Renaissance

Here's a poem I wrote while Jen took the kids to Ft. Wayne for her 3-day vacation that Kelly gave her. I took advantage of every moment I was home from work: working out, reading new books, biking through the park at night, smoking cigars, getting Papa John's pizza, watching the last two Harry Potters late into the night. I even accomplished a few chores to boot.

While sitting on the back porch smoking my stogies, I really settled deeply into thoughts about the meaning of my appearance in history and nature. The tops of the trees swaying in the wind, and the stars in the sky caused me to consider the wider world evolving beyond the narrow boundaries of my existence. There's so little I've known and become familiar with. So little. And yet, that small enclosure repeats to infinity it's patterns of hope, fear, excitement, and boredom. Even the unknown eventually becomes categorized as 'what I want' and 'what I don't want', and by fantasy and imagination I fool myself that I've become aquanted with those things I've never experienced. My world begins to bear the imprint of my own face. Ad infinitum. Then something so small shatters the illusion, reminds me that there's so much joy, and new types and tenors of it, along with new dangers, sorrows, and beauties, that my finite mind never came close to conjuring up on its own. I believe that the world we know is the world we partly produce (Kant), that everything that happens to us happens through us (Sartre), that there is no absolute division between subject and object (Buddha); but the Original somehow breaks us out of our own prisons and our slipshod, childish, building block worlds. Lego representations of life gives way to the crushing wilds of reality. Sometimes we love it, and sometimes we hate it. The other night, while writing this poem, I loved it.

Renaissance

The land is mute.

Nothing breaks its wasted, windblown surface.

We have depleted our plot,

Found all the gold

Then chucked it back again to keep things interesting.

We’ve worn ruts to the ‘best we know’

And grooved them deep.

We’ve reoriented the sky,

Double-, triple-coated it with our excuses,

Stretched and teased it

With the pale powers of our imagination.

Our suns are threadbare from our constant handling.

Thank God we don’t know what to do with our moons

Or we’d have named the man in it

Some fashionable name like Harper, or Liam, or Carter,

Handed him a shovel and pick,

And given him a job working in our mines.

It would be weird at first.

Each unearthed gem cuts a thousand ways,

Concealing a thousand more faces;

But one day the glass goes black,

Or worse—is just a mirror and not a window.

Then stars are merely specks of light in my routine sky,

Not pitching blazing-fresh planets;

They constellate my stories only,

My strifes,

My re-dreamed dreams.

My idols have finally parroted my voice.

Then a cricket chirps a different note

Or an unknown window glimmers warmly in the night,

Or a stranger walks by, looks you in the eye,

Says, “I am not you”;

And life is new, and dangerous,

And beautiful

Again.

There might not be any other earth

Than the earth I scuff with my feet,

But the rain will wash it out again,

And fear is fertile soil.

The present is a womb,

And the clay can surprise us yet,

Birthing new eyes to new souls.

Our native dirt is rich,

And I learn the universe

Again.

-March 18, 2012

Fun with a $15 couch

Remember, you don't have move to land, just rotate the crop. There's plenty more fun to be had where you are now.

http://not-rot.blogspot.com/2012_02_01_archive.html

Hard In the Rain

Last Friday night I ran hard in the rain. Reminds me of the adage referring to something that was mistreated over the years, "It was rode hard and put away wet." I wasn't quite sure that I wasn't mistreating my body. It was dark, cold (probably about 50 degrees f.), and it was a downpour. I promised myself that I could turn back at any point that I felt it was counter-productive to my health. I ran my whole 5k regimen, and though I was soaked with about 10-15 extra pounds of water in my clothing/shoes, I made it just fine and was fairly warm with all my body heat.

There were several points during the run that I had to reevaluate how I was holding up. I was super-conscious about my health. But what kept me running was the thought, "How many more times will I get the chance to do this in full vigor?" I know there is coming a day that I won't be able to take that risk, or I will be so frightened off by the needless discomfort of the whole ordeal that I won't push myself for the mere thrill of it. I figure with the coming diminishing returns for my passion and efforts, the higher I climb now, will be the longer it will take to fall from the summit later.

While I was running, the Star Wars film score came on my ipod--Luke Skywalkers theme. I felt that I was listening to it, and hearing the story, for the first time. I was reminded that some things in the world come to life only under certain conditions. The meaning of things are not open to us in any circumstance, but it requires us to take certain risks to see from a new angle. Pain and struggle just might be necessary for new senses in us to develop to experience a new reality, to appreciate a new beauty.

I wouldn't recommend running in the dark, cold rain to just anyone at anytime. But if you want to know the kinds of secrets that are only hidden in that place, you might just have to get a little wet. Maybe this is why Novalis wrote, "Why does all that inspires us bear the color of night?" Cold, rain, darkness, sorrow and pain = inspiring? All I know is I felt inspired walking back in the door that night, peeling off 15 extra pounds of thickened clothing, and setting my soppy shoes by the heat-vent to dry for the next few days.

Tattooing my corpse

Welp, I did it. I finally got a tattoo. I've been working on the concept for several years now, but I finalized my idea about 6 months ago. I wanted a tree to symbolize life, with a nymph-like form in it (female) to represent the spirit of nature/creation. I wanted the roots to jut below my sleeve line (the first sight of roots helps to preface the theme), and the tips of the branches to extend to the top arc of my shoulder. The ravens were a last minute addition.

I wanted a concept that would have a long shelf life in my belief system (something that I could still believe in in the next 50 years) and preferably something that wouldn't embarrass me as an old man with a tattoo. I hope you still like it.

The journey to actually get the tattoo...interesting. Believe me, I did my best not to hate myself later. I met with a tattoo artist who worked at Iron Age studio. We found out about him through some friends who got their tattoo with him. He was a nice guy and seemed to know what he was doing. I tried to correspond with Trevor about a mock-up of my concept before we actually drew it on my arm. I wanted some notion of his ability and ideas before I got 'stuck' with his art for a lifetime. He had told me at the consultation that he doesn't draw anything before the actual tattoo appointment, but I was hoping for something...anything to give me confidence. Didn't happen. He said he restricts his work to the morning of the appointment when he'll draw directly on my arm.

The morning of, after showing him my ideas again, he started the first sketch on my arm with a light marker, and asked me to look at it in the mirror to make sure I was happy with the basic outline. I was horrified by what looked like a short bush with extremely diffuse roots. I tried to redirect him, but after several returns to the drawing board, he literally had to stand there in front of the mirror with me as I told him which branches to keep, which ones to erase, and which ones to reform/redirect. It was so frightening to me. Several times he tried to persuade me to make do with a tattoo and plain text (for the quotation) that I was positively unhappy with, and it began to seem that Trevor wasn't as proficient as I had initially thought. Finally, however, he began to understand my direction, and with the building momentum of comprehending my vision, he was able to finish a draft of something, a synthesis of his idea and mine, that I was really happy with. Other than having to re-shade the breasts that seemed 3-d and bigger-than-life, making the branches more angular, and adding some definition to the face of the dryad, he pretty much finished the tattoo from this final draft. (see photos)

I am growing more pleased each day with the result. It's truly hard to say what people think about it. Mostly subdued reactions and a sympathetic "Do you like it?" here and there. Ha! I'm okay with it though. I've thought about my arm size diminishing, but I think it will be okay--even if the tips of the side branches end up touching ends one day! I'm 32...it was now or never. What better time to ornament my cadaver than at the moment when my body is at it's peak performance, a poignant a emblem to my immortal soul that has never been completely severed from the Nous that has given birth to and sustains it. "In him we move and live and have our being, for we are his offspring." This body print is a reminder that the flesh is a short-lived index to the organizing principle of my most inner being that didn't 'poof' into existence at conception. The roots of our material existence can be traced millennia back...can the spirit--the written program of this bodily seed--that orders, bonds, and holds our molecules in existence have any less a pedigree?

I can't think of a better way to laurel the body that my soul is 'caked in'? (Markus Zusak)

Love of Life

Chesterton is the author I hate to love. His words are a beautiful lure, and the worst part is, the parts I love the most are often contiguous with the parts I most hate. He snared me with these two lines most recently:

"We must have enough reverence for all things outside us to tread fearfully on the grass; but we must also have enough disdain for all things outside us to, on occasion, spit at the stars."

"[A courageous person] must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine."

He says that a person who is loyal to his world, his birth--thankful for his very breath--is more like a patriot to life than an optimist. He is ready to 'smash the world' for the sake of itself. He is a lover of life, but a reformer of life, helping his life (and all life) to make the most of itself and reach its fullest potential--its most true self. Sounds a lot like Nietzsche's idea that life is ever striving to surpass itself.

I love this principle of change because it fuels my hopes and idealism. I fear it because it reminds me that the present is always shifting below my feet. I love life, but I must despise it staying as it is now, in this moment; and I can only summon the courage to do that by fully cherishing the moment. To truly love the past, we must leave it so that we may find it's other end in the future. "It is my sympathy with all the past that I see it abandoned" (Nietzsche).

The only way to fully experience my youth is to grow old. "From the tomb of the womb, to the womb of the tomb" (Campbell). God help me to have the courage, the understanding, the hunger to save my life by losing it (Jesus). This may not make a whole lot of sense when I get old, and that's why I'm saying it now. The life I love, the world of magic and wonder is incomplete in the present. It is always reaching, stretching, longing, yearning. The past and the future are one if we keep moving. In this strife, we are never severed from one or the other. We are never lost. This is the paradox of every story we ever loved, every adventure, every minute of life: "Where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world" (Campbell).

Gentle life, gentle death

I didn't discover this poem until about 5 years ago, and it was in the most unlikely of places. I was talking to some guy at UPS (late night shift) about Thoreau's Walden. Now, for the life of me I can't imagine why we were discussing Thoreau...late night UPSers would rather discuss their next joint or the latest video game that sucked weeks from their lives. But nonetheless, I was quoting Thoreau to this dude, and he became still, thought for a moment, looked up into my eyes and responded with the most intelligent line he remembered from his late literature class: "Don't Go Gentle Into That Good Night." My face went numb (profundity does that to me). Uh...where did that come from? I totally got it. I felt like I tripped over a lump of gold jutting out of the spit-strewn floors in that dark place.

I looked it up, and discovered Dylan Thomas, the master of a poem of such probing depth and relentless challenge that now it hangs above my desk, constantly in my view. It stings even now when I read it ("Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way..."), but the sting of NOT remembering to savor, think, act "in accordance with the best thing in us" (Aristotle) would ultimately nick a spiritual artery. Let it be known, I want to know peace, but not peace at any cost. I want rest, but I don't want to be a sleepwalker. I want to die courageously, but some literal quietness wouldn't be all that bad. Figuratively, however, I want my death to be a roar. I don't want to 'stop' before I die. I want to love every moment of mortal life, be grateful for each breath and the beauty (or potential for beauty) all around me. I want to burn bright to the last--"rage against the dying of the light."

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

By Dylan Thomas 1914–1953

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Starry, Starry Night-run

Tonight I ran the bloody hell out of my lungs...and it felt marvelous. I ran late, it was after dark, and Jen had sent me off with the usual "be careful", which received my normal response, "...but not too careful." My legs were rubber at the end of 30 minutes, with my left leg feeling extra noodle-y. When I finished and came back in the house, Jen asked how it went (I love how she cares how it went each and every time I run). I told her it was exhilarating, even though it took me 6 minutes longer to finish the route.

6 effing minutes!! On Thanksgiving Day I finished my first competitive 5 k at 24:30, fastest time ever, but lately I've been having back cramps, joint pain, and shortness of breath. What gives? I'm not quite ready to say in all seriousness that "I'm getting older", though it may be true. Fact is, I don't really care all that much what my running time is. I care about how my time is. And the quality of my time running tonight was absolutely electric. I had a five minute cool-down walk at the end--right down the middle of the dark street, under the stars that were breaking through the sky to reach down and poke my brain from a billion lightyears away. In that moment, I was the czar of the street, under the protection of those flickering legions. I was the center of the world, the eye of the night. I always want to feel that way--maximizing my little life in the middle of the road, feeling at my best for that moment, an easy target of cross-cosmos communiques.

It helped that my pulse was pumping a gallon a second, massaging my veins to a euphoric high. But mostly, I felt most 'myself'. I was there. No where else. No one else to beat. No one else to be but me.

Old man, don't ever forget that feeling you get when you've worked hard and there's nothing left to say or do. Through the breathtaking throbs, and burning sweat, and unyielding pavement...you can feel right. Rest in those moments of new birth in old time. You're where you're supposed to be.