Where do i find here?

i am asking a question this evening about my life: “Why does it seem so empty?”

My life is by all accounts quite beautiful. Perhaps i am simply desensitized to my own experiences that have been occurring for so long.

The stories that i could tell of rafting,relationships, canyoneering, mountain biking, spiritual journeys, loss, grief, love, God, beauty, suffering…….

i really think they would be so intriguing to so many, but to me, they often do not seem intriguing. They are simply, my life, which i don’t believe is truly magnificent in any way. It is average, at best. Tell this to the IBM programmer locked into his florissant-lit cubicle deep within the bowels of the industrial, sterile, emotionally-stark, back-up-generator-wired compound as his sclera turn a shade of red and his vision begins to vibrate as he approaches his eleventh hour of programming and he would perhaps balk. How could a day of sun-absorbing, bleeding, aching, fatigued flesh being challenged to such a degree while high in the circuitous, treachorous terrain of the Rockies that the eye of God becomes tangible to the man astride the multi-thousand dollar mountain bike be considered average to the programmer, as he periodically sneaks glimpses throughout his day of adventure blogs, just to become inspired so that he can dream his way through the tedious process of coding?

It seems at times mundane to me.

i crave something “more.” Travel perhaps to more distant lands, or more superficial relationships, perhaps more deep relationships, or maybe more spiritual focus, or greater generosity……..

Fuck.

i just want to be content where i am, with what i am doing, where i am at, surrounded by who i am with.

i just desire to be.

Where do i find here?

empty room part 2

When the man begins to push away others he remembers his previous companion, the little girl, gasping for air behind the door. With fortune, that memory will be emblazoned in his flesh, carved into his soul, for the remainder of his days in this life and whatever may come thereafter. When you have the knowledge of someone’s delicate past and you somehow forget….. you must remember…. you can not forget again.

You can not forget again.

When i do forget, i rip the scab away, or sublux my emotional shoulder by placing it up like a tree branch against the door frame and shifting my weight forward. i bury my serrated knife in the scar and carve it out to freshen the ache of heart. i bite my tongue and strike my jaw on the dresser to remind myself of the pain my words have the potential to shed.

“You are loved,” he says, “but i am not so sure i will not forget. Please be careful with me. One day, these methods will have diminished effect.”

“What then?”

i do not want to forget.

one ring part iii

As i stand in the kitchen i reach down with my right hand and begin to spin my wedding band on my finger, feeling the tension of the flesh and titanium interface decrease with a twisting pop, then the coolness and smoothness of the ring as it glides around my finger, propelled by my other hand. While speaking of the nights plans with my roommate this fidgeting continues. i then grasp my ring finger with my right thumb and forefinger, bending it mildly backwards as my left palm touches the counter, allowing my finger to snap to the counter.

The usual metallic snap is not there as my finger snaps to the cheap counter top. i stop mid sentence wondering what is wrong. i look down to see my ring missing. “Where did i lose it?” My heart drops at the prospect, but drops further only a second later, as i realize the ring has not been there for ten months. i can’t regain my simple sentence that i was mid-way through. My jaw is as low as my heart.

Where did this come from? i haven’t had something like this happen for nine months or so.

The divorce is heavy on my mind as of late, for reasons uncertain. i have tried to make peace with things unspoken, but they lie beneath.

What now?

Find other people to love me? Check.

Side-track myself with adventures? Check.

Sleep? Check.

Write about it? Check.

Embrace it, feel it, allow it to change me for the better? Check.

How long will this last? How long?

one train

i sit where we once sat, the emotion of the last time together here has percolated into the wooden floor, blending with the aqueous emotion of the million other meetings of the past and present between friends, family and strangers that occurred at this table.

That very emotion now rises through my shoes, funneling with the roar

Fragments

“BE NICE OR LEAVE” are the words painted onto fragments of metal, one word per piece of rusty-edged steel. The rectangular metal plates are joined by rusty chains that hang vertically from the ceiling of the coffee shop.  i drink a pot of jasmine and peppermint tea, mixed with soy milk and sugar, allowing it to linger on my tongue and tickle my nose as it mixes with the essence of the room that is warmly embracing me with it’s painted concrete floor, wobbling tables and creaking benches.

The return is not easy. The energy expands from the Dantien, washes outwardly and manifests itself with haphazard words that arrive on the screen via the process of quaking fingers, shaking legs, shifting, and rhythmic drift. The lapses of typing are filled with closing of the eyes, breathing in, listening to the sounds of the musicians and imbibing the beauty and mystery of those around me.as they are fueling the return to creativity that has been absent for months.

The environment fuels my desire for writing, for loving, for longing, for embracing the pain, the beauty, the complexities, the fragments of the world that make this life so pleasurable.

The barista’s girlish smile starkly contrasts the complexities of her eyes to such a degree the contrast fades..The upright bass player’s poetic stage-presence mingling with the melancholy sax causes my mind to drift to the Jack Kerouac paperback in my bag. The guitar player with the yoga mat that sticks out of the top of her guitar case brings a vibration of humor into my elbows.

Who, or what, holds the key to my creativity?

two creaking chairs

After excitedly noting there was a light on in the house as he parked his truck, bear strode into his home, greeted by four rustling, wagging mountain-dogs, one of which is “his.” At the realization that no room-mates were home a sensation begins to wash

14 hours…

The canyons beckoned to bear from the pages of the guidebook, portraying their facets through the words of the author meeting the mind of the desert-dweller. The one that strikes a tone within the tuning fork of his soul is wondrous…. eleven repels. Inside, as bear reads the page, his sixth sense says, “Good morning sleepy, this is too technical for the group.” Bear smiles, acknowledges, and says, “Thank you, sixth-sense; i appreciate your honesty. Are you ready for a ride, because i am? Hold on, and feel free to speak freely, but be aware of this: i am probably not going to listen. i crave challenge.”

The hot noon sun on the route-finding in…..

The mystery of the frogs croaking in the pot-hole below the first rappel…

The trying new systems…

The learning….

The beauty….

The grandeur….

The dynamics of the group….

The falling sun….

The hunger…

The thirst…

The twelfth hour…

The help of one another…

The ideas…

The weaknesses arising…

The strengths shining….

The moon lighting the belay device….

The final rappel…

The female intuition….

The knowledge that she was probably correct…

Go.

Not enough rope.

Hang.

Trouble shoot, communicate…..

legs go numb….

how to get down from here, without first going up….

there must be a way.

There is.

Go.

Keep going.

On the ground.

Let another’s strength lead.

Thirst piercing throught the tongue and meandering through the lip.

Keep going.

Suck on this pebble.

Thank the moon for her light.

Keep going.

What a beautiful series of days!

What beautiful country!

What beautiful friends!

What a blessed life!

Learn of yourself and of one another. With these, my life will be perpetually full.

Without, my soul will crumble into the darkness.

Darkness

A cold, dark arm reaches, clutches and pulls in the man as a flat voice vibrates into his ear, ” Come back home, where you belong.”

The man’s heart skips a beat as a vibration of terror electrifies the very vessel of his soul, from the spine to his nail beds. The man softly steps

tonight

Tonight, i wrote a friend that was lost. My shoulders have dropped a portion. Life is here. Fragments fill the whole. Embrace.

Father Charlie,

One day last winter i came to visit you on an intriguing day filled with blue skies and snow-capped peaks that reside near your monastery home. i saw only grey and black on this day, as a storm was tormenting and twisting my mind, body and spirit. Your words did

barometer

we are rising

we are falling

we ask for stability

when it arrives, we perceive stagnancy

we thrust our souls into the tumultuous barometer of life

we smile

we cry

we long

a song

starting an IV in a dying man

holding the eyes of a lover

biking a technical section of trail

breathing in the sea

holding a meaningful conversation with a loved one

entering a late-apex turn

orchestrating words into a writing that will inspire

counter-steering a yawing truck

swimming with dolphins

 

 

These moments are the song of my life that resound throughout the hall that is largely filled with silence.

i crave more notes.

(written 01/16/09 — incomplete, unedited)

a letter of gratitude

i can not see you yet.

i can smell you.

i can remember your spirit.

(written 12/15/08 – incomplete, unedited)

demons

Demons pushed to the depths, circulating with a devious smile.

Angels drawn to permeate throughout, smiling compassionately.

A dance of duality.

(written 12/15/08 – incomplete, unedited)

empty room

A world full of the most diverse beauty imaginable exists… challenges and rest, wars and peace, chaos and perfection, humanity and nature, structures and features, arid and lush lands, endless deserts and labyrinths of mountains, tranquility and pain… all resounding with luminousness and love. This world was known as Life. One of the portions that comprised this Life was a boy.

In a portion of this world the boy lay twisted, contorted, tortured, bloody and writhing in anguish in an uncomfortable room. The room smelled of rotting