truth and intentions

Somewhere between grades eight and nine everything changed. I mean, things had changed a lot already. Dad was gone, a few years gone, and Mom had turned home into a group home, and I was living in the shed, and I was still awkward and happier in my own company than anyone else’s.

paradise lost

My Dad is a very involved and devout evangelical Christian. I used to be, twice. If you’ve been reading, you know I’m not any more, not at all. This makes for some interesting conversations.

flip

The weather is changing here, winter giving up ground to spring, even though there's a fight for it, and everyone seems really tired this week. It felt that way in Aikido, at hockey, even in yoga where a majority, independent of one another, asked Julie if the vinyasa was going to be hard today.

Seems like the change of seasons is just taking it out of folks this year. Or maybe it was the winter that took it out of us, and now, with the promise of spring around the corner, we just finally feel safe enough to acknowledge it, safe enough to let the fatigue bubble up to the surface.

Me, I think it’s more like the way a lake will flip, the bottom water exchanging with the top as the temperature rises or falls, spring and fall. When it does, it dredges up all the silt, increasing turbidity for a week or two as the flip occurs. I have this theory that our bodies know better than we do. And the flip dredges up all the toxins to make space for the new season. If we’re listening, if we’re on it, it’s a chance to clean things up, wash the toxins out, let the current take away the silt.

The other thing the lake flip does? It re-oxygenates the water, bringing the life up to the surface again, just in time for the sun to reestablish dominance. Hello sun.

Equinox is in two weeks. Get out your shorts and flip flops, folks. Maybe grab a metaphorical broom too.

And...

gratitudes and inclusions

Hold on, buckle in. This is messier than I intended. But I’m going for it. See you on the other side…

*

learning to miss

I have only a little time today. Forgive me if this seems a bit abrupt, but Gena’s tiny, delicate, beautiful kitty Lylune is really sick. This is stolen time right here, and there are priorities to attend to. And yet, I have to put some thoughts down. It's a precious responsibility - to catch the thoughts, the moments, before they pass.

the long ones

There are days, with dementia, when good memories abound. When I visit Mom, almost all of the time, that’s the case. We're very lucky so far. She doesn’t put together my visits into any kind of continuum very well, so every Monday and Friday the visits seems a bit like a treat – like I haven’t been around for a long time – and the good will ensues (there is a lesson to learn in this, I think). Lots of love, lots of nice memories, smiles, laughs.

But not always.

things i learn getting hurt

After not playing hockey all of last season, barely playing at all for the three before that, I pulled out my goalie gear last fall and started playing a few times a week. Three to be exact. I was out of shape, my legs felt like jelly after about 15 minutes that first ice time, but I remembered how much I love playing the first time the puck ended up in my glove.

Shocker., I know. That’s how it is when you love something.

zen and the art of intentional procrastination

* Updated at the bottom

It takes a lot of effort to prioritize. There’s the judging, and the weighing, and the balancing and contrasting. One must take into consideration scenarios both probable and im-, measure the potential consequences of each choice carefully, count the cost of each path not chosen, consider the ramifications.

It’s an awful lot of work.

almost a manifesto

Let me see if I can crystallize this…[1]

The path is not a competition, with others or self. It’s just a fucking path. Walk it or don’t, but don’t think there’s any kind of winning involved.

Accomplishment should be intensely personal. Those who will know about it by proximity are really the only ones that need to know.

If one listens to sycophants, one must give equal time to critics. Best, if possible, to ignore both (except for required civility).

If it’s hard and level and predictable, it’s not the path; it's a sidewalk. Turn left (metaphorically speaking) now.

Figure out what you’d bleed for and you’re on the way to figuring out your path. Besides, if you bleed, it’s a sport, and everything sporty is more fun.

Scars are tattoos that you earn.[2]

We do not fall so that we can learn how to get up. We fall because we trip, or drink too much, or get hit on the head. If you can learn to get up from falling, good on ya, but that’s not why you fell. Shit just happens sometimes.

Everything’s eventual, so don’t panic. A mountain in the way just means you have to switch to climbing shoes. Think of it as a great thing, like an unbirthday present.

The shortest distance between two points is fucking boring anyway.[3]

Climbing teaches us that falling doesn’t hurt. It’s the landing that does that. You’ll either survive the landing and get to quote Nietzsche for the rest of your life in an intensely personal way, or you won’t survive and, subsequently, won’t give a damn.

The journey means that mile markers are quaint novelties, not something to dance about. Mile markers just say “I’ve come this far”, but the truth is that they also mean there’s farther to go. The only one worth dancing about is the one that says “The End”.

There isn’t a mile marker that says “The End”. Not one we get to see anyway.

If you need a reason to dance, dance about the love you’ve given and received. It’s the best motivation anyway.

One of the best things about the no winning and no ending concepts is that you never lose and you always have more time to learn and grow. And that’s all that matters.[4]

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[1] Just for me, of course. I’m not referencing anything specifically except the bumper sticker, but chances are I’m plagiarizing something because, frankly, it’s all been said. So I claim nothing as original here, at all. Read at your own risk.

[2] My favorite bumper sticker. Ever. Even more than the one on my laptop: Kill your television

[3] Very sure I read this somewhere. Just can’t remember for the life of me where.

[4] Just, of course, my opinion. What the fuck do I know… J

hockey, dextromethorphan, and the bliss of doing nothing

I’ve been really sick all week. The fever broke last night, I think, and my brain sort of works today, but the week has been a joyful mist of woozy illness combined with good extra-strength cold and flu meds. Feverish, stoned, and blessed with holiday hockey to watch.

It could have been worse.

One of the un-joys of casinos is that there’s tons of money passing through our hands and, with it, a million germs. New employees to casinos, or old employees coming back, tend to not have a sufficiently robust immune system to handle the microbe overload. After my Boxing Day shift last week, functioning on four hours of sleep after a late shift on the 25^th, I came home and succumbed to some serious sneezing.

In between prolonged sleeps and supplemental napping I’ve enjoyed house sitting at a friend’s place and taking advantage of her television, something I usually avoid like the plague. But during the holiday week there’s some fabulous tournament hockey to watch – both the IIHF World Juniors and the Spengler Cup in Europe.

If I had to be sick, I picked a good week.

One might think that it would have been a good week to write some really psychedelic stuff, but I was having a hard enough time focusing on the TV and following the puck. I have a feeling that “Dick and Jane” prose would have been a challenge. So I took the week off, postponing a freelance contract until after the New Year and not even cracking the manuscript. I played utter and complete hooky.

And I barely even felt bad about it.

I read blogs his week (occasionally feeling brave enough to try to comment in English), many of which were following the standard New Years motif of goal setting and resolution making. Many were well-written and yet did not stir me. Two did though, mostly because they bucked the resolution trend: Judy Clement Wall posted a beauty at Zebra Sounds about creating a personal manifesto, and Giulietta Nardone notched a lovely piece at Giulietta the Muse about following your enthusiasm. Please, check them both out - you won't be sorry.

Both, to me, were about defining who we are and then being it or chasing that ideal as opposed to setting external goals and measuring worth according to whether we achieve the goal or not.

The inversion has been all about not setting goals in traditional ways; about setting out on a journey and seeing where the road leads me. Yes, there was a story to write. I suppose that was a goal in a sense, but it was still about the journey more than about finishing anything. It’s still about the journey, about letting something organic grow rather than trying to manufacture something artificial.

Organic is good; A journey is natural. I can let it form itself, stop when there’s a rose to smell, run when the way is clear, enjoy the woods when the brush is thick, and not sweat it. It’s not about where I get – it’s about getting. It’s about how I get. It’s about who it makes me.

I’ll be pitching cards tonight night when the clock strikes midnight. No big deal. Ultimately New Years is just another day, a Friday to a Saturday. If I can have another year much like this last one has been I’ll be a happy puppy. I lack for almost nothing, have everything I actually need. The manuscript is getting better and better, and might actually be close to ready for beta readers. I’m close to friends and Mom, and that’s at least as important as anything else right now.

And I’m on the right journey. I like the road. The path is pleasing - creatively, aesthetically and relationally. There are no goals to reach, just a dusty lane to walk, sometimes just a deer path, occasionally no path at all. But there’s always a direction and the journey.

I find that’s enough. I wish the same for you: Enough.

Happy New Year, folks. Have a good one, take a cab, and be excellent to one another.