Saint Anthony

I stood on top of the mountain today with my face turned toward the wind and shouted. I looked up at the sky and screamed, "is that all you got?!" and i felt something churn in my heart. It was like the words took on an intensity I didn't intend for them to take. Like something in me wanted to confront the darkness that has haunted me and my family.

It was a type of genuineness I haven't felt in a while. And it shook me. I looked down at the horizon and then over at the guy standing with me and laughed nervously, hoping he didn't notice.

rubber ball vs. gravity

there are times when my whole mind, my whole being twists up and fights against this notion that

"losing is something we all do in life."

when i was six, i lost my favorite jean jacket. i left it in a restaurant or something on the side of the highway somewhere.

when i was seven i lost my cat. he was black and had a kink in his tail. he got hit by a car on the street.

when i was eight i lost my pet rabbit. my mom's siberian husky...

when i was ten i lost my favorite dog. we gave him away because he was a trouble maker.

when i was 22 i lost my grandmother, ruth. she was my ally. always giving me delicious fruit and telling my mom to be nice to me. she fell asleep one night and didn't wake up.

but i'm not writing a sob story. i mean, we all lose. it's part of life. we learn to live with it. we learn to let go. we find a way to  say goodbye to the things we thought we'd always have.

but when i was 28, i lost my dad. on the verge of a bright future, he left me.

and my heart won't accept it. i can't concede, in this case, that "losing is something we all do in life." there's no part of that statement that sits well in any way. my heart contorts and tenses up. as if, letting the thought inside would mean admitting it's okay somehow. and yet the second hand keeps moving. i have to get dressed. go to work. life doesn't let up.

then eventually there are days when i'm too tired to keep fighting it. and i crumple underneath it. my shoulders slump, my eyes burn, and my heart feels broken. and yet i feel a sense of rest that is somehow comforting.

i think the point is that, no matter how hard i fight, the truth remains as solid as the planet on its path through the universe. losing really is something we all have to endure.

but i'll still fight. in the same way that a rubber ball bounces against gravity when it hits the ground.

scars

when i was a kid my older brothers were both big fans of virginia cavaliers basketball. they loved it so much they decided to cut and bend a metal hanger into the shape of the v, then heat it up over the stove until it was visibly ret hot and press it into the sides of their arms. i remember watching them with a mixture of awe and confusion filling my eyes as they yelled out and pulled the oven mitt away and the pieces of hanger stayed stuck to the melted skin underneath.

in the days that followed, the wounds scabbed over. but my oldest brother insisted it wasn't good enough yet. he carefully picked the scab off so that the wound re-opened and would need to scab over again. once it did, he picked it right off. the purpose was to increase the size and depth of the scar. and to this day, he carries a broad v-shaped scar on his shoulder and he never forgets where it came from.



(i never understood the driving force behind this action until now. it's been said, perhaps too many times, that time heals all wounds. but what happens when you don't want to move on? what happens when you don't want to heal? because to heal means to let go of something you desperately hold on to in your heart. i don't want my wound to scab. i want to pick the scabs. i don't want to let go.)

warning

it's really difficult to process all the different emotions and thoughts that plague me in the wake of losing my dad. but i am going to begin to try to approach my thoughts and feelings here on my blog. ever since i started this web log, it has been the most effective way to take the upstairs neighbors (my thoughts) who stomp around in their steel boots and disturb and interrupt every thing going on in my life, and get them out/give them a vent so they stop stomping around so obnoxiously.

i'm not sure if this blog has any regular audience anymore, so these posts aren't really for anyone but myself, and yet i leave them public because if anyone was wondering what was going on inside my head, this is the most close to accurate resource there is. that being said, if you, reader, are a regular visitor of this site, consider yourself warned. you may want to take a short vacation from it.

dear so-and-so

life's a funny thing. in all that's happening i feel at once a strong desire to truly live my life while i'm alive as well as a reflex to withdraw from it and hide. feeling shaken, guilty, lost, alone, abandoned, and scared, all while trying to remain positive about the future and secretly harboring a great fear of failing.

it makes me think of that quote from some movie trailer we both saw and liked (i think it was transformers or something): "fate seldom calls on us at a moment of our choosing." i feel like with all this burden i bear, it is up to me and me alone to stand up under it. to step forward despite my fear. maybe this is growing up? maybe these are my defining moments. where i choose what kind of man i want to be and what kind of life i want to live.

but man! it's hard! i keep looking around for someone to be there to help me, but find no one. and maybe that's the point. maybe that's when you become a man, when no one is there to help you and you're forced to find a way to do it on your own power - to find out what you're truly capable of. maybe this is my modern rite of passage into manhood. this is me hunting a bear alone with nothing but my hands.

i feel that i lack courage. and yet i know that courage is innate. it doesn't come from anywhere but inside me. so the moments i doubt myself, doubt my courage, are the very moments that courage is born.

Darkness and light

I haven't quite begun to wrestle with the massive aching emptiness you've left in my heart. But I know this much: my world is a little more lovely because your light shone upon it. I don't quite understand how someone who had such a bright and positive influence could become so enshrouded in darkness. And yet I have recently felt the chill of a particular darkness begin to envelope my heart and I feel afraid and alone. And it makes me wonder if you felt that too. I just wish I could have been there to dispel some of that oppressive darkness the way you did for me so many times. You were a bright light in my world. And I promise to do my best to carry your light through the rest of my days in your stead.

"from the bed near your death,
and all the machines that made a mess,
far away the falcon flew.
now i want to be near you."

"What's left is only bittersweet,
for the rest of my life, admitting the best is behind me.
now i'm drunk and afraid, wishing the world would go away
what's the point of singing songs,
if they'll never even hear you?"

pockets

every little wad of paper

every receipt

every empty wrapper

every tissue

my heart holds its breath

hoping it's some kind of note

some kind of clue

but it's just a wad of paper

just a receipt

just an empty wrapper

just a used tissue

mazed

if there ever was an example of 'high as a kite', this would be it. i was the most high i'd ever been in my life - mostly because i'd never been high in my life before. but even if i had, this just somehow would be more high than that would have been.

walking in a circle that, in retrospect, must have had a radius of no more than 15 feet, felt like wandering in the desert with moses. i felt an unshakeable sense of being lost - simultaneously experiencing an equally unshakeable, and yet unsettling, familiarity with the rocks and grass i was walking past.

like some sick joke. a corn maze with no way out.