Journal & Musing

  • back on the horse

    I peeked into my past today and found that what I thought was, wasn’t. I suspect there is a small chance that what I saw had been altered in some way, and I felt somewhat slighted. I saw elements of my presence as though my ghost had been haunting, however, and I felt vindicated. Or honored? Last night I peeked somewhere else and found that what I thought was, most certainly was, and I felt validated.

    Moving forward is difficult when you want to live up to your past.

    But I’m out of practice. I need to cut myself some slack.

    . . .

    When you fall off the horse, you screw something up, though not terribly. When you fall off the wagon, the consequences are harsh. But you can get back on both.

    I stay clear of wagons, so I have none to fall off of. I rode a Clydesdale for a while, though.

    Ugh.

    . .

    I miss the challenge more than anything.

    .

  • Breakfast in America

    You dreamed you were in a submarine with Adam Sandler. He was sitting at the helm with a blanket in his lap like an old man navigating darkness in solitude. You asked him how he knew when to turn and which way to go to avoid hitting underwater things, and he pointed to a button on the dash and told you to push it. You pushed the button and heard a ping, but you didn’t see any screens with blips and circles to see where the underwater things were. Adam wasn’t concerned, and you quietly shrugged off his indifference. What choice did you have? He seemed confident enough, though in truth his confidence appeared to be a solemn familiarity with the waters. He appeared to be a sad prisoner of a dark fate, wandering the sands of Davy Jones’ locker. You found a window that looked out onto an underwater forest where people had taken up residence. They had escaped to that haven from the law of the land above, and you envied their freedom for a moment. You watched them become miserable before your eyes as they bickered with no way to break free from each other. They had no new place to flee to. You, on the other hand were free to roam, albeit in the confines of a dark submarine with an old man. That’s when you noticed the song that had been playing over and over in a loop. You asked Adam to turn the music off because it was driving you mad. He reached up to click the knob, and you woke up.

    I’m leaving this reminder of your dream here so that you can revisit it later and ponder its meaning. Take your time. It’s likely the result of something you ate before bed, anyway. Everyone likes Supertramp.

  • Was it all just a dream?

    I once had a small room with dark drapes, an overstuffed chair, and bookshelves filled with classics. I spent most of my time in that room typing on a keyboard that had most of the caps missing from its keys. I wrote everyday, often until the wee hours of the morning. I filled my screen with words that spoke to a world of writers. The rest of my time was spent taking walks. I squeezed in a few hours of work five days a week, but I was always thinking about that blank screen that waited for me on that old computer in that dark room.

    Then suddenly it all came to an end. I deleted everything.

    I deleted myself in one keystroke. In an instant, I lost connections I cherished. I needed to reconnect to the world around me. I needed to wake up from the dream, so I closed my eyes and … click.

    It’s taken me years to regain the ability to write.

    I don’t have that dark, little room anymore, nor the chair. Not even the bookshelf survived. The computer sure didn’t.

    But here I am now, typing on a new keyboard in a big, well-lit room, filled with anxiety for no reason other than the fear that the real writer in me is dead. New books are mixed with the old ones, all of which fill new bookshelves. Some books are still unread because the word junkie in me can’t help but purchase books I don’t have make time to read. How many books have I downloaded to my Kindle in the last two weeks? Four maybe. I’ve started reading all of them, and I’ll probably never finish them.

    One day I’ll regret not having chased down an expertise. I’d settle for just one at this point, but I yearn for mastery in everything. A master of nothing is what I am, and only a shadow of a dream remains for one thing that I was once good at.

    This keyboard has no memory of how my fingers once danced. I have nothing to show for that time in my life but worn pages in a few old books. The new books have witnessed nothing, not even a gleam in my eye.

    I feel ill.

  • Fraud

    Today is the last day of the year and the thousandth of previous ones just like it. Ah but this one is different! Today I don’t feel the slow release of poison from my pores. Pent-up stress does not have its grip on me today, which is odd considering I just finished what should have been the most stressful year thus far. This year was certainly the scariest.

    I told a student today to stop running from what he is scared of. To be better. Hours later, I realized that I was talking to myself. Not literally, of course. The boy had been there, and I had told him those words. I asked him before he walked out what he is going to do. He replied, “Don’t run from things that scare me.” I added, “And be better.” He left, and I heard those words again hours later when I thought of how I absolutely did not want to continue on this path I’m on. “Don’t run from things that scare you. Be better.”

    I don’t have the confidence to realize my potential. I don’t have all the answers and often don’t have the background knowledge necessary to come up with them. I’m afraid of revealing my incompetence. I want to press forward but not at the expense of my dignity.

    Don’t run from things that scare you. Be better.

    Don’t run from things that scare you. Be better.

    I am my own terrified student. If my students knew this about me, they wouldn’t chase after the scary things that I convince them they can achieve. If I have not conquered the scary stuff, myself, how can I lead those who are afraid?

    Maximus Meridius, you were scared, too, weren’t you?

    Atticus Finch, you aren’t as smart as you seem, are you?

    Atticus Meridius is my name. But not really. Not really.

    “Reality is the construct of others who can’t function in the absence of boundaries.” I just heard a character on TV say that, written no doubt by someone who lives in fear.

    My name is Atticus Meridius, and I am gripped by my incompetence.

    Her name is Atticus Meridius, and she is fearless.

  • locura

    I’ve been listening to a Spanish radio station and trying to not translate anything in my head. The longer I listen, the easier it is to distinguish one word from the next even when I don’t know what the words mean. I’m discovering that I understand what the radio people are saying better when I don’t try to understand.

    I asked a student from Mexico recently to say a sentence in Spanish so that I could see if I knew what he was saying.

    “El edificio se calló.”

    I knew neither of those words.

    Then I remembered edifice from The Fountain Head, and the rest fell into place.

    “That’s dark,” I said.

    “My brain is going to explode soon,” he said back with his hands grasping his head and his eyes locked on mine. I immediately understood the edifice metaphor.

    “You’re going to do great, Rodrigo. The mortar this class used to build your brain is stronger than whatever they used to hold these bricks up.”

    It’s AP Physics, and the students are taking their big test soon. And the mad instructor grins with sadistic joy and pride, knowing that they are going to blow the fucking test out of the water.

    This is my favorite part of the school year.

  • a beautiful discovery

    Driving home this afternoon in the misty grey, I listened to a song by an artist that someone shared with me a lifetime ago, and I was transported–not to that other time but to another realm. I was a living a surreal scene in a movie, floating through the trees down a narrow and winding road. Everything became clear during that drive. The world as we know it is spinning around as though flowing through a funnel, faster and faster, headed toward one inevitable destination. I’m not sure what that destination is, but my bones tell me it’s something wonderful. All the sorrows of my past and even my day dimmed in the light of this realization. I felt an overwhelming sense of hope and calm. Of peace. That no matter how badly things go between now and the end as we know it, everything will be okay.

    A long time ago I found myself, figuratively in every way, swimming in formulas and ideas, buried happily in a vast ocean of mathematics and physics. Drowning in dopamine. Today, after many days of foggy thinking, I re-wrapped my brain around rotational motion and all its fine intricacies, and everything came flooding back. The power of who knows how many minds ran through my veins, as music written by a genius is played by another and fed into the ears of an artist’s hand. I wrote, I dissected, and with that orgasmic victory of accomplishment and validation, I solved. I understood and proved to myself that I am what I thought I might have been once. That I am a part of something greater. I am not the amalgam of my experiences nor even a product of them. I am a part of something greater than I. I am the music that flows through the artist’s hand. I am the result of inspiration and a part of its formation. I am the ocean I drown in. I am Archimedes, Newton, and Mozart. I am the music of Phillip Glass, the keys on which his music is played, and the heart of the player though which his music is felt.

    And around with you I flow, as though through a funnel, spinning faster and faster into a singular moment, a singular existence. Yet, myself, I am. Because He made me. And everything that streams through my mind and fingers and even onto this screen is made for me for Him and by me by Him because all of it is a part of who I am as He made me to be. As He made you to be a part of my story as you read these words. As together we narrow in on a destination of His design, returning to a singularity and bursting through to the other side where a beautiful new world awaits. As I did today when I found myself. Again.

  • cleaning the house

    When cleaning my house I begin with one task. Generally picking up all the trash. Then when my house is fully clean, I assure myself I’m going to keep it this way. How hard could it be? And inevitably, the house is a wreck by the end of the week. But really. How hard could it be to throw the trash out in the first place? To put something back? To sweep a room at the end of the day?

    I have a big house with only two people living in it. We aren’t lazy, we are busy and tired. But honestly. How hard is it to get up and throw that napkin away?

    These are the things I think about when cleaning. Then when I’m living in my newly cleaned house, I am so comfortable that just one napkin on the side table isn’t doing any harm. Leaving my shoes tossed on the floor next to the couch is an easy fix. Putting that dish in the sink? So simple to deal with. Later.

    My house doesn’t get fully clean until I’m on vacation because I clean in chunks. I’ll get up and do a couple things, then go about my day doing whatever it is I want to do, which usually involves nothing at all, and then I clean a couple other things. I keep this up until the house is worthy of visitors and, frankly, of me. This process takes a long time, and it can’t happen when I’m not on vacation because the energy it takes to throw even that one new napkin away is too much to handle. But it’s not really. I just take advantage of my evenings to do nothing. And therein lies the problem.

    If I do just one thing a night, I should be good.

    This is where my past self would link the keeping of my house clean to something else, making a profound statement about life. But I don’t have it in me today. I’m just going to sit here and take advantage of my time to do nothing. I can write later. After all, what is writing but tiny words strung together? So easy.

  • Dear World,

    Who would’ve thought I’d be glad to go back to work? Having a week off definitely granted some much needed rest, but the cold, wet weather got me down. The sun is shining again, literally, and oddly I’m not sad to be at work while the skies are blue and the weather is warm. Time to get back into sorts. And shorts. That’s dumb. Pretend I didn’t write that last line.

    I’ve gotten into shape before, and I can do it again. I’ve got a little motivation sneaking in. Let’s see how I do. Oh, right, I forgot to mention that I have gotten out of shape. Changed my shape, even. I’m hoping the humility of wearing pants that are too small for me will keep me motivated.

    Goodnight, World. Don’t destroy yourself while I sleep. Or while I’m awake for that matter. Be kind.

  • disasters

    Today I’m baking without recipes. I’m not a baker, but I do like taking risks. Mini risks. A baking disaster is a comic disaster. A failed parachute is a true disaster, but I skydive, too. Other than jumping from airplanes, I keep my true risks to a minimum. Actually, that’s probably not true either. But I’m putting forth greater effort to maintain a risk-free lifestyle. I suppose baking without recipes is my way of compensating for the lack of danger in my life. If the lack of adrenalin gets me down, I’m comforted by warm cookies. At worst, I waste ingredients. At best, I feel both accomplished and comforted. Either way, I’m learning how to bake (and how not to).

    .

    A cold front has blown in again. Yesterday I took a nap with the windows open and a nice 80-degree breeze blowing through the house. Today I’m in flannel pajamas watching cold rain fall through bare trees from a sunless sky. Winter is trying super hard to make up for the warm weather. Spring themed items are in the stores, but I’m not convinced that winter is done with us. I’m not convinced that normalcy by any means is around the corner anytime soon. I say that because the place I live gets mildly cold in the winter and last year around this time we got snowed in for a week. Things aren’t normal. After the lockdown that began two years ago in March and snovid barely a year later, my subconscious is expecting another disaster to be just around the corner. My anxiety is up, and maybe that’s why I’m baking–it’s controlled risk with a side of comfort.

    I have the week off, anyhow, so I can be quietly anxious in the safety of my kitchen.

    And now I’ve lost motivation because I brought to the forefront of my mind those things that haunt me.

    I’m going to watch a movie now to distract me while I eat experimental cookies.

  • negatives

    Writing stories is hard sometimes. I’m thinking maybe I should just write the beginnings to stories and end them with a …

    That wouldn’t make me much of a storyteller. But if I’m writing for myself, then the endings might not matter.

    …

    I have the week off, and I’m going to spend it as I do every holiday — getting my shit together. Another journal, another diet reboot (excuse me, “lifestyle reboot” <eye roll>), another crack at exercise. I have reframed my habits. Instead of seeing habitual failures, I see healthy breaks in destructive behaviors. I see extending my life another year. Maybe after a while I’ll see those breaks grow longer until they meet up with each other and squeeze out the destructive behaviors. That’s the goal. Getting back to writing is part of that healthy reboot. But it’s a careful balance. Sitting around in a dark space with a computer in my lap does nothing for my physical wellbeing outside of eliminating stress.

    I’m also considering consolidating my writing blog with this one. But I like the setup of the other blog and I’ve already established it. But … ack … effort. Maybe I can add a link. HMMMM.