to have or to eat (waxing philosophical with anna and alice, my sweet nieces)

i never used to understand this, but there are certain things in life you simply cannot do. many of us firmly believe that a person should be able to do whatever they want in this life, and i suppose in a perfect world that might be true. however, you simply cannot have your cake and eat it too. it's a tough lesson to learn and can only really truly be learned when you eat your cake and find that, indeed, you can't have it anymore. it seems when you have your cake you can still believe some kind of illusion or idea that if you were to eat it, you could still somehow have it. that whole scenario is just make believe, and you end up believing what you want every time. but when you actually eat your cake, then it becomes painfully obvious that, yep, it's just like they said - you can't have it anymore. your cake is gone and you've got to live with that. so no matter what you believe the reality is, you've got to decide which you want - to have your cake, or to eat it - before you make a move.

so choose. because you just can't have both. 

the problem with gravity

i used to really resent gravity - always "workin against me" as john mayer would say. we are helpless against it. with all our earthly genius we cannot overcome it. what goes up must come down. and you can't really get around it. i would daydream about being able to fly and float around weightlessly as if swimming through some intangible substance. i would dream about becoming an astronaut to live in outer space where gravity has no hold on me. gravity just seems to resist me all the time.

then there is this moment when you realize - that thing you have perceived as an enemy in your life has been an ally all along.

without gravity (nothing to resist us), we grow weak. with nothing to pull us down, we never learn how to pull ourselves up - we would never know the feel of standing on our own two feet. the rivers would forget where to flow. the snow would have nowhere to fall. 

yes, gravity resists us, but we also resist gravity. if gravity didn't resist us, our muscles and bones would waste away and we would become weak and decrepit. and similarly, if we didn't resist gravity, our bones and muscles would waste away and we would become weak and decrepit. and it is through this mutual resistance that we grow stronger - stronger in mind, stronger in body, stronger in spirit. we learn patience, perseverance, resilience. we learn resolve, we learn victory and we learn overcoming.

so the next time i fall and it feels like gravity wants to hold me down, i'll remember that gravity isn't the enemy. i will remember the powerful truth of mutual resistance.

we cannot overcome gravity, but we don't have to let it overcome us.

"social" media

we stood around quietly engaged in our phones, sort of vaguely aware of each other, looking forward to tomorrow when we could look back on tonight and recall how awesome and epic it was.

real love

it's about the beauty that can be wrought from the harmony of differences and the multiplication of similarities. it's about the sum being greater than it's component parts.

a beautiful purple comes from adding red to blue 

it's about two people who implicitly trust and deeply know who they are, being strong enough to hold on to that trust and knowledge in the face of being challenged - strong enough to keep that grip while considering another perspective.

it's about seeing the value in the ways the other is different and being willing to wear their shoes, see through their eyes, feel through their heart, and allowing yourself to be moved by that experience.

it moves you - stirs something ancient and something powerful deep in your soul placed there by someone long ago. it affects you, changes you, wakes you, shakes you, destroys you.

real love is not easy.

real love breaks your heart in the places it has become hardened. it pushes you, stretches you, challenges you, annoys you, maddens you.

but in the end, real love yields real value. love makes life better - makes you better. 

real love might be the most beautiful thing in life. and it's worth the effort - worth the trials, the errors, the failures, scraped knees. 

 

i believe in it.

gotta say something

a few times now i've seen this phrase on different "memes" or "gifs" or whatever:

"fuck bitches, get $$$$"

i have no interest in "bitches" and i'd rather live in poverty than let greed and dissatisfaction drive my life.

okay, enough negativity. let's go be grateful for the things we do have and the precious people in our lives. we're so lucky to be alive! life is a beautiful thing if we look for it to be.

"she's no different from the freaks that like watchin this film.
it's not who i am that matters. it's who they wish i was."

river cravings

"river, like smoke, will find its own way the dam will leak, the smokehouse cannot hold everything"

i find myself daydreaming about rivers. high rivers, low rivers, flooding rivers. i want to watch the swirl as the river finds rock or bank to negotiate. to see the reflection of the river bed in the surface behavior. i wanna be mesmerized by the rhythmic tossing of a rapids. i want to hear the gentle lapping of the river on a soft bank. to dive into my favorite swimming hole and feel the world slip seemingly miles away. i want to submit to the current and feel my body be swept downstream. 

satire

"some people say that, whilst uttering what seemed madness, he was, in reality, divinely inspired, and that it was not madness but wisdom that he uttered."
 - someone

life is short

There's a moment between the moment when the tub faucet is on, water pouring down into the tub connecting the faucet and the tub, and the moment when the shower tab is pulled on the faucet and the water sprays out of the shower head connecting the shower and the tub.

For a moment, the water is not in contact with the tub. It is born out from the shower head and free-falls through the air.

It's just a brief moment - barely perceivable. If you're not paying attention, you'll miss it.

But if you listen, you can hear it - a profound moment when water is free.

respect the roots

sure, the plant is pretty.
but it is the roots 

that give it life.

haze

tonight is one of those nights,
where, no matter how many times you blink,
a thick, hazy band blurs the street lights.

ride a bike

i saw this quote cross-stitched, framed and then hung in the bathroom of a thrift store in post falls, idaho. to this day i don't know why i didn't try to buy it from them, but i'll probably never forget it:

"happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, will alight upon your shoulder."

which is both poignant and comical at the same time considering the location of the artwork.

happiness is a butterfly just as much as it is riding a bike. some of the times i've felt the happiness flowing in and through me the most keenly have been riding a bike on a summer evening. and i don't mean with padded shorts and feet clipped in to pedals. i mean with my eyes closed and the wind in my face, and possibly with one or more hands stretched out feeling the air flow through my hands like moments in time.

riding a bike should be fun. it should be happiness. sometimes i get caught up trying to ride a bike faster than, or further than, or tilker than the other guy. sometimes i get caught up in how i look when i ride my bike. or sometimes it's the health benefits that i get hung up on. or how cool or expensive or advanced my bike is.

but whatever it is, it distracts me from the pure enjoyment of riding a bike. floating across the surface of the earth, carried by a magical mix of metals and rubber and air.


and when it comes down to it, a person never forgets how to ride a bike. you never forget how to really ride a bike. you just have to stop trying so hard. just ride a bike. feel the magic.

and the butterfly will land on your shoulder

self

selfishness begets selfishness. that's boringly true. when someone acts selfish toward you or at your expense, the knee-jerk reaction is to be selfish in return. maybe it's to protect yourself from the threat of a selfish person looking out only for themselves, and therefore not looking out for you in the least bit.

but this is obvious. it's too easy. selfishness is easy.

what's interesting to me is unselfishness. it's so unnatural. and why doesn't unselfishness beget unselfishness? that would be fantastic. all it would take was one unselfish person and it would spread around like some kind of disease.

but instead, unselfishness is often met with selfishness. like a stream flowing into a black hole.

my dad once told me that if he lived his life all the way in harmony with his ideals, he would not live very long. it reminded me of jesus. jesus lived his life all the way in harmony with his ideals and, sure enough, he didn't live very long.

selfishness is boring. its too easy. i'm more interested in unselfishness. unselfishness in the face of selfishness. unselfishness that begets unselfishness.

i think that's what love is.

streaming through the holes

i drove all night to get to california.
watched the mile signs go by 6 miles at a time.
fought against the weights resting on my eyelids.

and i'll never forget the feeling when the sun began to rise and the first signs of light broke on the horizon. i began to be able to see the surroundings. they had changed as i drove in the night. the world expanded beyond the beams of my headlights. and my first thought was, very clearly, "i'm gonna make it."

"i'm gonna make it."

spare an angel -chris rice

where's the limit to the pain

her heart can take

before it breaks

in half?

she has no idea how much you love her

or how much you care.

so would you choose one of your best

to be the answer to my prayer:

can you spare an angel tonight

send a little help from your side

'cause somebody's lost down here...

let him wing his way through the dark

carry some of your love into her heart.

(would you? please?)