Hail, Long Thirdia on Four!

A hall to some, A clique to others,

The awkwardest boys you’ll ever meet.

Friends at first, joined room to room,

Potential of Third greatly unexplored.

Three new freshmen thrown in the mix,

Unaware of their grand looming adventure:

We accept them as brothers,

Say goodbye to others,

And after a year move up a floor.

Now, we have bonded: more than a hall,

At beck and call we support our own,

In the midst of any trial school or females,

Or parents or money, or philosophies or

Callings, or films or games or petty worries

Can throw at us.

Thunderous nightly charge to dinner,

A uniting force, fire drilling around a table

To the surprise of our schoolmates around.

Competitors, winners, we have,

Olympics a mere capstone to gatherings

That would seem extravagant to anyone else

Mere tradition and requirements to us.

Where else can you reenact Last Supper,

Or trip to the 50s as hoofers and bums,

Curse each other over a game,

And console a brother in personal loss?

Where can you find solace, just to be alone,

Knowing just a room away there is steadfast comfort,

Or where can you enjoy endless hours of

Comradery unmatched by any other experience

You’ve had before these?

An era is ending, but here stays my heart.

Men of Long Thirdia, even though we depart,

We cherish our days together as golden memories.

Rest assured whenever I next cross your path,

There will be just as much affection as before.

My door may not always be open,

But the latch on my heart will always swing wide.

Dearer friends one cannot find,

Than the ones on this hall.

Long Thirdia on Four,

You have my all.

Meet Me Where You're Going

For aesthetic effect while reading, click here.

Most of the time when I find a new band, or a new genre of music, it's because someone recommended them to me.  I rarely listen to the radio - it's Spotify all the way for me.  However, there is one band that I randomly found on my own.  I used to be obsessed with the phrase "Cloud 9" in highschool - even wrote lots of stupid stickman comics about drama, love, and all the junk like that that goes on when you're that age.  And so, on a whim, I typed "Cloud" into the Spotify search bar, and the first suggestion was an indie band called "Cloud Cult."  I was instantly enthralled.

Through the years, I have religiously followed Cloud Cult through their pain, their recovery, and the expression of those emotions in their music.  In 2013 they released one of my absolute favorite albums to date: Love.  It's a simple title, but the album itself is profound.


The night I proposed to Virginia, now my fiance, I created a playlist called The Night.  On it were songs that held significance to both of us, and I had a dear friend que it just as we walked in the room where I would ask her to be my wife.  One of the songs that I chose was "Meet Me Where You're Going," which you're hopefully listening to right now.  Like I do with most of my music, I took meaning from the title, from the words, and the heavy emotion that's poured into the song.  What an appropriate song for such a night!  But like most music, it grew and evolved with me, and last night I had a revelation.

Meandering down life's path,

Meeting its wrath,

With you at my side,

Your pace a quick stride:

Going where you are.

"Run away with me, yeah, let's get married. Will you be the rest of my life? Every day with you I say "I do", and it means so much more each time."  These lines were obviously a wonderful choice for a proposal night.  But what about, "Thank you for patience. Thank you for-giveness. Thank you for spending this time with me. Meet me where you're going, cuz I wanna be going wherever you'll be."

Recently I've had a lot on my plate and on my mind.  We all have, especially we seniors.  It's very easy to get annoyed with each other, and I find myself often getting annoyed at those people who have walked college's path with me ever so closely for four years.  Some of my dearest friends.

Have you ever been backpacking with three or more people?  There's always that one person who leads, and you fall behind.  You get to a hard stretch of trail, and talking and chatting stops all together.  Maybe that front person pulls ahead, and it feels as if you're no longer on the hike together, but as individuals.  But you know what?  You're not.  You're both on the same trail, and most likely, you're hiking together because you love each other.  From my perspective, even if it seems like my friends have their back to me, hiking at their own pace and investing in other things, I want to Meet Them Where They're Going.  I value them so much that I'd rather "go wherever they'll be," than be annoyed that they're not prioritizing me.

Aside from the obvious message between lovers, Cloud Cult's MMWYG reminds me that we're all on the same trail together.  We should all value where they're going first, because most likely we'll all be better off in the long run.  Relationships always trump the day to day mediocrity of life, even if it's the last little stretch of school.

So to my fiance, to my family, and specifically to my friends here on the Hill, with whom I have such little time remaining, "I love you and how. Won't leave you alone. Will you be my home now? And I'll be your home."

For the 15

I don't have much to say this time around.  I've been going through the motions of preparing for a senior recital, and I've been going through the motions of finishing the last few classes I need to graduate, even though Biology has nothing to do with either politics or music performance.

The truth is, I ache.  I ache in a deep way that only a few people in this school can understand - or choose to understand.  Music people, Biology people, Comm people, Psych people, Bible people...there are a few people in nearly every friend group, major, and class who understand what I'm getting at.  Should we just roll over and say "Oh well?"  I thought that's what we should do last semester, until one of my dear friends and favorite professors fell out of my life, just like so many others have this past year.  There's not much we really can do.  So I'll just sit over here in my corner of the Den and make some noise.  I know I'm not alone.

Afraid, cowering in plain sight,

Hiding from ethereal unknowns.

Previously our pride, but like

a lion shorn, our colors worn

Now become our shame.

Friends, mentors, melt away like

spirits, the young forgetting who

Once led our vivacious pack.

Those men with manes targeted,

Made mediocre in a moment by

the will of an iron pen.

The convenience of hypocrisy,

The death of justice at the hands

of a mere formality enrage

Those left behind – gold memories

Stained Red.

We few hide defiantly in

the shadows of our Den,

barring our teeth at the bones

thrown to us from the poachers’ table.

Some are dragged away for show,

and eventually we all jump through their

hoops, kings made stooges.

Would that there were Prides left to

laugh at our Circus, but extinction

breeds nothing but an audience riveted to

this momentary drama.

I count down the days until this collar of

chain rusts away – Time its only key.

My mane once shorn surfaces again,

Teasing and tantalizing, tempting me

with new life.

A choice remains, for the 15:

Do we keep our collar, fondly recalling

Our might being smothered into nothing

larger than a house cat? Or

shall we leap through our last hoop,

roaring in contempt at the Board that

holds the remains of our rusted chain?

Suddenly a snap!  Sally forth or

sit in silence.  I ask no pardon

for my

Roar.

Be Still My Soul (Inspired by Home, Siblings, and Steven Sharp Nelson)

"The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail."  -William Faulkner

When I first read that part of his Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech in the year 1950, I was assuming Faulkner was talking about the deep things of life that keep us all going.  The Heavy things like eternity, glory, and heroism.  But now, as I sit in front of our fireplace in the home I spent most of my life in, listening to cello music by Steven Nelson, and musing over everything in my life up unto until this point, I realize that some of the props of man aren't necessarily super deep or even "grey" things.

This house and this city are full of memories for me.  Some of them are very good memories, but a lot of the recent ones have been difficult.  I've written about the long line of people that I've injured in the recent past, and most of them live around here.  I have a tendency to dwell on those things; but as I catch up with a few friends with whom things never change, I become aware of the great memories: the pillars that keep me supported when I feel like I'm falling.  Grandparent's house, good food, the deep connection I've developed in the past few years with my siblings - I love them more than ever, and they're some of my best friends - the wonderful friends I've met on the hill who love me dearly: all these things come rushing over me as I warm myself by the fire.

Food galore,

Relax and snore,

Love and care,

Cure from wear:

Grandparent's house.

  

And while the feelings of wonder and trepidation aren't gone, the fact that I am surrounded by such great friends and a loving family fills me with an awe that is difficult to put into words.  When I feel nostalgic like this (as visits to home generally make me), I like going through old music I used to listen to, or reading old poems, and just thinking about the good things that have happened to me here, and I stumbled across this:

I am one in seven, a piece of a heart,

That is separated for just a beat.

Goodbye isn't forever, though ways we part,

Lord thanks for dear friends, them bless and keep.

I wrote this poem last year for my dearest friends, and I think of it every time we're separated...but today it makes me thankful for them all, and thankful for friends past, and thankful for friends to come, and thankful for friends who will be with me forever...specifically my family.

I guess it's cliche to say such things so close to Thanksgiving, but things become cliche for a reason.  Sometimes I think we forget what that reason is.  The world we live in is bound to be full of wonderful cliches, because there are so many things in our lives that are worth becoming so.

I realize that the previous poem wasn't Scarlequain, and flipping through my little leather book of poems and sayings, I also realize that most of my Scarlequain are not happy or musing on the brighter sides of life.  But then, as I've told many of my friends who take the time to listen, the happier things are the hardest to write about.  They're the things that are so profound that words cannot begin to fathom them.  And a part of me is satisfied to leave it that way.  Let the happy things Feel.  They are too deep to be constricted by words.