Category Archives: happenings

child of the redwoods**

July 31, 2009 paulo 2 Comments

i like the redwoods. i feel at home there. so very small, me, lost in their entanglements. i’m so much less than them, so overlookable when about their trunks, their great bodies and masses. there are so many remarkable things in a redwood forest, i would be just a grey bit of matter, not much more enganging than the granite about their bases. i image i could just as easily become part of their roots, a bit of branch in the canopy. nothing but a splinter. when they would someday fall, i could be nothing at all, not a sidenote in their victories, their tragedies. everyone would mourn the loss of the great, thunderous soul and weep not for that which shattered when the father of satellites crashed back to earth.

i hate the desert. standing there, like a king taking stock of his domain, i can’t help but feel incredibly awkward and out of place. for miles, you’re the only sign to set eyes on from horizon to horizon.. and i have to message, no passionate cry to push on the masses. the desert is not my setting, not my state. i am not a miracle of life in the dizzing absense there of, which seems to be the aim of how a desert, making you feel as though you’re the moses to its thirst.

inthedesert in the redwoods, you can’t help but think about other things. in the desert, there is nothing but yourself is a sea of wanting of water. i’m not of the desert – i am with the trees. there’s something so perfect about being less, about being nothing at all. it’s makes you forever apart of everything. when you’re a king, though, you’re seperate, you’re alone. i am no king. i never want to be. i want to be a part of something so much bigger than that. i want so much to be less.

“it seeed that, in time, all the substance from one image would flow into the other and only one would remain: leo. he must grow, i must disappear.” -herman hesse, journey to the east

anyway, it’s been a bad day. possibly a bad week. and in this week, i feel that i’ve been walking through a desert. if i fall, so does hope*, momentum, vision. in a desert, i’m bound to become a pillar of salt.

put me among the trees, let me run free and unnoticed, let me plant seeds namelessly.

* while i’m unspeakably thankful for obama winning and being in the white house, it’s somewhat unfortunate that he seems to own that word and that it now seems slightly cliche. it is, unlike the campaign might have portrayed it, transient, renewable, resilient.

** i make no claims to understand what i mean when i write at 12:20am after a long week.. so, should you ask me what i’m sayinig in this, i’ll deny (honestly) any understanding.

this is a blatant attempt to actually my 500 goal for at least one week this year 😉 -word!

happenings, random thoughts

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

June 17, 2008 paulo

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.

the 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.

i 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.

you 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.

happenings

really, though?

March 26, 2008 paulo 1 Comment

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.

ouch the 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?

happenings, random memories

frisbies and brown people

March 26, 2008 paulo

glowstick war! i forget the occasion, and there may not have even really been one.. but one of my favorite memories is of playing volleyball at red river outdoors in the red river gorge.

actually, it only started with volleyball.. bourbon volleyball, that is. see, our friend, fluffy, really loves bourbon and takes advantage of any chance he can get to get as much bourbon as possible in his friends. accordingly, he invented bourbon volleyball: a game where every mistake (read: point) is penalized with the player(s) in error taking a shot of bourbon. on aces, the whole team took a shot.

now, i was down there with y and she doesn’t drink very much.. ok.. at all. and while she wanted to play ball, she didn’t want to pay the price. as a compromise, we decided that she could play and that i would take her shots. after the second game, rhino stepped in and helped out.. but only because my liver screamed out to him.

needless to say, the lot of us were quite intoxicated by night’s end. we turned off the cars and their headlights.. and that’s when the first signs of trouble showed themselves. the warning came innocently enough: a green disc gliding silently, gently through the inky night sky. it stopped, made a fast, blurry loop, and was back on its way from where it came. then a pink disc joined it.. chuck had brought his glow-in-the-dark frisbees (leave it to the hippies to think of such things). so far, it was just innocent tosses.. the occasional errant throw came a little close a head now and again but it never seemed provoked. the night drifted on warm and soft.

suddenly, bright blurry green sticks crashed down next to a some of us. and like that, a neon war was declared in the night air. the enemy – the dark shadow “over there”. the objective – pelt them into submission with any glowing orb, stick, or disc you could find.. and the occasional stealthy, non-glowing volleyball. that was the best actually: i’d sneak off towards the edge of the woods, walk slowly and quietly becoming a mere shadow myself, and then, when this shadow an arm’s length away, i’d pelt nail you in the small of the back with the “missing” volleyball and scurry away before you could retaliate. i always wanted to be a secret agent man.

he proposes at one point, a grand plan occurred to me.. it was time to capture an indian princess. i sighted the target in the distance with her flowing white dress on, now spotted with grass stains from the evening. making like i was going for a glowstick, i ran across the imaginary line in the sand.. and then made for the mark. i picked her up, threw her over my shoulder, weaved, stumbled, and laughed the whole way back to the vw bus where i threw her in and shut the door. we had her! and since she was bent over double in laughter, she didn’t even fight it. still, a small border war ensued. despite the best efforts of the coalition, her now fiancé and the rest of the glow stick launchers freed her from the bus and the brown terror was loose again. (by the way, i say brown only because she would say the same herself and proudly. she truly is one of the most beautiful people i know, inside and out.)

make it stop after her escape. the night moved on filled with streaks of neon gel and we all grew tired eventually. we collapsed in the grass around 2am, exhausted and drunk, watching the stars spin in the inky sky faster than the universe even envisioned. y and i stayed up and talked with don for an hour or so, amusing ourselves by how much alcohol and general abuse that poor man’s body could handle and still function (that’s a relative term). by 3am, dreams of mattresses danced in our heads and y and i made the trek back to lexington. thankfully, she stayed up with me, chatting it up the entire time. needless to say, the next day we didn’t get an alpine start. 😉

i’m still amazed that no one lost an eye.

happenings

a picture..

December 25, 2007 paulo

..is worth a thousand words. a thousand words that i’m not up to writing. i realize this synopsis is a long time in coming but i haven’t been up to it very much recently. and even though this is still a rather complete wrap-up of events and times, it gives a decent look at what we were up to and the trouble we were able to cause.

from santa cruzclick on the pictures for bigger ones..

so we went a-searching for a christmas tree.. an actual, live christmas tree, not one made from the by-products of a petroleum product. here, mom is looking rather unamused.

a few minutes from everything is west cliff. there’s a boardwalk along the pacific ocean.. there’s just something about being next to the pacific is great. anyway, the cliffs are lined with the greenest sea grass.. and some funky looking trees. all coniferous, of course. again, just something about those pines..

had to have a picture of me being pensive.

i guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that putting up the tree was something of an adventure in itself. between the base trunk being too short, the screws entering at awkward angles, and general family disagreement on how to remedy the situation, it took a little while and plenty of laughs. sarah, though, had no issues after it all. despite scaring the crap out of her on the first day, she warmed up to me over time. don’t know if i’ll ever get over the fact that she’s a rottweiler, though, and that she’s that incredibly docile.

another pine, this one is a redwood. and another pensive look, this one from j2.

looks like a jet engine.. but it’s actually a torture mechanism for christmas trees. it puts them in a plastic straight-jacket. nothing says christmas like a fully subdued christmas tree..

don’t mind me.. just twirling this wet towel around. not intended on doing anything in particular with it..

the existential shot.. my shadow, that which i am not, cast by that which i am. and that which i am seems to be running off with a christmas tree! stop that hatted man..

all in all, cashing out on the couch is just fine by me.

thismosaic.com