“You have brains in your head,
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You’re on your own and you know what you know
And you’re the one who’ll decide where to go.”
Dr. Seuss
Searching for Contentment In Connecticut
the countryside continues to bleed further into the distance
stretching the canvas in all four dimensions
with highways longer than late-night philosophies
I began to lament my lack of contentment
while over-analyzing my faults in a post-show funk
amplified by intense democratic anxieties
I now see my recurring mawkish remonstrations
in a context more befitting my expanding vagrant aperture
with fear sending me flying forth into the frigid north
where my eccentricities multiply into stereotypes
I slowly start to steer my thoughts through vision not revision
reminding my mind to fully focus on a fortunate future
not one dictated by an inherited parochial dystopia
but one born of a burning drive intent on actualizing my aspirations
C is for … Change
Change is either neither good nor bad or both good and bad; your perspective, your choice. That’s the subjective nature of reality, as I see it. It could be written with your own loving hand on tear stained paper, or casually revealed as a piece of a movie montage. The life we choose to view in any given moment only illuminates the path perceived by peering through one pair of spectacles. But if we dare to peek outside that singular frame of reference we see we’re suspended in a sea of spectacles, each one just and true within themselves.
Whatever way it’s viewed, the one thing change will always be is inclusive. Change touches everyone every way; from the trivial to the tragic. A misplaced appointment can scramble my synapses and hijack my intention of health; a simple call from a sibling cancertainly stir dreaded thoughts of mortality from the silt in my soup-kettle soul.
How should we view this? Where should we turn; to friends, family, and loved ones; to God above; to the God within; to hell with this victimizing bull-shit and write our own story with depictions of realistic immortality?
…
My world has changed.
Although, as much as my melodramatic imaginations would blind me to the fact, her’s has changed more, with less sense or sympathy. Why would a brother be denied his only life-long friend; mothers their sleep; or a son his mother’s milk, all as she is forced to believe in heaven while bounding through hell.
I cannot see the glory through the gloom,
But yet I pray, for my dear sister’s sake,
This cancerous cloud will, like my nimble mood,
Have need enough its own great change to make.
Adventures in Aging
About the time the rust was falling to the floor
My knee took on a red-orange glow,
Unfortunately forced to head for the door
Waiting to watch what The Dude might know;
Now at home with my pain and my peas
Some saline signals the need for change,
With acupuncture, pills, and trees,
I believe again in a dancer’s range.
Death By Distraction
Work, moving, busted internet, laundry, and the occasionally necessary five chord progression, has made it difficult to blog on-line, so I’ve composed these last few entries in the old-school fashion of bringing pen to paper. Looking ahead at the next few days, I’m resigning to the notion that I will not yet commit these mental yarns to cyber-memory for a few days days to come. Although the mere formation of this entry creates in me an interestingly intense ‘tenseual’ trepidation: should it be in the past, present, or future tense at the time of entry to the blog page? An interesting conundrum. At the time I physically write this I am speaking about the past condition of my distracted nature, my present state of lethargy, and my hectic future which will cause a lag time between the creation of these thoughts and the communication of them to anyone, including my future self. If this entry is placed in the present tense, then at the time of posting to the site, which is currently the future, it will be to me, in that moment, the past, and yet I will need to type these words as though they are the present, knowing full well that when you read them you will note that it is posted under a previous date and categorize them as being in from past! So what does this all boil down to?I’m lying to you.
…
loss is real I cannot hide from its harrowing harangue fear is real failure is not a frivolous feat but an unfortunate profundity I know these things from my experience of them, and yet my knowledge of them suggests a medium more ethereal than real; and yet the attachments to these trivial things; these disdended details of the day to day; these life altering trivialities can, with the encouragement of our will, seemingly subjugate our lives as a mouse on a throne of lions.
Silent Night
A bottle of cabernet,
House to myself,
Silence,
Someone who listens,
Someone who understands,
On the eve of change,
Silence,
Longing for more,
Contented with “See you soon,”
And the rest is,
Silence.
How …
How do you spend your lives?
How do you spend your lives?
Do you listen to your heart or speak your mind?
Do you sit back and criticize or stand up and empathize?
Do you spend it figuring the worth of a dream or dreaming of a worthy figure?
How do you spend your lives?
Are your daily decisions still determined by demons long since dead?
Are you really that angry with me or am I really angry with myself?
Do you truthfully seek to change yourself or will you change the truth you seek?
How do you spend your lives?
Are you too careful, while you two couldn’t care less?
Are you wearing out your welcome, while you welcome wear and tear?
Do you accept your weight, while you await acceptance?
How do you spend your lives?
Do you find inspiration in beauty or find beauty in spirit?
Do you hold beliefs of freedom that don’t hold water with the people you’ve freed?
Do you know what to avoid when you teach, have you learned to avoid ‘teachers,’ or is there a void where learning should have been taught?
However you spend your lives, be sure to live how you want before your life is spent.
Birthday Resolution
Inspired by the dear woman who tends to the blog Moments and Momentum, I resolve on this day, the beginning of my 27th year, to blog once every day for the following 365 days as an act of dedication to creation, communication, and reflection. As an homage to the monumental task at hand, I’d like to include you in my recent encounter with a great architectural monolith … ish. Some friends and I recently visited Nashville, TN (which you may know by some of its other nicknames, such as: Nashvagas, and The Athens of the South, hmm …). We happened upon this wonderful little bit of misplaced taxpayer funds.
