redundant vision

It's time to start looking with different eyes. Untrained eyes. Eyes that see directly into, instead of outside of people and nature. Humans and things very much alive. The ones that bleed and breathe, but we look past them because they have some form of varicose veins, cellulite, other uglities and strangers aside. They walk around just the same as the 'beautiful' ones. Look past them, unless they appear to be what we're taught is beautiful. Unfortunately, I've found myself doing this very thing and such disheartening has me realizing how far I may have strayed.

But, today! I am moving on from that redundant form of vision and back to the more gentle person who lives in this shell. A woman was walking towards me at the gym tonight. An older lady, wearing ordinary clothes, short, wide framed, big legs and no smile. Not the kind of friendly older lady, you know the one who smiles at you or says hello, excuse me, etc. and as a result you definitely notice her. The other kind, the one who ghosts right past.

Anyways, I was walking towards her and glanced slyly at those walking next to me and nobody looked at her. I know, from experience, had she been the right shape, size and gym scant in clad, they would've stopped what they were saying and looked intently or 'skillfully.' Right...

Well, I looked at her, and I kept looking and this sort of subtle softness emerged and quickly too. It had nothing to do with her appearance, it was something entirely enigmatic about her humanness. And maybe it was just me, maybe there was nothing inherently 'special' about her, but I was suddenly back to being me and seeing the way that I do.

All this to say, striving tomorrow to do the same. To look at all humans, animals and living creatures through satiny eyes. I fear the trouble will undoubtedly be the other side of the sword. Seeing only the superficial in those the media has designed exactly for a trained eye.

We'll see...

two 14er's and other "unrelated" stuff

Gear Up. Leave Fear. Climb.

Last year we climbed Grey's Peak, a Colorado 14er. I remember being weary and cursing many languages on the way up and fraught with doubt and shudders on the way down. Fearful musings of falling and tumbling like a weed only to crash into a rock filled my melon. Dramatic fantasies of death as a shadow following me down the steep. And really, what's the worst that would've happened within those tiny avalanches speaking under my feet? Falling down and spraining an ankle? Taking a trekking pole to the ribs? Cuts and scrapes? It is in these times I remember, I am entirely too dramatic and my brain takes pains in adding such sensationalism to that which is really quite okay.

This past Saturday, we climbed Mount Democrat. A much steeper Colorado 14er outside of Breckenridge. It was cold and the mini-avalanches were slippery slushy snow underfoot whilst traveling uphill. Coupled with a rather steep, rocky climb to the summon. "I'm not going any further." I said, knowing I would end up doing it. It's almost as if somehow the fear of falling added to the dramatization of the "great feat" ahead of me. I mean really, isn't it more fun to make something really big and accomplish it? I'm just saying.

I can't say I've ever been one to feel the need to prove anything in this particular way, physically, so why bother? I'm not really sure, I think it was just the right time. Like the way life sometimes feels so enormous that the smallest of accomplishments become their own reward. Or the way, as of late, it's seemed my insides have been on a slow and steady climb on their way to some proposed view at the faraway top. Simultaneous internal and external determination amidst aggrandized fear and it somehow makes sense.

At least to me.

And in between all of this, something once again occurred; tell stories, paint pictures, make music and be out there. The reason humans create, sometimes just inside the mind, but to put forth all the extra that mundane life has no time for...

Alarm Sounds
Wake Up
Take Shower
Make Coffee
Eat Breakfast
Dress
Drive
Work
Workout
Eat
Sleep
Repeat

But these insides? They are busy 'doing' other things. Like writing great works about bettering the world or at least relating to some random individual, and momentarily, we are connected. Or postulating on the state of world affairs and how to better them. Or mapping a way to financial freedom to have the time to find one's purpose and impact the greater good.

I don't know. Maybe this is just the way I think. All I know is, after climbing 2 mountains in under a year, I still came away with that which is otherwise intangible. The sullen stripping of ego and understanding of inherent dichotomy and mundane imprisonment. Is that weird?

And that's all I have to say right now.

some pregnant lady

I get that most people have more going on inside than meets the eye. But still, I tend to experience myself as being someone you'd truly never guess what's happening up there.

Image from here. Depiction of the High Priestess.

I muster through small talk, I'm good at mixing and mingling. I can make an impression when I set out to. And this shell willfully disguises the musings of it's underworld.

All this to say. I was rolling with the Zimbilly's on this lovely Sunday afternoon. We had several visitors drop in on our driveway/yard/garage festivities. I walked outside after a bathroom trip to find a very pregnant lady and her husband had stopped in for a spell. She was so very very pregnant. Her big old belly standing out from her scarcely swelled hips. She looked so lovely. Many thoughts went through my head, from the other neighbor guy, who has a thing for pregnant women (he wasn't there,) up to the thought that I will probably never be that lady. Never walk through those nine months of radiant agony and have everyone around know exactly what's happening under my skin.

But, in that moment of her glowing radiance, something to me occurred. How I've spent most of my adult life pregnant with thought. There's always something gestating in the room above my neck. Little seedlings about life, the after life, meaning, aliens, the unseen, the unexpected, what would the world could be, what it should be, what I would be and everything in between.

Alas, these thoughts, they've seldom birthed. Always stillborn short stories, or a femerell for something otherwise aloof.

I wondered how life might change should I actually make the time and gestate one of these seedlings to full term. Breathe life into it and make it so. Let it take on my eye and hair color, maybe house the skeletons of my genetics into flesh. And still, my personality is such that I'd probably abort it last minute. Shred it beyond recognition and internalize its excrement.

I guess we'll see...

short somethings

All I've learned over the past year, is mimicked by the actions of one little dog. He truly is the most annoyingly adorable creature that ever lived. This little Jack Russell Terrier has so much gumption and drive, not to mention absolutely obsessively focused.

You know when something is just too easy, like getting straight A's through high school while rarely trying, there's nothing real satisfying about it. Well, this little dog is that way. I've tried on numerous occasions to just hand him a raw hide and get him to GIVE UP ON THE DAMN LASER already, but he doesn't want it. BUT, make him do a whole butt load of tricks, he squeals and whimpers in excited anticipation. He goes into a sit-roll over-spin move all in one, just to get to it! I must have it! The more tricks you make him do, the longer he chews on that sucker.

He's a little arrogant too. Once he gets said rawhide or toy, he runs around showing it off. Look what I have, no you can't have it, it's mine, I earned it.

Like I said, what I've learned most over the past year, I learned from this little dog. Every moment of discouragement and dissatisfaction has forced me to dig deep into it and work harder, accept the hardships for what they were and what I've got right now; has been worth the struggle.

All this to say, everyone, everything, every animal has it's message for you. You just have to step out of ego long enough to know it.

Where is it.

I'm quite certain I've spent all of all of my life searching for that place of sustainability. As though, somehow, there's this lifelong nirvana waiting somewhere that I've missed out on. Alas, the inevitable mirage. There are these minuscule moments in time of new or wonder or awe! The view from an airplane where you're above the sky and the sun screams through a sea of clouds. Or an intensely met goal that leads elation. The high octane bar scene with its high on life. An artist's high? Yep, tried it. Dream world? About as close as it gets.

But really, where is it?

In being heard? If you've ever spent time alone with the local bar flies, you soon find you're a walking, breathing, ear. EVERYONE wants to be heard. So you listen, ask questions, be a good hearted, empathic person; but when you open your mouth, you're immediately drowned out by the drunken slurs. Folks begging, pleading, dying to be important. Their 'best' stories of grandeur roll effortlessly from tongues, waiting to be congratulated for times long gone.

Everyone wants to be somebody, or be special and yet it's clear this isn't the place to do it.

Martyr mothers or great mothers, either way under appreciated. Amazing lover moves onto another. The successful husband on his way to the upper class; laid off. Actors, celebrities, artists, musicians, under privileged, unfed, unwanted. We're all the same.

And the halfway to a voice box alcoholic who can't read or write hanging over my shoulder as I write? He tells me to "put him into my book." His name is Uncle Buck and he's crazy. Or so he says...

Everyone wants to be remembered.

Cooking dinners, folding laundry, clean this, suds that, who cares? Until it isn't being done. Where's the purpose in a life that seems to hold some crazy potential for fulfillment? It's not sustainable, just moments passing in time. It's in the past, often far before noticed as a future.

I'm not exempt. I find very few that actually listen when I speak. I'm not exempt. I have something to say. I want to be heard. The problem is, I know what it is, I just don't know how to say it and fight the ever present fear of deaf ears.

The disappointment of another failure to achieve the unachievable gone by. Dreams wash away the remnants until morning's amnesia dawns and the pursuit begins again... 

the idea of

Just say it's so
from far away
or on the phone
this or that
desire
wish
remorse

the idea of

When skin
becomes flesh
and distance
presence
nothings left
for it was

the idea of

Appetite satiated
in imaginary life
it was already given
in the mind
and

the idea of

E and Me

Words are only words,
but I see your words got stuck together
for another
and there's no room for me in we.
Transactions ill timed
there's little left to mind
'cept the tail of ee's that followed
my love out the door like a score.

What'd you want me for any how?