When things get really hard...

I will remind myself that I am but a reed.

No Dross

All I want in life is to make love, be in a folk band, eat artichokes and live in a van. Is that really so hard, and out of reach? Seriously though. I could even cut out artichokes, and be happy.

A Short Story

Tom wanted to fly. He had a bit of hippie in him, back in the 70ies even when he was in the Navy. He had a surfboard and played in a band. And then who know's how it happened, if it was a fast or slow process, but his wife started falling down, he had rambunctious boys, and he got caught up in putting food on the table, and the 9-5, and somewhere in all of that, he forgot he actually had wings. They weren't really practical, afterall, he told himself, so he started living with his face down, locked inside the lines of maps and mazes and plans. He worked hard; and soaring, he told himself was a thing for another land, in a coming time. He walked about with the desire in him, but it grew smaller, with the passing days, and after so many flightless years.

There was a deeply guarded part of him that at times became so lost and covered, he'd misplace the key to it for months at a time. But it was always there, whether he knew it or not. He'd cover it or hide it or deny it, or make it out to be something else. But inside that place lived a boy who dreamed, full with a romantic, longing heart that could see, when the clouds were parted just right, that flying was the most glorious thing his soul could do.

Reflecting on the things that Form us.

I remember being eight years old. 

My daddy would come home greasy and tired from working in the mechanics shop all day. My momma would make us a dinner, then, every Thursday night from 8:00 - 10:00 my Poppa would tune the radio dial to "Basically Bluegass", a full two hour show of ballads and reels and the richest old-time folk harmonies and country breakdowns. I'd lay on the couch in the partial dark, and let the music permeate all of my young receptive heart. I think this is when I first really started learning about beauty. The music painted pictures, and told stories, and I'd lay there watching it all, mesmerized, with my eyes closed.

Sometimes I'd get to stay up past my bedtime, but even when I couldn't, my Daddy would tuck me in, and keep the hallway door open, with the sound turned up real high, so I could still listen. Those were good memories, the whole house still, with everyone in bed, as Tim O'Brian or Bill Monroe filled up the dark.

Since then, my heart has grown branches, and learned to like a lot of different kinds of music. Songs from lot's of genres reach inside, to have their beauty felt in a strong ways... But it wasn't until recently that I realized my roots are and always shall be in Bluegrass. Bluegrass was the gate to everything else. It feels good to have those roots. I wouldn't want it any other way. I'm thankful to my French-Canadian Father, who, along with many other good things, gave me that. 

Sleep won't come.

The yearning stays.

I lie awake, in weary daze.

At 6:00am a well is breached,

Tears start flowing down my cheeks.

And as the feelings in me well,

The mission starts to ring it's bell.

The perfect time for it to start

Just as sorrow swamps my heart,

Across the town, I hear it sing,

All is silent but it's cling.

Splitting through forsaken night,

I see once more that hope is right.

For in the past the bell has shown

That when we love we're not alone.

The 2015 rambles...

I'd like to disappear. For just a while, or maybe longer.
My face does not want to angle itself towards the sun, for the last time it did, after letting it beat hot upon my skin, I opened my eyes and turned to see laying on the ground, the carcass of a deceased rabbit. I feel ya, buddy, I said. I seemed to have turned a corner where now depression seems even too difficult, so the most dreaded thing encroaches, which is apathy, which has always seemed to me to be the worst of all outcomes.

So I am choosing the harder thing. I'm choosing to walk down this path I've come from, retracing the steps, and finding the story inside them. For certainly there is one. I suppose I'm not ready to look into other souls, until this reservoir has been first metastasized.. Now I only want to write, and read my books, and sleep and hike, and sew a dress. Because I thought of a very good design. So someday, when I'm up to it, I will go buy a nicely printed sheet at the thrift store, and I will cut it up, and maybe fail quite a few times, but I'd like to make something beautiful of it. For that gives me lot's of hope. I think if we stay with something long enough, and don't give up, a thing can become quite beautiful. I want to prove this to myself. I think that's why we've been given minds -  so we can look at a thing, and cast a vision for it, even if it only seems to be a torn up piece of recycled cloth.

I didn't choose this. I didn't choose this particular place or this valley, or to have mucus fill up my chest, and glue it together, or to be so underweight that I couldn't travel to the Caribbean to hold Haitian Babies. I wish I had the power to make everything happen the way I want it to. But I cannot, for I am learning more that I am a vapor, a mere dust in the wind, and quite negligible against the storms of the universe and ways of the One who contrives them.

I was speaking with my friend today up on teetering bluffs, and I told her how I felt you and I had spent such time preparing a cake to be baked. I don't know what happened, maybe the oven broke, or we were missing an ingredient... but for some reason we stopped. But it's still sitting there on the counter, with all the things we put into it, our time, efforts, & investments, so many wonderful and precious spices and heirloom constituents. Why would someone leave the house to go get eggs, but pick them up and bring them to another kitchen to start a whole new recipe from scratch? Why would one make something new when they already had invested in something that was so near to being perfectly complete? The only thing I can fathom is you must think I dumped an entire can of baking soda in the bowl - and spoilt the whole thing forever. I know my own heart, and know that even if I had, my devotion would cause me to spend night and day till I had picked out every grain.

You left me in this kitchen with everything still out and fresh. I believe we have all that we need for this to turn this into something quite gloriously delicious, and long to taste it together with you. I don't believe anything was dumped in to ruin it, but many good ingredients all stood to wait for certain ones that all were set to be added in perfect time. I'm here with this big bowl of batter you left me, beside a warm and working oven believing that all is possible. I will remain here and find a use for these things - because I cannot bring myself to trash that which we held most precious. And I believe that what we had can be used to feed a lot of people.

...It was all too much, for everything to end in silence, and I desire to give honor to the story. I find more beauty in a dress made with hands, from a sheet, than one from a factory. I find more meaning in a story told with truth, though stitched with sadness, than any invented fairytale. I desire to take these ingredients and reclaim them unto a thing of beauty. For I desire to strive for a life marked by salvaging that which was to be lost, and weaving it into purpose.