14 Year Stupor

There are times when the weight of life is so heavy only pen and paper can lift it.  Scrolling through Facebook, taking in an endless stream of information, looking around at my coworkers immersed in their own devices, and wondering if they feel the weight of the 3,000 souls that breathed their last breath 14 years ago.

Why is it that day is an icon to all our nation, but the feelings are gone?  Yes, we remember, but 14 years years has turned into history, and history doesn't Feel.  Why is today any different than then?  Why did it take three thousand deaths to momentarily wake us from our divisive, slumbering stupor?  Are we not one nation?  Are we not free?  If we are oppressed, if we bow to the drudgery of our daily grind, it is no fault but our own!  Stand, American.  Rise from your 14 year stupor.  There will be sleeping enough in the Grave!

Wishing for the Weekend

"Don't wish your life away."  We've all heard it, I'm sure.  Ever since we were kids, and probably still now, our parents, our bosses, our professors, all tell us to live in the now.  Focus on your job!  Keep your head out of the clouds of the future, and focus 20/20 on the present.

This week was a long one for us - I get to say us now - and the weekend is finally here.  For probably the first time in my life I get Labor Day off, and so this weekend is going to be a longer one.  Just like anyone else working a 9-5, I've been dreaming of this weekend since the week previous.

Today during my lunch break I was reading a bit of The Poet's Guide to Life, a collection of letters and poems by my hero, Rainer Maria Rilke.  Very rarely have I thought of myself a disciple of any mortal man, but every time I read anything of his, I feel as if I'm sitting at the feet of the master.  No, his life was not exemplary, nor would I recommend making the same choices he did.  However, he always makes me think, and think deeply - and I adore that.

Today, I was reading a portion of commentary on his poem "The Flamingos".  Using an atypical bird, Rilke makes the point that certain things that we place more value on: a woman losing her sight, undying love, and death, for instance, really only have as much value at their core as a flock of flamingos.  I see his point, from his philosophy - if we are alone in this world, and there really is nothing more than the here and now, then we should value our marriage, say, just as much as we would value watching the rain fall on the window.

Ah, but we are not alone in this world.  And the wonderful thing I have been contemplating in the shower this evening (I get a lot of my best thoughts in the shower...I'm sure I'm not alone), is that my wishing for the weekend has much more significance now than it ever has before.  I'm not wishing for solitude or for a good book alone, or for "me" time...the beaming face of my lovely bride instantly reminded me of that when I walked through the door today.

This time, I think, the Master Rilke and my boss, and your parents, and his professor, and her uncle, are wrong.  If you have the fantastic fortune to be in my position, wish for the weekend, dearest reader.  Sometimes that wished away time stands still the moment you walk through the door and are captured by her shining eyes.

Weary of the week,

Washed by kiss on the cheek,

Time stands still,

Redeemed though force of will:

Wishing for the Weekend.

The Marionette Drummer

Shivering canvas of silence,

Expectantly awaiting the brush-stroke of sound.

Squeak of the seat,

Sticks rest on the rim,

And my body is surrendered to puppet-master,

Like a marionette merely along for the ride.

Sensual whispers guide my hands from head to head,

Crash in my ears like waves of pleasure,

Hair rising, skin quivering,

Mistress of music demanding

My undivided attention.

The ride leaves me breathless, shaking,

As last brush-stroke rings unencumbered:

Brilliant color giving way to the forgetful silence.

And here I sit – just another drummer,

Just another day.

Unbounded by Words

Dearest reader,

I have said time and again, to you specifically, that the happiest things in life are unbounded by words: specifically mine.  So it happens that I am putting virtual ink-to-page for your enjoyment two weeks and two days after the most joyous day of my life.  I am sitting in my wingback armchair listening to Brahms, and watching my lovely bride read a book on philosophy on my right.  I don’t have much more to say in this respect, not because I am indifferent; rather, I am, to be sure, one of the happiest men alive at the present moment.

I find that being married has occupied my mind in ways that have diverted my attention from my inspiration as no other.  Or perhaps I should say, it has changed the form of my inspiration for the time being.  In the last few days I have been divulging my lunch-hour to Rilke, Bastiat, and Fitzgerald, and so it happens that my Scarlequain is merely simmering in the rear of my mind.  Like the Music, my poetry is always present in the recesses of my cognizance, but as of late it has resigned itself to an ironic:

Crawling, parched

Month-long march.

Dry and barren,

Take me, Charon:

Silent Muse.

And while I in no way feel that the Ferry Man of Hades is pulling my inspirational muse to hell by his boney grasp, I am well aware of my tenure in the desert of noninspiration, if I may coin a rather unoriginal term.

My job has felt new and daunting to me for some time now, until, as it happened, an employee newer than I asked helplessly for directions on a simple task.  “I told [her].  And as I walked on I was lonely no longer.  I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler.  [S]he had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighborhood,” which was, in this case, my workplace.  Ah, Fitzgerald.  Even in the third or fourth read-through (honestly, who is counting?), Gatsby still fails to disappoint.

I have also been spending time reading The Poet’s Guide to Life: The Wisdom of Rilke in my spare time, and if you know anything about me you’ll know I cling to every word this literary giant saw fit to pen.  As it turns out, Rilke hand-wrote thousands of letters during his lifetime – mostly as a distraction from his “work” – poetry writing.  I stumbled across a passage where Rilke describes these letters, on all topics and to all demographics, as an escape from the desert of noninspiration.  An oasis, if you will.  Indeed, it has often been said that Rilke has done more good for the literary community through his letters than he did through his poetry.  I daresay Rilke was beginning to suspect the same as he approached his final stroll towards Charon’s ferry-house, as he gave permission for them all to be published.  At any rate, it made me smile, because I realized there is no ear more open than the blank page intended for some distant recipient.

And so, dear reader, this is where I bid you farewell for the time being.  This is where I take my last sip at the oasis and hope with a smile that the desert ends just over that hill.  For, you are my open ear: my addressee that gives my poetic halt a respite.  I sincerely wish that I, like Rilke to me, have conveyed some measure of hope and happiness to your daily walk.

May the sand quickly leave your shoes.

Suspended Sensations

Whispering Echos

Flitting in dark corners.

Warm silence

Filling your ears,

Like Alice,

Sleepy Wanderer,

Wondering: Where

Am I again?

Sneaking Suspicion

Sneakers stray

In circles chasing

A flutter flying

Just outside the 

Blurry landscape lines.

Rolling over, crack an eye,

There, over the clock,

A moth flitting.

Pillow warm,

Filling your ears

Dreams: whispering

Echos.

Normal

Normal.  What a usual, every day word.  And yet, what is normal?  We toss this word about in a negative light, an aspiring one, or a mundane one.  But what is normal if not the pursuance of the things that, at our core, make us human?  To be loved, to Know, and indeed, to love knowing.  To be normal is to exist on a plane that is unbounded by time, emotion, petty disputes or relative notions of society.

What if we strive to do great things because we are compensating for the failures of our life that we cannot escape by any means other than excelling so far above them that they are mere dust in the wind?  Perhaps by achieving those great accomplishments, we feel as if our life has been normalized – the scale is tipped more towards the balance for which every man or woman that has ever lived has struggled, and most struggled in vain.

Consider your own life.  Do you fight against being normal?  How many times have you lifted an upper lip, sneering the word “normal” in reference to breaking the mold of society which, while being the very thing we seek to defy the most, we cannot seem to do without its good opinion of us.  How many times have you – have I – shaken our fist at the Norm saying “I am not with you!”

What is it to be normal?

Maybe normal is a struggle, or a journey.  Maybe normal is not something we see until that fleeting second when life leaves our lungs for the final time, and in that last exhalation we finally understand.  Maybe it is after that.  Or maybe normal is something that we can never truly understand or discover, because maybe none of us are as normal as we would like to think.  Perhaps we are all abnormal in a world that yearns for the opposite.

But that wouldn’t be normal to say so.

Chorale

Join me in my musical musing 

Dear, dear reader.  Life comes quickly, doesn't it?  Here I am, nearly 3 weeks away from being married.  I've noticed my recently graduated friends musing over much of the same thing recently - being an adult, I mean.  I'm working full time now, I'm making decisions about paint colors and what socks to wear in the mornings, and I'm working and I'm sleeping and I'm working some more.

Some people look at life like this and they just assume that this is all it is - rote routine.  Which, you'd find ironic if you read my last blog post.  But recently, I've been catching up on reading I promised myself I would do in college, and it pushes me.  It spurs me onward towards my Passions: those big things that we each dream about in high school or college - the things we cling to with a desperation that drives us to put one foot in front of the other each and every day.

This post feels a bit scattered and ethereal to me.  Much like my life right now does.  But, friend, the chaos of our life, no matter how scattered and detached we feel now will lead us into eternity in ways you and I could never have imagined.  The crazy thing is, God has wonderful plans for you and me.  And whether we are just secondary characters in the stories of our own lives, or whether we have more say than we'd like to think, the chaos of our past and the passions of our future will back us away enough to get a larger glimpse of the Bigger Picture.

Sometimes when you're just laying in bed, exhausted and ready to be done with your day, you have to listen to beautiful voices and write down a few beautiful words.  I hope they put a small smile on your face tonight, tomorrow, or wherever this post finds you.

Thank you for being you, dear dear reader.  You are one of my Passions.

The beauty of the past,

Even though the pain lasts,

Is the contrast of the dark,

Which brightens your gold heart:

Beautiful chaos.