status update

I often think about the meta-existence that occurs in our internet culture which has really changed the nature of damn near everything. I have viewed again and again the way that people refer to things that are tucked away in some on-line interaction or region, how conversations can include virtual show and tell with multimedia displays from someone's Blackberry, or the way people may crosscheck a friend's 'knowledge' with a quick Google search. There's always someone else in the room, or to a point, there's always everyone else in the room. I'm reminded of a classic scene from Woody Allen's Annie Hall when a pretentious know-it-all is told off by scholar Marshall McLuhan while waiting in a movie theater lobby. 'Boy if only life were like this,' responds Alvy. Today we do one up one another with our instant access, but humans are flawed and life is imprecise.

I think of Facebook, yet again, and the familiar 'status update' that can be altered every second of everyday. It has since evolved into the more accurate 'what's on your mind'. I feel this turn of phrase is appropriate as we are far more connected to the entire flurry of thoughts and ideas we are inclined to share than we are to recognizing how we are really doing or the true state of our status. If it were accurate it would be like some sort of product testing or film screening audience card, constantly wavering between pleasure, displeasure, and innumerable feelings in between like some warped mood ring. It's unsafe for the relationships in our life to have the opportunity to tell all like that. I have seen passive aggression turn into vile aggression and disregard only to cave into backstabbing TMI.

That said, I am eternally an observer, whether toward others or most certainly of my own reflection. As another birthday approaches I again find myself getting reflective and into self-assessment, pondering my own status. Life is ever the Chutes and Ladder journey as we are knocked back by miscalculation yet able to triumph again by keeping on.

A worried man with a worried mind
No one in front of me and nothing behind
There's a woman on my lap and she's drinking champagne
Got white skin, got assassin's eyes
I'm looking up into the sapphire tinted skies
I'm well dressed, waiting on the last train

Standing on the gallows with my head in a noose
Any minute now I'm expecting all hell to break loose

People are crazy and times are strange
I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range
I used to care, but things have changed

This place ain't doing me any good
I'm in the wrong town, I should be in Hollywood
Just for a second there I thought I saw something move
Gonna take dancing lessons do the jitterbug rag
Ain't no shortcuts, gonna dress in drag
Only a fool in here would think he's got anything to prove

Lot of water under the bridge, Lot of other stuff too
Don't get up gentlemen, I'm only passing through

sang Bob Dylan during the course of Wonder Boys, a favorite film (and novel) of mine. I had heard mumblings of it around its initial release, but I really encountered it after purchasing the DVD on a lark in a bargain bin of a video game store that sold dirt cheap DVDs. Oddly, for something so chaotic, the film has always comforted me. There's a retro feel in the style of the cinematography, an early 70's vibe in the soundtrack, a representation of my soul's home in its frigid northeast setting, and even a lost manner in the way the characters interact with one another. I can't completely put my finger on it, but I think what hits me most is the humanity of it all, allowing me to relate to every character on some distinct level.

As time has passed, I have found myself listening to the film's Dylan theme song and diving deeper and deeper into connection with it. I can feel it as a man who has been through an awful lot and has found a lot of life's answers in simply throwing caution to the wind. You can't get anywhere without taking risks and setting yourself up for vulnerability. You may find yourself waking up to an unfamiliar, changed world, but in it you might actually discover things you might have never imagined and in them what you had sought in the first place.

groundhog day

Today is February 2nd - Groundhog Day. I feel as if this particular holiday had completely no bearing on me for the first dozen or so years of my life. It was just one of those odd traditions that had little to do with me but instead some chubby animal I had never viewed in person. Then in 1993 Bill Murray and director Harold Ramis came rushing in with a film of the same name, altering the state of the holiday for many of us into humorous thoughts of repetitious insanity. It was quickly dubbed an instant classic. Since then I have even found myself 'celebrating' one or two of these holidays watching the flick.

An old friend of mine lives on the 'Lost' island in Hawaii. In this age of civilization referring to technological connection, for all intents and purposes she has cut herself off from it without a cell phone, a Facebook account, or an active email address. I don't even know her actual physical locale. Therefore, we haven't heard from one another in two or three years. A mutual friend of ours is traveling there next week, so he is bringing along a care package of trinkets and whatnot from her connections here in town.

A couple days ago I sat down to hand write her a letter. Even though so much has transpired during the time since we last spoke, somehow with pen in hand I was able to easily condense it all down to one and a half pages of some of the best prose I have written in some time. I hadn't written a letter in ages! There's something to be said for stepping away from the modern conveniences every now and then. In ways they do make the world easier and in some ways they simply make us lazy.

I think life is found in the cracks and crevices of everyday activity, but so often we overlook it. We have to focus attention on the smaller details in our worlds to really experience it. The old adage is completely true about taking time to smell the roses, although that's always just been an example. It's about breaking away from the mold of our everyday to really interact with our own existence. It can mean hand writing a card instead of mass producing a text, or walking a few blocks instead of driving there, or baking your own bread instead of picking up a loaf from the market, or even washing and drying your own dishes in lieu of always depending on the Whirlpool.

So here passes another Groundhog Day. Take some time today to step outside of yourself. Spend a few extra moments deepening your connection to your life. How does your shadow spread across the rest the earth? What does it say about where you're headed?

366 days

MUSIC has amazing power.

For me, in simplest terms, it's a litmus test and a compass. On the one hand, over time I have heard plenty of misguided souls say they're just not interested in music or their tastes are so narrow, their halfhearted involvement in it bores me. To me, it's the pulse of life. It can tell you where you are, where you've been, or where you're going, like some sort of flux capacitor of the soul. Great music especially evolves over time. It grows and changes with us, following us through all of our tidal pools and topographical missteps.

No blogs were posted here between early August 2009 and the end of January 2010, and for good reason. It's amazing to me how much of who we are can become based on the impressions of outsiders. Outside opinion can hold so much sway. Take for example being given a gift. It doesn't have to be a particularly expensive purchase. Honestly the cost doesn't matter. Let's say it's a gift of moderate cost from a key family member or friend.

You now have something new in your life. Unfortunately, you've come to realize it just doesn't fit your body or your personality, or just won't fit your well-devised Feng shui flow. What do you do? You keep it, of course. The 'gift giver' may show up some time and wonder where it is, seems to be the running edict. 'What will they think' is a phrase still carved inside the walls of our psyche from our formative years. The same concept can happen within a relationship.

Words are very unnecessary
They can only do harm

Depeche Mode's brilliant VIOLATOR album was released in March of 1990. The first time I caught wind of it was upon seeing the simple, but visually striking video for "Enjoy the Silence" wherein David Gahan roams the Scottish hillside dressed in royal garb, toting a glorified lawn chair. Over time it started to appear on random mix tapes I made others, even though I attempted to keep from using what had become such a signature tune.

Whether or not that would make it the best song on the set, it has always worked well as a centerpiece. This figured into my thinking when I directed the play 'Closer', which was a cleverly written, harsh, emotional drama. I decided that the performances should be the sole organic aspect of the play, so I layered the show with electronic music. Every night "Enjoy the Silence" brought the audience out of the intense, peak moments of Act One into the brief intermission with noticeable chills. Slowly but surely the song began to collect all of the baggage of the show and the life dramas surrounding it.

A couple weeks back there was an inadvertent or perhaps imperative merging of the former and the current at a local bar during what was slated to be an 80's old wave night. The first chords of "Enjoy the Silence" sent me soaring across time, but I quickly settled right back into the moment, completely unfazed by previous pain or yearning with which the song had become associated. My focus was instead riveted on the seductive dancing of my beautiful girlfriend.

All I ever wanted
All I ever needed
Is here in my arms

So here we are, a year since the curtain call, following three or four years of decline. Since then old friends and strangers have come out of the woodwork, creating a very different array of characters in my life. These are the people who will be moving forward with me, allowing me to fully unfetter myself from anchors of the past.

hughes laureate

Over the past couple of weeks, my girlfriend and I have been diving back into our youth with the makings of a John Hughes film marathon. His flicks were one cornerstone of any given child of the eighties pop cultural meal, but have now unfortunately been exiled to periodic rotation on the likes of TBS and Bravo. Before this month it had been quite some time since either of us had seen any of these works in their unedited entirety. So far we have gotten through the four Anthony Michael Hall entries (for those counting, we did include "Vacation").

Hughes was my age when he wrote the most revered of these movies. It was once a surprise to me that he was able to tap into the teenage psyche so well, but as I take a peek back at his mid-eighties triumphs I see not only the angst of children but echoes of many adult voices I know as well as issues I have torn through in this blog. As adults we may lose sight or become too jaded, but we too need to be noticed, strive to gain acceptance, struggle against oppressive forces, seek to realize our true nature and be respected for it, and most of all wish to harness as much fun as life has in store.

the eX-factor

I haven't seen David Fincher's recent Facebook movie, but I get the inkling that part of the reason the flick is receiving the generous reviews relates to its extremely topical nature. For many of us, Facebook is that monster that swooped out of nowhere, devouring not only Myspace and its lesser known 'social network' compatriots, but also the way we all qualify our lives and our worlds. We 'like' far more things than we ever thought feasible, we over-share with aplomb, we intensify our feelings for mass support, we erase past ills for the want of another individual in our human name-face-serial number queue, and we keep others well past their expiration date in the hopes to not offend, isolate, or do any of those other wonderful things we do so well in the 'real world'.

Facebook certainly has changed the fabric of our interactions and I don't think it's solely due to the 'social network' status either, because before many of us arrived there we were on Friendster, Myspace and myriad others. I had several different accounts before hand, but was only active with Myspace, which initially seemed little more than a place for 'tweens, teens, and those two feet from high school graduation. With all of the flash and fuss put in all of the wrong places, Myspace really was a disappointment as an addiction.

On the other hand, Facebook was busy gaining acknowledgement and becoming embraced by an older crowd. Something about it seemed better. By comparison all of the bling of any given Myspace page was now far more streamlined. Gone were those slow to load, exhaustive journeys into website amateurism that so often burst instantly into irritating song samples. Everything seemed to become more about the words people chose to express themselves or the images they chose to share.

Honestly, at first glance it was quite refreshing. If Myspace was one type of an on-line animal, it soon became clear that Facebook was more of an out-and-out plague beast. Myspace wasn't for everyone, but 'everyone needed to be on Facebook'. Relatives young and old started to join. It soon became a litmus test for regular societal membership and meaning, as event invitations and photo shares only seemed to be for those who were connected. Facebook seemed to make life so much simpler, organizing everyone you know, once knew, wish you could know better, bumped into in an elevator, or those with whom you share an interest in spoons into this live action, living, breathing address book.

It has often called into question the meaning of the word 'friend', and it certainly does for me these days. I am reminded of arguably the best Simpsons episode: 'El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer (The Mysterious Voyage of Homer)'. It's the one wherein Homer's searching for his soul mate. One particular conversation in Moe's Bar demonstrates just how many nuanced relationships really exist (friend, colleague, compatriot, well-wisher, etc.). In a place like Facebook all of these people get lost together in one bundle, seemingly equalized based on when they decide to post something new.

toxic avenger

Interesting arrays of disconnected events tend to visit us in dreamland. In the morning we string it all together in an effort to make some sense of it, like some over-worked film editor, toiling away at turning six scrubbed films into something coherent. I tend to think that life runs through a similar course as our memories steadily become more and more vague with images culled from actual events, photographs, stories, wishes, dreams, and a smattering of some TV show we once watched. To some extent, assembled in whatever form we see fit, they become us.

I can't quite recall if it was during first grade or second grade (in fact, I did a quick Wikipedia search to see if I was even close), but at some point we all lost our baby teeth. We'd sit there at the center of the classroom, or lying in bed at night, or even on the playground at recess, doing everything in our power to fiddle with, tug at, or flick our tongue toward that irritating dangling piece of bone hanging by a string from our jaws, in a concerted effort to cause some change. At times the damned thing didn't even feel the least bit connected, merely held on by very weak magnets. It was frustrating, and as a tooth in its present form it was also completely useless.

Sometimes life gets this way. It reminds me of Dexter Morgan, that wonderful sociopath of print and screen. Like many a sociopath, he's the perfect outsider, quite able to recognize the nuances of humanity, who dons his life like a wardrobe. I wouldn't suggest he's necessarily the best of role models, but I would say it's true that one's world, one's lifestyle, one's reality does go in and out of fashion with time, sometimes fitting with ease and at other times chafing us to the point of action. When it gets like that, you have to do like Dexter would, and yank those teeth out!

A couple days back I spent the hazier part of the afternoon with my parents, who are recently estranged from my siblings. I didn't know what to expect when venturing out to the local Chick-fila, but it did give me several revelations. As I got a better gist of who these people are without the context of the seeming baggage that a functional family unit allows and they got perhaps a better sense of me in this space and time, I began to more fully grasp something about toxic relationships. In this instance, and likely in others, without all of the vile undercurrents, both parties are better off.

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.

doubt .

too lonely old souls -

connecting from afar

taste of youthful magic -

aging into a mature reflection;

a passion deepened and tender

waking to the unfamiliar -

a quilt unraveling, delicate

fabric tattered in the breeze -

threadbare fragments remain

the world dances about -

in an awkward rhythm,

familiar people tiptoe around;

elsewhere beckons - - -

yet this was once there.

never the same river -

now totally off-course

our parade knee deep -

in flood waters

words just tokens -

pained in their disguise

what was once -

tainted by review

nauseous from this -

amusement park of emotion

happiness and pleasure lost -

uncertain where they’ve

been found before - - -

symbolizing familiarity -

two rings of gold and tarnish

the power of two beaten -

by the strength of will

standing on opposite sides -

of the same point of view

casting doubt toward -

the circling tides of absolutes

two lonely soldiers -

returning from the war

wounded, empty, and scarred,

surrendering to the intoxication -

of the current moment.

too fragile

endless metaphor
my preferred beast -
to harness the vague
intangible reminder
of days passé.

clarified myopia -
my future recipe
to handle the now
in retrospect.

hateful wind -
a brilliant extreme
for collapsing it all.
world upturned -
this human disease
knows no bounds.

hands left empty -
fragile flesh marinated
in sorrow and regret.

on invisibility

Lying in bed, just like Brian Wilson did
Well, I’m lying in bed just like Brian Wilson did . . .
So, I’m lying here, just staring at the ceiling tiles
And I’m thinking about what to think about.
-Barenaked Ladies, “Brian Wilson”

I shared a duet of that song with the wife a few weeks back. Given everything I have been working through and contemplating of late, it stirs up thoughts about isolation and becoming invisible within one’s own life.

A couple nights ago I was clearing out my old Yahoo e-mail account as a final exercise to completely commit to the far superior Gmail. As pointless an exercise as it might seem to some, I wrapped up my general deletions and forwards process with the extended task of unsubscribing myself from all of the newsletters I was receiving.

Until I went through message-by-message I didn’t realize how many I’d joined and let pile up. Doing so gave me this strange satisfaction. In fact I peculiarly felt weight pulled from my shoulders. In some way I see all of those newsletters I was un-tethering myself from as a means to reconfigure my identity. Interests, causes, hobbies, and such do seem to be part of the recipe of self. It connects in my mind.

Now let me backtrack for a moment here. For the past several months I have given myself the opportunity to disconnect while remaining vaguely connected, hiding under the safe little bubble of “invisible” in gchat and on Facebook, leaving my phone on vibrate or silent, and on and on.

These were the concrete actions of someone who was holding in emotional pain, evidence of tectonic shifts of personal change, and damming up cathartic geysers. I found different versions of self-prescribed desert island isolation. Perhaps driven by survival instinct, or more plainly just hunting for whatever chance I could to quiet down the bevy of voices and the general cacophony of life to try and hear my own.

But as I write I recognize an excess of past tense, as I crane my neck to see the distant wreckage disappearing behind me. I can feel myself stretching in positive ways, pulling my theoretical bear out of its wintery hibernation, or as Gloria Estefan offered: I feel I’m coming out of the dark. It’s all future from here on out.

And I think about the thought of being an empty shell. This is no doubt an exaggeration, but it does evoke a lot of the true feeling. Maybe life just reached an inadvertent dead end or a chance roadblock. An empty canvas, a clean slate, or whatever you might want to call it is a wonderful opportunity. Having a fresh start opens up endless possibility and I intend to take it!