Arm's Length

I want to tell it not think it. I want to sing it, shout it, not watch it. I want to breathe it, not feel it; embrace it, not examine it. I want to know it not contemplate it. I want to stand on rooftops, and bridges, and in open windows and I want to scream of joy. I want to dance it. I want to eat it. Hum along to it. I want to roll in it and to toss it in great handfulls into the air, and then lie back as it settles back onto me. I want to recline in it. I want to walk in it, not picture it. I want to awaken to it, and drift off to sleep in it. I want to face it head on with open eyes and goofy grin. I want to open my arms to it.

Impossible Things

"Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast..." -- Alice
What is impossible? If I think hard enough does it make something possible? If I ask for things to happen will they happen? I can think of so many things...yesterday I thought of things that weren't happening at all, and thinking about them made me crazy. Then things that I didn't think about at all happened, and they were good. So if I don't think about something at all does that make it more likely to come true? I don't know how to respond to messages it seems. I have some messages to respond to and I haven't. I have some messages from my brain that I do respond to and they waste my time. It's very early and I'm sorting thoughts like mail, sifting and resifting, unclear on what needs my attention and what can be set aside or discarded utterly. Last night my knees were twingey so I don't think I'll run this morning. I think I'll use that time to focus on the mental clutter instead and move some things into action. Confusion and clutter to clear.

My Avatar

Sometimes inspiration comes in the strangest forms. Like a strange hybrid of Jar Jar Binks and Sam Worthington becoming my inspiration for overcoming my fear of bad knees and taking back my joy in pounding along wooded trails. Yes, it's true. Avatar got me running again and I'm grateful. The joy of Jar Jar Worthington finding his legs again, and racing madly into the day made me realize how much I missed doing the same damn thing. For the past few weeks I've put the running shoes back on and delightedly taken to the trails around the property. This morning I ran past sleeping cows, a pond reflecting the sunrise, a creek bouncing through rhododendrons, through mud and over logs and back again. My endurance is nowhere yet, and thats okay. I'm not trying to run a marathon, I'm just doing the simple things. Like not accepting limitations that I'm not sure are true. So there you go. Thanks Mr. Cameron and Jar Jar for helping me find my legs again. Beautiful.
--Dan

A Tuesday

Inadvertently I find myself in two places at once...bliss and blues. Inadvertently because I intended to keep myself skimming. Why though? Thats the question I'm facing today on this cloudy cold and erratically rainy day. Facing? Nah. Pondered momentarily, then discarded for the richer feeling of letting myself have the experience that I'm having.

Yesterday I spent the day running errands with my Mom. Such a simple sentence, and as ordinary as wool. But it wasn't, because of everything. Everything that you can cram into 43 years of living and learning and knowing. Not even 43 years because what is happening is not related to my life, but to the lives of others and their navigational skills in dealing with history and its relentless hold on the present. Thats not a totally true sentence because the grip of history is weak and faltering if you let it be memory rather than present. But who am I to say how time works in the lives of others. Lets just say that the day was fraught with the current scariness and confusion of the present which was carved like a petroglyph almost a half a century ago. Working things out. Working things out. Working things out.

I was there when some of the etching was done so I understand it, I can remember. This isn't a blissful amnesia. But what I've realized is that the power of the past increases with time until small stakes become dire. I want to remember this because in this time, in this now, the etching continues and I have choices to make about whether I add my marks or whether I put down my stick and my ochre and enjoy the beauty of a unaltered plane. A blank slate.

Bliss. The uncurling of stems in the spring and the sudden appearance of blossoms in sunlight. The warm earth uncovered, the dormant green growing in vibrancy. This is private. This is metaphor. These are the days prior to yesterday. This is a face in morning light. This is a hand on my back. Bliss. Different, separate, mine.

--Dan