the weight of air

a confession: i’m a sucker for the bourne series and most football movies. judge me if you will..

truth of the matter is that their situations seem so ideal. take the bourne supremacy for example.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOLviFy9inA
the bourne supremacy

now think about his situation as compared to most everyone’s daily battle. he knows his enemies, knows where they are, what they look like, how they act, how to take them down. he can physically confront each obstacle and fight his way through and, in the end, he knows he if he’s failed or succeeded based on who’s left standing. and afterwards, his issues with those enemies is resolved.

us, though, face a different battle all together. most of our enemies and battles are against ghosts, unknown to us in every way. we punch at phantoms, we grasp at gaps, scream pointlessly at the sky, and run towards no set finish-line. there is no response, though, no noses we can bloody, no ears we can occupy, no perpetrator we can pin down and violently threaten to give us our way. we can’t run faster, get stronger, or shoot straighter to win our battles. rarely do we have the luxury of knowing when our fight is won or lost or if we’ve made any difference at all. often we have no idea whether the battle can be won at all.

instead, we wake each day to a try to divine who or what our demons looks like today. instead, we fight based on faith.

no one is the savior they would like to be..

originally from june 16

it starts out with a promise made of smoke and all this frustratingly frantic anxiety spills over up and out to rid myself of the punctuation that holds me back daily so put it to task and lay it on the line for the world lives on a wire and change crumbles all the beautiful buildings you dreamt of from your youth like when you saved your broken tooth in a tissue in the hopes that someone would understand and put it all back in place, back how it was, how you thought it should be but now you can’t deny that you’re going to lose control so put the pedal down, press it to the ground and let everyone stare at you while you race on by reckless as a red rat on a hat and believe me i’m not here when you’re not there and i moved on long before you thought so when you held out i held on but now that you push off seems sad and bad and like an honest mistake that will take your head underground with a weight you can’t shoulder don’t think i’m talking about you because i’m talking about everyone i’m address if you feel it’s your fault that’s your fault.

red_red.pngthe run-on is my runway because i can’t find the time to write my mind the way i want to it to say, the way i want it to stay on the point of becoming the savior i’ll never be and though i might be in one piece doesn’t mean you should find peace apart from that because i’ve been running on headlong into a future around a bend in a grey road that’s in a town unknown and i can’t keep this up forever since i have the red blood of the blind souls that can’t see because their eyes are wide shut as the wind whips around their cheeks with windows down and music loud enough to loose control over the parts of itself that define it’s heart so the violin and the voice become the quiet question that haunts you silently raging its raspy riddle over your sleepless heart and you lose gravity for moment and think you might set off for the stars as you start over the hills and through the hollars that no one knows about but you and the red fox by the stream that can’t see its fate in the headlines of the father so i’ll fall to the ground like the fledging bird after the storm that no one saw on the horizon but everyone knew was right above them.

good_night.pngi wasn’t there when you weren’t here so don’t look at me that way when i tell you to go because i followed all the rules and traced all the lines only to find you were biding your time and now the change leaves me feeling strange like i should have a word that glues this broken pictures back to the bleeding heart but there are a million words in every eye and i can’t read them all for you to tell you what the meaning is to each.

christ came back to take it all away since we were knocking on the door again asking for instructions on how to live like the flowers by the lake where a boy with a coin stands on the forgotten corner of the dusty dirt road where our ghosts will live one day soon next to the resurrection fern that browned and burned and fell into the ashes of lost hope.

i can’t step back and can’t slow down and can’t get my feet off the ground when i reach for what i once thought was vital and important and i held it once to my face like the hair of a lover long asleep but should you circle the ground where i’m not around, you won’t find me there waiting for the next big thing because i’m casting these mooring lines that i’ve tied so tightly around my neck that i can’t move forward without stepping back to catch my breath and scare the life out of myself because i’m living and planning for the death and not the life i live today, not after i sold it all to the lonely old man in the carriage home on the backstreets of a distant dream.

dance in my blood because this cut is deep and the wine is red with blood as i drink it down and live because tomorrow we’ll all die and you’ll see that i’m not the lies i wear on my face and i’m not the boy you thought you knew when we slid through the snow and sang to ourselves in white wonder of each other and you touched my cheek and i spoke your thoughts but you couldn’t take back your awkward admittion and i couldn’t take my acceptance and make them a prayer for you.

table_top.pngyou won’t do this to me again because you’ve all done it to me before and you couldn’t hold to your philosophy only a loose hypocrisy because it’s all too easy to sell yourself out to the open door so you’ll never give yourself justice and you’ll never feel the power of forgiveness because we’re all as guilty as sin and i won’t let you off, not in front of me, because even the rainbow crow sings for joy after burning for the warmth of all and i, too, will know what it means to be free of you and this weight and pain because i’ve dried the rain and seen the house on the coast where there is nothing in front of me and only a cool chill behind and i can be where my heart is so don’t think that my roof means it’s my home, that this door opens to my thoughts, that where i live is where i want to be because i still don’t know where that is except for a vague, passing feeling that happens when i’m loud with and the music blends into the horizon of burning suns and clouds that sleep silently above the tree tops that are higher than you’ll ever be and the rainbow crow whose colors burn brighter for the sacrifice it made.

my lazy eye and unanticipated joy

[started last tuesday, 3/18.. happy to say i’m not at work tonight, working until 1am or so. instead, i’m at home.. writing until 2:30am 😉 i’ll blame it on soccer games that start at 11:15pm]

not my eyesit’s tuesday.. and already my eye is twitching. is that bad?

seriously, though, my left eye has been twitching since around 3pm or so and it’s flipped my day on its head. it’s nothing more than a simple twitch, probably a deficiency of potassium or some other mineral cnn warned me about years ago. but the mind is a funny thing.. a simple twitch can conflate a little bit of knowledge and a little bit of fear and anxiety and suddenly i have a cerebral avm that’s minutes away from a complete bleed out.. or several massive gbm that are pushing against my ocular nerves. and, no matter the diagnosis, i probably won’t be waking tomorrow morning without at least a little blood trickling from my ear. [i’ve been reading a new book, another day in the frontal lobe, one that i’d recommend despite the uninspiring title.. so, sorry for the random references]

given the prognosis, i quickly resigned myself to my fate and contemplated my life as lived in that day, tuesday. now, i recognize there’s already shadow hanging over my thoughts. after all, it’s tuesday. does anyone in this country enjoy tuesdays?

no ropes :-Danyway, it got me to thinking about why i’ve been working so hard and if it’s what i want to be doing. the first question isn’t so bad: i’ve been working so hard because there’s a lot of work to be done. the second question is much more difficult to answer.. and perhaps it’s not even the right question. i’ll leave it at that for now. well, actually i’ll leave it at “i desperately want to leave it all and travel the world” or “i’d love to disappear for months and deep water solo in mallorca then live and climb in australia for a year” or “i want to ditch it all and work in a cafe”.. yeah, i’ll leave it at that.

where’s bob barker when you need to know what’s behind door 3?an interesting parallel: since i’ve been working so late, i’ve been cruising ted.com. now, i’m a sucker for a good story or speech, which is why i love npr’s this i believe, but this take it to a whole new level. two that i’m particularly hooked on concern choice and choices. mainly, they come to the following conclusions: too much choice can be detrimental; chances are, you’ll be happy regardless of your choice (assuming the proper qualifiers are considered); most pain isn’t as painful as we imagine it is/might be and that recovery is usually quick. it’s the second part, that your choice has little impact on your happiness, that’s especially heartening. think about it, think about the weight that can relieve.

the point of this post was, i guess, just to consider the little things that can turn a day on its head. a simple twitch had me contemplating the meaning of my life and looking for tickets..

watch the ted.com talks i’m talking about

really, though?

tonight was easily the roughest soccer game i’ve been a part of. it’s ridiculous to me that any team, especially a social league team, would be playing so recklessly. what’s the point? it’s social league.. actually, forget that. even if it were the competitive league in lexington, so what?! it’s game.. do you really need to check people into the boards every two minute? honestly, blue cards were flying almost on the minute every two minutes. not to mention the yellow card, the first i’ve seen indoors, that was issued in the first half. later, people playing on the other field would comment that it sounded like a hockey game with all the people being thrown into the boards.

it’s one thing to play intensely. it’s another to play recklessly. and playing so vehemently after continued penalties is just ignorant.

thankfully, the second game was the polar opposite. if someone made a rough move or fouled, they’d call themselves on it, admit their foul and apologize to the other player, making sure they were fine. it was honestly a pleasure to play them, even though the game didn’t start until 11:15pm.

ouchthe best part of the night was, though, between games. the first game i played, we were light blue and the other violent team wore red. how appropriate. when the first game finished, i threw on my dark blue shirt for the next team. one of red team players from the first game was still on his bench and he looked at me, seeing that i was playing the match, said, “hey, just warning: if you have the same ref we did, he’s awful and calls everything. if you so much as touch the other guy, he’s going to blue card you.”

i smiled slowly, realizing he didn’t recognize me, and simply pointed to the light blue shirt in my hand. i watched as the gears ground against each other, smoke billowing from the extra load of trying to put the clues together. bingo! it hit him.. “oh.. you were on the other team.” a pause and mental search for a way out.. “well, man, did you see the play down in the corner over here? they were just going for the ball! the other guy just ran into the wall.. no foul, no contact.. he just ran into the wall and the ref called it. don’t you think?’

i couldn’t really believe it. i stared at him another second while he blinked hard. was he getting this at all? again, i let a smirk creep across my face. “that guy in the corner was me,” i said. “it was a good call. believe me, i didn’t ‘just run into the wall’. i was checked. i would’ve stopped if i were on my feet but since your man rammed me, i was thrown into the boards. it was a foul.”

“but you guys were just going for the ball.” it wasn’t getting through. i thought i should probably cut my losses and continue on.. but i added just a little more. to his credit, he wasn’t getting passionate about it so it wasn’t an argument, not at this point.

consider your perspective “it’s one thing to go for the ball. it’s another to check a guy into the wall while going for the ball. and it’s social league.. if this were competitive league, i could understand the intensity. it’d still be a foul but the intensity would be expected. this, though.. there was no reason for any of this,” i said. “and honestly, i’d consider myself pretty fair about most calls like that. if it’s not a foul, i’ll mention it to the other player, tell him ‘tough break’, and shake it off. that move, though..” i shook my head and walked back to the bench to get ready for the next game.

i hope he stuck around to watch the second game. the entire time i wanted to grab his team and say, “see! same ref and no blue cards for flagrant fouls! why? because these teams are playing clean and honest.” that’s how soccer should be played.. with respect and honesty and a sense of humility. (never mind that those three aspects should be applied even more judiciously outside the boards. that’s for another post)

really, though.. is that too much to ask?