Thursday, July 30, 2009

physical health, pain, emotional clutter

sifting through my carefully yet haphazardly packed boxes, my mom gets a phone call. my aunt is in the emergency room, she has had a mini-heart-attack. what a triage of words, and i wonder if they go together. the implied severity and the acuteness co-mingling in sentences. does that work? it doesn't matter, because we need to get there, and there is little time to think. and it is a welcome relief to focus on the needs of someone else right now.
when i see her she is in good spirits, because she is my aunt. i don't feel okay, but her faces reminds me that we are only human, and that laughter can be the best medicine. i try to smile with her, but it's overwhelming. she doesn't want a party so i kiss her and take my cousin home with me so he doesn't have to spend tonight alone.
i slowly return to sorting out some clutter in my personal earth attic, cutting through fog, dense trees, and thick water. we are not alone in this world, but when the boxes are stacked so high, it's hard to see the people standing on the other side sometimes.
this is the second time today i have been in a hospital. it's time to get some sleep.

Monday, July 27, 2009

dunk tank

right after this picture was taken i got clocked in the throat with a fast flying softball. i woke up on the ground with a circle of people standing over me.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

a bicycle, a beer, and a nativity scene



I've been riding my bike around, chasing the evening shadows every night after work. Yesterday I found a nativity scene in a garbage can so I brought it home with me, it makes me smile. The baby jesus has a busted knee cap.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

windows


When are the the people, the values, the concrete and sandy paths, and the relationships in your life worth fighting for? How do you decide which battles can afford your energy and which are too taxing, leaving you exhausted? Can these change with time? And how many unanswered questions can you handle, rolling around in your mind, in your soul, your heart, before you can't stand it? And you make a decision, to go, and to follow what it is you want, unrestrained and with love. I wonder, and it turns me all around. Then I laugh, because that makes me wonder what the rest of the world is thinking. It's incredible sometimes.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

older

my throat is a mixture of desert and yuck. it's swollen and makes my eyes look tired. my lungs are filled with green and yellow. and seems brazil has stayed with me longer than i thought it would. i guess this isn't the type of thing you put on a blog, but well, i wanted to.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

A Separate Piece, 1959

Driving down Highway 12 and listening to my grandparents talk about how they met and how they married, not necessarily how they fell in love, but how they chose to spend their lives together, I am calm. The talked as the miles passed. She said he was tall and quirky and he wasn’t like the other boys she had gone out with. He kissed her at the end of the night and apologized for it. She said it was different, charming. He said she hoped in his car and immediately slid over close next to him. My grandpa proudly told his story of leaving the army, going AWOL, not once, not twice but three times and being sent to military prison for each offense. It took him more than four years to get a discharge from the army. He seemed relieved to be back in life with women, work, and human pleasures. My grandma chuckled from deep, she didn’t know this before she married him. She was a junior in high school and he was 22, dating a chick from Oconomowoc, WI a while before he met her, as he describes it, when they decided that they wanted to intertwine their lives. She had some money saved up for college, and they spent it on a trailer to live in instead. They have been together ever since. Not without troubles, but always with understanding.

I sat there, concentrating on driving, and enjoying the quiet bliss that the road often cradles those looking for peace. Despite the chatter behind me, I couldn’t help but smile and listen with my ears, as my mind may have been somewhere else. They couldn’t tell me, or anyone, why they married, or even if they were in love, but they didn’t seem to mind. And you could call it a simpler time, with less worries or restraints. But I call it serene, and that is timeless. I call it something of a time lost not in love but in a concern for careers, for money, or for self-awareness. All of which are positive, can be good, but can alter where your heart sits. It was a time where life was chance and love was a catalyst for spiritual growth, for travel, for adventure, and for dancing freely. It may be what people still hope for, but that depends on your definition of love, of happiness. Either way, it made me smile.