it wasn't some roach, but one of those cool looking black horned beetles. And it seemed to have trekked ten feet in ten seconds flat. Soon enough it was making its way across the toe of my shoe. It seemed so drawn to me. A part of me wanted to draw attention to this incident to my customer, but truth be told most people would be quick to suggest ‘squashing the damn thing’ rather than see significance in these type moments.

Once I was inclined to ask a customer where they were from, because I saw they were born literally a day before my mom. I thought perhaps a happenstance was at hand. Who the hell knows because this man seemed more irritated that I asked than much else?

Sure, some people just like to use the device for its main utility without having any insight into how it works. I don't want to miss the nuance. It's like eating pistachios. The simple process of removing the shells to get to the good stuff is part of the enjoyment. I say, life is better with the shell.

So, as soon as my counter cleared I pulled out my cellphone and googled 'beetle symbolism' and discovered many references to rebirth and the like. As I approach the last day on the job at the airport, I do feel like I am breaking out of a shell, moving from this metaphoric purgatory on to the next … phase.

in dreams

Once upon a time I had a dream. I was going to be a Hollywood director. I would spend my free time sketching out teasers to the next James Bond feature or waste hours of time crafting titles and concepts for upcoming releases or muster ridiculous ideas for sequels to ones I knew. I began to put my imprint on video projects at school and began to go public with my dream of life in the Hollywood director's chair.

This dream never came true.

No matter which way I slice it, the dream I chased for twenty plus years changed far too many times to be achieved, so why don't I just say it. It never happened.

A love for artistically inclined independent films took hold. A full-on growth of myself as a struggling writer gained momentum. A major conflict between art and commerce probed my philosophical inner Jekyll or Hyde. A bevy of projects that saw more darkness than light drowned the idealistic perfectionist within. And a discovery of the theatre as an immediate way to create and share art with an audience ensured all bets were off.

Things have changed too much. I am too jaded by life and myriad experience for this specific childhood dream to ever come true. The loose ends of this story represent somebody else entirely and are not really a part of the same tale. Don't get me wrong. I still come alive when the creative juices are flowing but this dream died within me many years ago. Underneath everything else lurks a figurative garage full of wishful thinking and naive imaginings.

When there's one foot in the distant past, one foot in the perhaps foreseeable future, the main results are lumbar issues and a difficulty walking.

So, what are today's dreams? That's what really matters.

in purgatory

When I got a job at the local regional airport I knew it was for a reason. There's something notable about being a person for whom fundamental change is occurring, who likewise winds up working at a place that acts as the bridge between two points. Airports are the places that connect the here with the there. As a man coming from one life and fueling myself up for what's next, an airport is the perfect hub to travel to everyday.

But of course all of my poetic ideals don't always come to fruition. Sometimes a place is just a place with a function. And as far as airports go, this one gets literally empty and amazingly pin-drop quiet. One night I thought I was about to be locked in. These are the times when it appears to be more of a set for an airport than an actual one. There's something so fake about the whole matter that I sometimes feel like maybe I'll catch a glimpse of Oz behind the curtain.

But alas, no such discoveries do come about and instead I'm stuck with a personal purgatory - one that has been dragging me down and steadily pushing me further and further off the edge of my own sanity....

new path(s)

You just don’t get it, do you – this person you’re talking to right now – I don’t know who this guy is  - I know it’s me of course – But, who I am – I got no clue – I was married – I thought I’d be with her until I got burned up or she put me in the ground with her non-stop talking about bullshit that normal people don’t waste their breath on – commercials, what she ate that day – like some colors are more healing than others – now I got no wife - it’s like I swear – it’s like my life just jumped the tracks – now I’m running on someone else's tracks - now I am leading someone else's life – you, you got possibilities – this gig doesn't work out – you could get married – bake cakes – open a dress shop – I got no dress shop – I got no future – this is all I got – this is all I am – don’t make me change how I do it, Laura – one more change and I think I’m done. (Lt. Shea from RESCUE ME 2.5 'Sensitivity')

I remember the first time I saw the 'Rescue Me' episode this quote is from, back in 2004. I recall really feeling for Ken and the plight of his life falling down around him and the only worthwhile piece that had a remaining vestige was his sense of self. I remember distinctly wishing never to feel that total devastating loss of everything and the ensuing grappling at straws.

The strange thing, though, is that life jumping the track can be a really positive thing. At least that's the way I am viewing things now. New beginnings can be a damn beautiful thing. Unearthing buried parts of oneself, exploring uncharted territories of ones soul, whittling away what's rotted, and forging ahead along new paths, though sometimes painfully cathartic, seem to be just what keeps life fresh and worth living.

second chances

Growing up in my household divorce was always a dirty word. It was what happened in the distant regions of my family. This was something that went down within the ranks of the large clan of cousins I grew up knowing so little about, but not in our world. Yet there’s an infrequently recounted tale of my sister as a child making my parents promise to never get divorced. Sometimes I don’t know if adults realize really how much children gobble up ways and means from their example. I know that I learned and in part had to unlearn certain key things about interactions with others, conflict resolution, ways to sustain a relationship, manners in which to deal with difficulty, and on and on. I don’t know if one can prevent having influence.

But divorce did happen in my immediate family. My brother’s first marriage didn’t last long and brought with it a child who quickly became neglected by key members of my family and his ex-wife was quickly on the chopping block from all of the photo albums and in conversation. I believe the divorce was ultimately a good idea for all, but I wouldn’t say the same of the reaction. Ever since I was a kid I could see through to some of the grayer regions of life on this planet. Growing up on so much mainstream culture, the presumptions grew and grew about the ways things are as opposed to the way things are not. Movies and television inadvertently taught a guide to me for how things would pan out.

My brother’s situation and so many others real and fictionalized showed me endless bitterness and vile disregard between people who once shared love or at least words of love or at least a toothpaste tube. So, as the years went on and distance, heartache, and disappointment began interfering with dreams and schemes my wife and I had conjured at some idealist time in our past, the word divorce started to come up. I said it. Then she said it. Then we didn’t say it at all, but instead let the big ol’ elephant speak for us. It became such a tug-of-war of wills, hopes, dreams, and ultimately very differing ideals and expectations that the ties eventually had to break fully.

But the fear of bitterness and being like those others that had long come before really affected the situation. There’s really no guide for something whose oft-used companion phrase amicable doesn’t quite do justice. Two people in such a situation can’t really jump right into something else without awkwardness and other heightened emotions. Or comfortably be roommates. Or be friends without benefits. So, out comes the eraser. The quick fix is gently but noticeably erasing one another out of the other’s life. It seems to become about finding other places to orbit, changing the routine, starting over along some other path, because that train has sure as hell run out of track.

What then, though? Questions galore fill the mind. Where to go next? What’s on the bucket list? You know the one, the addendum to the real one, the one that would never have happened in that prior lifetime. As good, bad, or somewhere in between things may have been, was that the single opportunity that’s going to come down the pike this lifetime?

small pleasures

Can an iced coffee make someone's day?

Maybe that's what matters in life - nothing big, but a million little things.

It lessens the anxiety anyway, to prune the trees one at a time.

all mine

I recently got around to watching the near-perfect TV show 'Six Feet Under'. The timing just seems right, as I'm deeply in this realization that my life is all mine. The last several episodes included a foray into the whole concept of personal renovation, pouring down new foundation, putting up brand new scaffolding, and the like. In the context of the show, it is a satiric play on seventies self-help, but there's certainly something to chew on.

Horoscope for 4 June 2010:

You have a unique opportunity to fix or eliminate from your life anything that isn't functioning well, from clutter and disorder in your home to your broken television to an unhealthy relationship that no longer makes you happy. Even long-held attitudes and beliefs, especially self-defeating ones, are called into question under the current energy. You have lots of transformative energy just waiting to be used effectively; the focus is on positive progress. Your normal levels of perception are heightened now and you're able to turn an eagle eye on yourself, your life and your relationships. Take advantage of this time -- get rid of anything that's blocking you, your creativity or your growth. Life is supposed to be about moving forward, learning and incorporating what works, as well as eliminating what doesn't. Cleaning your house is a good place to start, since it acts as a physical manifestation of what will ultimately be a psychic cleansing. It also has the added benefit of turning up old, lost items! This is a general theme now; all kinds of lost and forgotten things, feelings and so on will reveal themselves to you.

a new.

Much can be said for the window through which we see the world. Our unique perspectives frame it, adjusting focus on those things deemed most meaningful and important to us. We look out windows all the time, from the fine filter of a pair of cheap sunglasses to the bug smeared windshield in the car we drive to that one window in our house we always use to pre-assess the day's weather.

I have moved. And that's a loaded statement. I have a new set of windows from which to view the world. It brings to mind the pictures in the last journal I posted. I think about the familiar views we get everyday - the screen savers in our daily life - and how we often wish to paint them ever varying colors. Sometimes the canvas gets warped. Then again, sometimes it's not the hue at all, but the entire medium that demands adjustment. So, as I often do, I seek a means to doll up cold, hard facts and figures of my own existence into some meaningful metaphoric package - something that might suggest it's not so arbitrary, or random, or that maybe everything does happen for a reason and that this moment represents the culmination of a brilliant square in the larger quilt of one's life.

Given all of the new and varied ways I have been finding connection, because of these changes in my life, I feel I can raise the proverbial glass to the collective of newly hatched, wandering souls like me who demand more from their lives.

begin again

14 January 2008 - BEGIN AGAIN

--

I'm rarely satisfied.

I've changed that line nearly ten times.

I still don't like it.

Ever since I was a kid I've had this need to alter my surroundings. I moved the furniture, wall hangings, and miscellanea of my youth around so frequently I can hardly remember any given layout of any of my bedrooms at the time.

On a smaller level I often come up with new rules for games, conceive of inventions I never write down, and any number of other things. I can't seem to settle for my world the way it is. Somewhere else always seems to hold the key to my longings.

Wanderlust smacks me in the face, but is unaffordable.

Looking at the bare walls of the cardboard cut-out condo for four long years hit hard a number of months back, beckoning me into an introspective bout of what I now refer to as paint therapy. It is astounding what a couple cans of paint and a deep personal exploration can do for a person. Unfortunately when the paint dries and your perspective becomes equipped with more clarity, those same surroundings become little more than a new version of the same prison.

It seemed inevitable that a real change had to come.

And it did.

Even if it was merely across town.

The character and aesthetic appeal that was lacking before has been replaced with an aged charm and walls that have every reason to talk. Even the well-maintained wood floors would hide the beating heart of a Poe character if only they could.

It's not New York.

It's not London.

It's not a lot of places, but it's a short walk from our downtown. A step out the front door does not offer a parking lot. The neighbors look you in the eye. There's a peculiar sense of community that is foreign to me on a number of levels.

This too will change.

I know the novelty will wear off, but the new reality and personal change that this welcomes and allows will be what matters as time goes by.

-2008-

-2010-

It is now two years later.

This afternoon I sat on the porch that this door opens up to and thought about the view, at times achingly suburban, at times soothingly serene, and now one I feel inclined to etch into my memory.

I have found myself again seeking change.

The above words really expressed a lot of peace and clarity for where I was in early 2008, however, I now see them as recognition of a need for a much more drastic change in my life. I believe I am cycling through that change right now.

So, I sat on the porch, musing, soaking up the environs, realizing more fully how my sense of home or anything familiar will be altered when I move. Sometimes we grow quite partial to certain types of elements in our life, rituals that keep us comfortably predictable, and key expectations for the way things flow. As I have been stumbling along the new terrain that is the psychological and emotional transition towards whatever is next, I have held a hyper-awareness toward the trappings of sameness, routine, and one's hard wired patterns.

Starting over. Beginning again. These are concepts that leave the world open to all possibilities. This is hardly the time to feel limited and constrained. Pack some bags full of the best of the past and move forward down the road. It seems not to matter the destination, so long as you're headed . . . somewhere else.

in flux

To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest citizens and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give of one's self; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived... this is to have succeeded
-often attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have had an attractively scripted version of that quote sitting prominently in my ever-changing office space for the last eight or so years. I think it's scrolled on the back of a lonely box lid removed from a small boxed collection of blank note cards, but I don't really recall. With all of the change occurring in myself and my life right now, I found myself pondering it a little bit longer as I was starting the process of boxing up my collected life into what turns out to be predominantly empty liquor boxes.

A major chapter in my life has ceased and I am currently segueing to whatever is next. There were times along the way that packing up only the 'house burning down' treasures and necessities seemed the way to go, but the clock's ticking has slowed its cadence some. Life throws so many logistics and formalities into the mix such that moving on to what's next tends to be sluggish at best, even as one's emotional and psychological state rushes many miles ahead. I'm running, I'm running - catch up with me life, goes an unexpectedly apropos verse from Nelly Furtado's "I'm Like a Bird".

In times like these I find myself hearing kernels of useful information, guidance, and advisement all around, especially now since I am feeling much more attuned and aware of the present moment. I like to bat around the term synchronicity. Lately things have gotten to the point that I feel this single month of drastic change has felt like a far longer stretch. There is a new intoxication in being alive that I didn't expect. I know the whole sea change and novelty scenario will batter me in myriad ways, but for right now I am accepting the challenge of whatever is next.

Nonetheless, it doesn't make sifting through mutually collected trinkets and such to find reasonable, even splits any easier. There's a highly surreal nature to the whole business of uncoupling that automatically suggests incompleteness, at least in terms of possessions - such as going from a complete Tori Amos Cd collection to a partial, say. It's certainly not what's important, but it's what is concrete. Much harder is wondering whether or not the individuals in a relationship have 'succeeded' by Emerson's definition. I don't think an end means failure. I think what matters most is what happens next. I have always been a hopeless romantic, but I have always understood there would always be another day after the ship sailed off into the sunset. For every Before Sunrise there's bound to be a Before Sunset. It's about balance.

thirty three

As a rule, a wave of heavy depression washes over me around my birthday. Few of my birthdays over the years have risen above this. I can count on one hand how many of these days have felt celebratory rather than a reminder of my limited worth and achievement in this world. I have lived with this understanding and expectation for much of my life. I rarely felt worth the trouble of planning a party and would never expect anyone to dare surprise me with one. Many times I would have rather slept through it.

For many of those years, at some point during the days leading up to the fateful one I would find myself with pen and paper - or keyboard, as the case may be - assessing the damage of my own existence. It would be the equivalent of the doorjamb or wall space used to measure the height of children, only mine was more of an inquiry into personal growth. Of course this only occasionally meant what it should. Primarily it was more about all of the ways I was working against the wind toward distant goals and the ensuing steps that had inched me forward over the past year.

I have been living this way for a long time. And I have the psychological scars to prove it. As I have been approaching my third palindrome birthday, I can barely muster the words to express the ways I feel I have grown in the past year. I don't mean to sound disingenuous, but sometimes we can surprise even ourselves. I believe that to be a much more challenging feat and one that doesn't come around often enough.

It has clearly taken me thirty-three years to arrive here, but as semantically messy as it sounds, for the first time in my life I feel alive. I feel peculiarly unfettered to anything, anyone's expectations or demands, or even some script that offers my character description. Simultaneously I don't have a clue who I am and I have never been more certain. I feel free and open to absolutely everything and never have I felt so fearless!

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose, the lyric reminds us. Even though it has been a favorite sentiment for some time, it resonates with me now more than ever. For the first time in too many years I look ahead of me and don't see just a single destination in mind. I see them all. Infinite possibilities don't scare me, they energize me. The other day my horoscope was: Accept what comes with open arms. A trusted companion is going to be your best advisor. You can attract valuable tips or earn gratitude or stumble upon a sterling opportunity to mend fences.

I have been spending a bit of time lately trying to catch my figurative breath as I look out these new eyes. One realization I discovered while talking in therapy is that I used to live my life as if it were me against the world and now I realize I am flowing with it. Sometimes life is better without a paddle or even a map. Instead maybe it's better to just let the currents take you where they will.

a rhythmic

I have found myself writing so much over the past several weeks. It has been almost exclusively personal journal writing, but it has been of a most intense, soul searching, variety. It is something I have discovered about being in therapy for the last several weeks that I am starting to see more and more from that sort of emotive, reflective writing as well.

Sometimes we have to peel layers of our emotional onion to rid ourselves of certain thicker more stubborn feelings that are blocking us from the tastier, more palatable parts of ourselves. It's important to just get it out, to relief ourselves of emotional burdens and baggage. I have found it unexpectedly freeing. I think back on a mere three weeks of conversations, thoughts, and frantic bits of writing and I can only vaguely identify with small bits of any of it. I feel changed. I can sense the growth in myself and it is startling.

After a short inadvertent, but nonetheless enjoyable 'drinks, snacks, and conversation over the first half of the Super Bowl' type affair with a group of friends, I walked downtown to grab a drink with a good friend. It seems that everyone is currently going through some level of intense, personal struggle. Some would like to place the blame on that God of War planet, Mars. I don't suspect it's far off.

I find it quite interesting to listen to myself offering advice and friendly counsel; because it is within the perspective and surprising optimism of my own words that I can feel examples of my own character arc. After what now feels like an arduous effort to do so, I can feel myself emerging from an old skin.

karaoke therapy

To my own surprise, I have been going out to karaoke on a regular basis for the last year. In that time I have performed - for better or for worse - over 175 songs. Given the roller coaster that my life has been on during the past year, I have found it all to hold a key for great catharsis and, by association, personal therapy for me.

Music has spoken to me on a very deep level since I was a child and as the undergrowth of turmoil has spread around the structures and foundations of my existence, it has all become that much more potent. Certain songs have taken on new meaning and new personal importance for me, as I heard them with new ears. Even other songs I once adored now make me shudder. There is something very affecting about releasing a myriad of emotions and feelings through this oft-derided past time. It can even give a seemingly joyless soul the chance to don a new hat and demeanor for three and a half minutes.

One evening back in July, I found myself belting out the Bowie half of Queen's Under Pressure with a good friend as the final song of the night. It was during this moment that all of the associations with Ice Ice Baby and other such popular culture uses fell away from my perception, allowing me to finally truly hear the intensity of the message of the song as well as this refrain:

Can't we give ourselves one more chance
Why can't we give love that one more chance
Why can't we give love, give love . . .
'Cause love's such an old fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And love dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves

Last night it wasn't even my own performance that offered the cathartic, connectivity to the music. And yes, it can be found in all sorts of forms for me. Hanging out with a small handful of friends at my second go-to karaoke spot, a couple of guys pulled up Linkin Park's In the End. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the chill in the air, or maybe it was the power of their voices, but I must tell you nu-metal insults aside, the damn thing really hit me.

I've put my trust in you
Pushed as far as I can go
And for all this
There's only one thing you should know

I tried so hard and got so far
But in the end it doesn't even matter
I had to fall to lose it all
But in the end it doesn't even matter

Tonight, I will be off for another round of karaoke. I wonder what I should sing next.

hidden meaning

I sometimes take to seeking deeper meaning in objects, interactions, synchronicity, and sometimes simply words. My wallet is one of the few things that I take everywhere I go. It's such a frequent inanimate companion that I really notice the difference when I don't have it with me. I don't have much money, but I guess there is something about toting around one's presumed identity and access to at least a little cash that stands for something.

I used to keep pictures there. Older models had pictures of nieces and nephews, girlfriends at the time. More recently I had a few old pictures of my wife, although her image remained young while she aged. This is primarily because all of the photos of the last 6 years have found their way on to the computer and never into my wallet.

It's strange the things we decide to keep with us. Some of them are 'just in case' and others hold a personal resonance beyond words. For a while now I had been keeping an Oregon state quarter in there, since it crossed my path at just the right moment of heightened excitement about moving across the map to that place called Portland. It seemed to invite the richness of promise and hope where it was faltering. It seemed to be 'here' only better.

Today, while standing in line at the bank, I remembered that I had also kept a horoscope I had jotted down at my favorite local coffee shop where they often post the daily ones. I thought maybe it would tell me something about the present moment, since it was in that moment that I was reminded of writing it down in the first place.

September 16, 2009 - Aquarius
When faced with a haystack the only thing that matters is finding the needle. You have a tough task, but everything will be fine.

curtain call

There is an adage I discovered while working on a series of film and theatre productions. Only at the end, when things are wrapped does anyone really begin to know how to make that film or put on that play. If only you could go back, so many potholes could have been avoided. I know this speaks to experience and I realize it speaks to the vision of hindsight, but it never fails to catch you off guard when the production in question is your life.

If you'll forgive the metaphor, after thirteen seasons, my marriage is facing down cancellation. The show started out in the typical fashion with the main characters being clearly unwritten and only a cursory example of what was to come. The past several seasons, things really blossomed and got more interesting and varied, and for all intents and purposes, the show hit a real high mark. Last year, though, all the stops were pulled and things were clearly getting difficult in the writer room - main characters personalities started to change drastically, there was infidelity, illness, lies, and deception. It was clear the show might have reached its final note.

Yes, I know - me and my metaphors. If there's one thing that has been a consistent companion of mine on my journey, it is this manner of communicating in metaphors. Some times I think about my penchant for metaphors and the somewhat cagey and perhaps vague manner I write this blog and I wonder if I just can't think of life in concrete terms. Institutions have no standards and definition, emotions have no words or image, and the connections between people have no explanation.