For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.
-Ernest Hemingway (1899 - 1961), in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech
Spend some time with someone who gets under your skin.
When I as in college, among the various subjects I studied was physics. I remember very little of that complicated subject, but one concept that sticks with me is that in order to have movement, friction is necessary. Just a quick jaunt down memory lane to the last time my truck as ‘stuck’ in the mud and I fully understand the need for friction in order to move.
The need for friction makes sense in physics. In order for an object, a car for example, to move from one point to the next, friction must exist for there to be sufficient traction for movement to happen. There are obviously many more factors - laws even - at work in the equation needed to get that car moving, but my point about the necessity of friction make sense easily enough.
What brings me to this – and what this is about, really – is pondering the need for friction on an interpersonal level as we attempt to move through life. Without stretching the analogy beyond recognition, I have thought quite a bit recently about how even though I often choose to be around like-minded people, very often it is when I am face-to-face with an individual or idea that just grates on my nerves that I become most passionate, and I know passion moves me. Isn’t it true that we often hone ourselves against the wet-stone of contrast?
So, I hang out this thought today – Should I intentionally seek out times to be around a person, place or thing that I know irritates me? Is a possible solution to ease, and perhaps apathy as simple as forcing myself to experience something I am against?
Should I spend time periodically with someone who gets under my skin?
The water, hot and welcomed, pounds my shoulders and cascades around my neck, stripping away the dirt and sweat. Anchoring my hands on the shower wall, I let the water work its magic. I close my eyes, exhale strongly, and release my mind. The water envelops me, my senses, my mind...
Are there sounds that are only heard by the deaf? Are there things unseen to those with sight? Might the angst-ridden beauty of artistic accomplishment reveal itself more clearly to those burdened of twisted mind and unbridled emotion?
My life has been one of growing peace and routine more than artistic angst or spiritual distress. For awhile now, I had grown accustomed to percolating emotions, those feelings that lurk, coiled and ready to strike, manifesting malformed action and self-destructive choices. I have found solace regularly in the creative word. The twist of a poetic phrase or the presence of a story unfolding beneath the key stokes often releases much. Now, it seems that I am driven less and less to release my serpents of spiritual distress. This is different. Not good. Not bad. Just different.
I know the truth. I know that there lies deep within me an eternal presence, my creative magical essence that demands to be known - my familiar, my dragon, The lines of poetry, the tales woven in prose, the occasional burst of fire breathed from comments, are all glimpses of a piece of her being: scales of translucent blue, a sapphire eye blinking in the dusk, the sound of a gentle, rumbling breath, a brush of a powerful tail. She is my eternal muse. I miss her, these days. I sense she misses me.
Yet, here in this steam cloud, beneath the relentless waterfall, while all sound is blasted away, I hear her breath, steady and smooth. Through closed eyes, I see again, the cave where she dwells. It is in this moment I know that I could extend my arm and touch her. I can't help but smile, wondering what journeys await.
We live.
The Thinning of One
If I am not careful
With my thoughts
My ideas
Plans
Dreams
I will become thin
On artistic endeavors
Of creativity
Possibilities
Virility
Thin
Is transparent
Lifeless etching
It should have been a strange experience, but it wasn’t.
My wife had arranged the evening, as she is prone to do, with certainty of purpose. She knows me, and she knows the likelihood of me pursuing such an event on my own is slim. She also knows that the reality of my appreciating and benefiting from such an experience is almost certain. We had registered and made our way back to the main room amid gathering people, nervous laughter, meaningful hugs and an atmosphere of escalating curiosity.
The group of us, about 15 in all, found our places; lying on the floor supported by various mats, pillows and blankets. After a brief explanation, the sounds began. This was advertised as an evening of sound and healing. Amid sometimes gentle and sometimes piercing sounds, I rested motionless and felt my way through the evening. Images came and went. Ideas floating in, some staying a while, and then out. I was sometimes aware of the movement and noises of others. Moments found me very aware of where I was and what was going on. Moments found me adrift in the twilight of relief. Then, as simply as it began, it stopped.
I listened as others shared of their experiences, stories of traveling to other places, regressing to previous life moments, journeying inward to spiritual realms. I understood much of what was shared – conceptually, at least. I just listened.
For me, it wasn’t about going anywhere. It was more about what came to me, and even that, the coming to me, I can’t really describe. What I can tell you is that I have slept wonderfully ever since. Something rode in on the waves of crystal bowls, and in the swirls of twirling blades, and through the chanting of ancient flutes. Something came gently on the tunes of voices and the rhythm of drums. Something of great value came and drifted through the discontinuity of my thoughts, images and sensations. It should have been a strange experience, but it wasn’t. The healing was, well, normal.
Good night.
It is a difficult blending of life, seeing her go. In a few short hours my daughter will be off to LA. The next few days will find her driving across this country, visiting with family and friends and arriving in her new hometown – LA, California.
She stayed here for college, so this is really the first real separation. It is odd. I have seen her travel to
This time is different. This time she is not experimenting with a trip or internship. This time she is making a way for herself, launching into her life, her life – her journey.
I sat outside just now, sipping coffee at the neighborhood Starbucks, reflecting, and feeling this moment. I am so very proud of her. I am excited for her. This beginning is exploding with possibilities for her. I am, as a father must be, worried for her – life is sometimes hard and I don’t wish hardship for her, although I am sure she will find her fair share. I already miss her.
As I look skyward, now, I see that the sky is blazing blue, being traced by the slow movement of wispy, bright white clouds, a wonderful canopy for her travel. The sky is beautiful today, even now, as seen through my tears.
The long shadows stretch out, carving a swath into the close of the day. This day is more than the end of one more day, one more 24 hour period fading into the dusk of life and lingering in darkness before easing into the next. This day is his last day, the end, the final fading of life into that moment when the last step has been taken and the final period is written on the page – and so now, as the shadows creep into threads of night so long that they reach from horizon to horizon, he simply moves on… completing the task of washing the dishes, and letting out the cat.
Would he do anything differently in these last hours if he knew? Would his mind bother worrying about the loss of his retirement plans, or spend any energy concerned about the uniqueness his most recent proposal at work – hoping by it to attract the attention of his boss who happens to be a very attractive young and single woman? If he knew that even now each breath was moving him closer to the measurable possibility of counting his last breaths, even knowing the number of beats left for his heart, would he bother with anything at all?
He finds his way to bed, turning out the lamp and shifting to his right side as he always does, nestling his head into his too soft pillow, and curling his legs up to feel more completely the cat now nestled next to his stomach. His mind wanders about, replaying the events of the day as slowly his thoughts become less his own and a more independent, creative array of images begin molding their dream shapes, and fantasies for him as he slowly gives way to sleep.
Sometime during that night his heart stops its rhythm. He ceases everything, resting eternally beneath the long shadows, the pall of his end.
Often spoken words lose meaning
Repetition, redundancy, familiarity
Turns the phrase
Into empty sentiment.
What shall we call these things
Courage, commitment, duty, belief
Pallor of soul
To sigh and ache?
Can we even speak of heroes anymore?
Your now seldom trodden paths fall under new feet, withstanding each impact of soul and sole, bearing up upon unyielding and ancient rock the weight of another exploration, an adventuring spirit, another of the millions of creatures that you have felt wander across your very spine, and with thoughtless query your impatient question of 800,000 years rises again...
Will this be the one? Will this be only another impertinent and transient creature that errantly uses the earthy mystery of this space for gathering dirt and stone, or ripping foliage aside for consumption, or splattering in fury another's blood upon you hoping you will shroud its evil from detection? Or will this one impede human conquest and domination long enough to pause momentarily, stand still enough - long enough to allow your archaic message to creep from the core of this vain of our origination and stir as deeply within them as it resides within you, the tendril of impervious and undaunted myth that is your message?
NOTE: Written after walking the Blue Hole path in
