Less is more....

There was no want, need, or desire, at least not until she appeared. Up to that point, life contained everything that one could want. There was the job that pleased him, good health that had followed him since birth, and looks that--while not perfect--caused a certain segment of society to stare. It changed with a chance encounter in a place far from “home”, at which time his life, as he previously knew it, ceased to exist. In her, he found what he did not know he was lacking, love. And with that came the overwhelming feeling that there had been a large portion of his life wasted, and he wanted nothing more than to regain the lost in her arms. It did not last. As quickly as she arrived, she vanished. In the wake, a broken, lost, and confused man emerged. There were no words, actions, or feeling that could resuscitate what was destroyed by her exit. The shell that remained trudged on and attempted to recapture the magic of self-fulfillment that once permeated his being; but there was no hope. Whoever said that it was better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all, was a sick bastard. Ignorance truly is bliss.

Happy Birthday!

On this special day, I want you to know that you are one of the most incredible children I have ever met, and I was blessed to grow up with your uncle and mother, so I know a thing or two about amazing children. When I look at you, I see the future, a man who is going to take the family DNA, along with that of your father, and make it known to the world. In your intelligence, I see a man who will silently go about learning all that is necessary to carry himself in the way that is becoming of a scholar and a gentlemen. In your beauty, I see a man who will have women scurrying for favor. In your size and physical presence, I see a man who will excel at any athletic feat he deems worthy of his time. But above all, in you compassion, I see a man who will show that understanding and unbridled love, not ruthlessness and intolerance, is what is necessary to be successful in this world. There is nothing you cannot accomplish, and I know this because I know you. Happy birthday little one.

Rest in Peace

There is a certain segment of society who relish the demise of a person such as yourself. I am not one of those individuals. While my profession may paint the opposite picture, I believe that the vast majority of humans, including yourself, have something to offer this world. And while I do not agree with the way you chose to live your life and would have done all in my power to curtail it, I wish you had survived long enough to prove to all the nonbeliever that each of us, regardless of the mistakes we have made, can change. More than being the miscreant you appeared, you were a son, possibly a brother, uncle, nephew, friend, etc., and your death undoubtedly impacted those who knew you (and even a few who did not). I hope you found peace in your final moments, and that someone learned something valuable from your passing.

Sunday Scribblings

Last week's word was Brave, I am late, I know....

There is no brave in my existence. I follow the easy, the road well traveled, the simple. I am the definition of “do not rock the boat.” Confrontation and creating waves is my greatest fear. I relish in doing what is expected from me, whether good or bad. The comical part is that if you ask those who do not intimately know me, they would say the opposite. That I am the outlier, the one who refuses to fall into line. This is a carefully crafted image. One that I have spent years perfecting...truth be told, I am a coward, an individual who excels at inspiring others to step out of line, and to chase the unknown with reckless abandon; but refuses to do the same. I am the worst of the worst, an embarrassment to the idea of brave.

A full tank with nowhere to go

The act of merely existing is my life's biggest disappointment. I am a firm believer that there is more to a day than consuming, driving and being. In my opinion, the life we are blessed with is a game, meant to be played to exhaustion at each and every turn. Anything less is an insult to our existence. It is a selfish life, and I understand that, for others find beauty in the act of nothingness; I am not that person. What I do need to learn, however, is that throwing adult sized tantrums in the face of not exerting myself to destruction is not a solution, but the precursor to a whole set of separate problems, which are probably others biggest disappointment. I need to take responsibility for my own existence, and quit relying on others to give me what I need to feel complete.

“Late afternoon, another day is nearly done. A darker grey is breaking through a lighter one . . . .” The Weakerthans, One Great City!

An invitation

“What do you say when you realize you're not necessary, and your world starts caving in.” Mike Hail, Lives Like Mine.

I know that I have not written in a while, and that I probably do not have many (if any) readers left. . . but for those that have hung on, and check in periodically, what emotions/thoughts does this song lyric evoke? Every time I hear it, I find my internal self struggling to dig deeper. Is it a bad thing to no longer be “necessary – is it a requirement that we be so? I see it both ways. On one hand, it kills me a little when I am longer needed, wanted or useful. I have spent my life making myself an integral part of so few, that to lose even one is a major statistical blow. With everyone that drops off, I am one step closer to being an afterthought. On the other hand, the less people that rely, need or care, the fewer I have to tie me down, disappoint, and care for – it is a freedom I fear I may enjoy. I suspect that you out there will have better thoughts/feelings than I. So I invite you to post a comment, or send me an email, and let me know your thoughts, regardless of what they are. I think I have been “feeling” a lot lately, and I want to know that I am not alone on this ship.

no words

There is a story within waiting to be written – it is filled with hope, love, friendship and good times... but I cannot seem to string the words together in a way that does it justice, so, like many other things in my life, it will go unfinished. The characters are complicated, the story simple, and the adventures real... this should not be hard, but it doesn't seem to want to be created; at least not by me at this moment. So I will go on dreaming about the individuals, formulating the sentences, and wishing I was better... at everything.

Just a number....

This is Part VI to my Sunday Scribblings story. This week's word was Adult.

After being beat unmercifully for having allowed our gas and electricity to be shut off, I learned the importance of proper bill maintenance. The need to balance a checkbook was driven home by the back of a ring wearing hand after incurring “unnecessary” fees for bouncing a rent check. A nightly six pack was not a forbidden pleasure, but an obligation to be fulfilled in order to impress wastes he referred to as friends. And the ability to incur copious amounts of pain without a whimper or change in facial expression was as important to survival as the peanut butter an jelly that sustained us. It is generally accepted that to be an adult one must have attained full size and strength; fuck that, I believe my adulthood started the second I could make it in this world despite, regardless of the size of my muscles or my stature.

Goodbye

I doubt I ever made it obvious, or expressed myself in a worthwhile way, but I enjoyed immensely our time together and will miss you all. For two years, you welcomed me into your worlds, dealt with my idiosyncrasies, and made me feel as whole as a person who left his life behind to move on without him could possibly feel. A few parting words are not enough, but they are all I have, so thank you all for being there for me, and supporting me in my craziness; it made my time here manageable.

Till death do us part (SS - V)

This is Part V to my Sunday Scribblings story. This week's word is Anticipate.

Throughout the final three years of mandatory childhood education, I watched and planned. When not at home fighting with her controllers, she spent time with them, the ones who mocked, made fun and destroyed youthful confidence. I surely would have been an object of their ridicule had my existence been noticed. As much as I wanted her to pay for these associations, I forgave her because I knew that she was sweetness, acting out due to a lack of nurture.

Year one was spent cataloging her movements; year two memorizing her wardrobe and odors; the third and final year was for planning the life we were going to spend together. During those days, I came to know that she had a small and over-active balder; took a minimalist approach towards clothing; smelled primarily of crushed flowers and citrus; and that we would spend our living, and dying days, in seclusion.

In preparation for our departure, I crafted and dutifully practiced my introduction, rented a van, packed our rations, stole all of his cash, and procured chloral hydrate. Then I sat by the bathroom and waited for her 8:15 am soy chai latte to run its course. I had thought of every rational outcome, but had failed to anticipate her irrational flight response. Her days spent living and dying with me were far shorter than I had hoped.

An unhelping hand (SS - Part IV)

This is Part IV to my Sunday Scribblings story. Again, if you have comments, whether about this piece, or about the story in general, please feel free to pass them along. This week's phrase is Where in the World.

I asked for help once. It occurred shortly before I was stripped of the semblance of normalcy that was my life. I was nine.

She was tall and sickeningly gaunt. And while she did not talk much, when she did, the words were always worth the effort it took to hear them. By the time I realized what was happening—that her days were not to be many—she was past the point of saving by human intervention. In a desperate and misguided attempt to give her will, I got on my knees, turned to the crumbling stucco ceiling, and promised, amongst other things, to be a better son, which meant that I would clean up after myself, as had been begged of me for years, to not play with my food, to stop having bad thoughts about the neighbor's daughter, and to grow up and be a man; all I asked in return was for her life.

I tripped onto her body the next morning.

During the ride to the hospital, I could not help but wonder where in the world was he when we needed him most, and why did he not care. I never relied on another again.

A drop in the bucket (SS- Part III)

This is Part III to my Sunday Scribblings story (a couple of days late). This week's phrase was The Plan.

Light of day was the hardest, for it was during the brightness that I had to guard myself from his violent and oppressive ways. Hence, while I spent those moments wishing the the sun away, I reserved the blanket of nightly darkness for myself. I knew that if I made it through his waking hours, his downtime would set me free, albeit briefly. . . .

As one can imagine, I did not have ambitions, at least not in the traditional sense, as there was nothing for me to aspire to. Nonetheless, I was not without goals. For example, there was always the plan, carefully crafted and painstakingly mapped out. It was simple, beautifully sadistic, and involved nothing more than him having a night with the bottle, a vaulted ceiling with unencumbered crossbeams, a fifteen foot piece of rope, a razor blade, a two gallon bucket, and access to the posterior tibial artery. In all, if executed to perfection, I could be done, and so would he, in less time than it took to watch an episode of the Simpsons.

"Justice" for all (SS - Part II)

I have decided to write a very short story over the next few weeks, changing it as it goes depending on the word of the week (I do not have an ultimate outcome in mind, but will play with it each week to see where it takes me). As such, this is a continuation of last week’s Sunday Scribblings (human). Let me know what you think and if you have suggestions along the way.

Indulgence

At this stage, it seems pointless to place blame, but if forced, it would fall in this order: the man who provided one-half of my genetic material, the courts for allowing it to happen, and to myself for not stopping the cycle.

I was a mistake, as I was able to perceive from an early age, and driven home by those in my life. He was drunk, she was (as decided by the jury) willing, and I became the choker chain of life dangling forever from his neck. “Justice”, being what it is, ensured that upon the expiration of the woman from whom I emerged, I was consigned to the signatory on the $137.36 court ordered bi-weekly support check. From the moment of my arrival, his favorite indulgence was forbidding every one of mine.

Sunday Scribblings

This week's word is Human:

The inscription was direct and to the point: “If to err is human, then human he undoubtedly was.”

Sunday Scribblings

This week's word is Vision:

As many of you know, I spend countless hours on the road each week training for various runs. Recently, I began taking pictures during these endless jaunts in order to distract myself from the pain. These are my "visions" from a few of my runs through different cities in the world.

Sunday Scribblings

This week's word was Soul Mate:

Their virgin ears were overcome with the gospelesque melody. The smaller of the two had heard about this sort of thing once from an unknown, and had spent his life is search of the same. As they sat in this den of rhythmic worship on the outskirts of nowhere, the sense of art that had once dominated their thinking was made comical by the display before them. The “music” they had wasted their youth on was nothing like this. It was angry, violent, sad, happy and simple, but completely meaningless. It was pleasurable noise to drown out the boredom that had come to be their daily existence. But this was something different, something that would change them from this point forward. Noise it was not, but poetry mixed with a hypnotic beat that made them understand what it meant to “feel the music”. In their moment of clarity, the first, the discoverer of the oasis, turned to his cohort and exclaimed proudly, “now this is soul mate!”

A bucket, a towel, and one angry tenant

What do you see in this picture? Does your mind jump to a particular afternoon spent cleaning your house/apartment? Maybe the aftermath of an insane party that ended with (insert the name of your most over indulgent friend here) throwing up his/her internal bodily fluids onto your floor. If I did not know better (having been the cameraman behind this horrendous piece of photography), my thoughts would catapult back to a hot summer California day from my childhood spent watching my mother clean our kitchen floor. (I have no clue why, but this seems to be my earliest memory (my mom listening to the Moody Blues and Journey, wearing a bandanna, overalls, and a smile)—funny, I love music, and count those bands as two of my all time favorites, but hate cleaning…if you ask my mother (or my wife), I chose to latch onto the wrong part of that memory, but I digress…) If you see those things, great, I hope you do, for I would like nothing more than for this picture to bring joy to your life, because what this poor photographer sees is blood… specifically, the blood of his landlord. For what I know is that this is a three gallon bucket filled with water that was sopped up from the floor of my apartment with a towel (this island does not believe in mops), and it is only the first of three. Seems the owner of this godforsaken apartment did not do as good of a job sealing the ceiling as he once led me to believe—cheap son of a bitch got me again, and I now have the documentary evidence to prove it.

Sunday Scribblings

This week's word is Disconnected:

I was, and still am, an addict. I check my email upwards of seventy times a day, answer a nauseating number of phone calls, mindlessly troll the internet for news updates and am (regrettably) a member of a certain online social network. As I often feel (in order to justify my insanity), I have my finger on the pulse of everything (and nothing). I use to think (and sure I will again tomorrow when my jet lag fades) that the barrage of information made me happy, when in reality, nonstop “feeds”, like anything else, is an absurd excuse for true human interaction. In fact, I find myself being so little to so many that I have nothing left for the things and people I truly care about. This past two weeks I was abroad without any meaningful contact with the outside world, and while I had my moments of panic—what if (I am needed at work)(someone is injured)(the world in caving in around us)—I found that silence, and the free time I gained from not “checking in”, afforded me time I did not know (or refused to acknowledge) I was missing and allowed me to decompress, something I have not done in years. The long and the short of it is, I think we should all be disconnected from the existence we have created for ourselves, and go back to the days when we actually talked with people in person, got our news once a day from the paper, and never worried about what we could be missing simply by living a normal, non-roped life.

"Home"

The nomadic nature, the youthful traveler and the constant voice inside begging to move on, to put the past behind and forge a life not yet discovered, has slowly died. The desire to run, leaving all semblance of normalcy, no longer has the draw it once did; in fact, the dream to get back to the place he once called home, where the majority of his friends reside, now constantly permeates his thoughts.

Sunday Scribblings

This week’s work is Follow:

Her posture, back story, obvious intelligence and beauty told me that this was not a woman to be missed. In the haze of a lifetime not yet spent together, I saw pets, babies, homes, cars, smiles, tears, pain and the best life I had never known. A lesser impressed man would have chalked this instant insanity up to the copious amounts of beer already consumed on that as of yet unremarkable Thursday night, but not I. This was my moment, and no excuse was going to let me fuck this up. Instead, I waved goodbye to my previous self, and wished me all the best. She was going to be my alter, answer, and leader. Walking out of that bar, I knew my role, and that was to accompany her to the ends of the earth. Like any true believer, I have faltered, forgotten my path, and wandered unaccompanied during our days, but I always know where my salvation will come, and that is at your side. So with this, please know that I, your devote disciple, will follow you regardless of the cost, and still know that you are not to be missed . . . . ever.