Vague pages fill the story of my life.

Nothing is ever what it seems. My life is as cryptic as the words I write. Often people ask me what and who my words are about. I’m haunted by what I can create in my mind – what flows through my tired hands on white new pages. I can create the most beautiful scenes the most amazing stories, but it lives in a tattered worn notebook by the side of my bed. I exist merely in words. There are no happy endings without words – just fluttering moments like butterflies or the shift of the wind. We get moments of what could be and what will always be…Then the very movement of the world creates a shadow of what is. How I wish and long for the super power to freeze time outside of my pages. How I would suspend the moments that made me feel hopeful and alive and wallow in them. I would bask in the sunlight of each sliver of human kindness, of passion, of love, and most of all of feeling. The kind of feeling that does not judge, does not hold back does not challenge. It just is. I would laugh at those who told me this was a lesson – all things I am learning – this too shall pass. I would just freeze time and exist for awhile in my safe place. I would see them all there – those who inspired me and made me feel whole when I was a shell. I would smile but say nothing as I walked past them. I'm walking down a long stream barefoot in a spring meadow filled with yellow flowers for miles. I'm looking for someone in particular - the one I look for most these days. Seeing in the distance a form alone just past the trees I hesitate and soak in the feeling of who I know is waiting there. Slowly... holding my breath I would carefully step closer. I would join and sit with my shadow friend for awhile – just exist with him suspended in a moment and the past would play like a video tape before us – only the good parts – the parts when I felt alive and less tired and worn. The parts when real life and it’s real 'worlds' didn’t collide. Nothing shatters on the river bank near my stream. There is only moss covered trees that sway with an inviting breeze, muttering glittering pools of clear crisp waters rolling over rounded rocks, the smell of new soil and green foliage, and the promise that love can truly conquer all. “I don’t want to go back” I mutter to the shadow friend beside me. “Do we really have to go back?” I ask the silence. I know the answer. I always know the answer. What if this time I can’t dusk off my knees and return for another round. What if I can’t keep moving forward when there feels like there is nothing to move forward too? Cowardly, I hide behind all good things blocking out my reality. My shadow friend shifts. His brilliant face tilts and sad blue glass eyes look back at me. He will return – he won’t stay here with me – time can only freeze so long. He wants to go back – the thing he needs exists in the real world. Let him go… let it all just fade away. Moments. A handful of moments cupped in silly little hands. Vague nothingness of crumbling pages like a forgotten and overlooked torn dress.

The Egg Timer War

Tick... Tick... Tick... time is restless and fading. I see the mental picture of the egg timer my mother had in her kitchen when I was younger. I was six years old when I realized it was moving and would sometime soon ring. Done. Final.

Rush... Rush... Rush... racing the clock to fit it all in before moments become silence and all that is left is wishes.

Feel... Feel... Feel... trying to soak it all in before love runs out of time. My breath catches - his smile changes my mood. Spinning and running into a breeze so light.. so young.. so free.

Hurry... Hurry... Hurry... things change.. people change.. and he could be gone. Time changes without you. Keep up, dont trip, keep going.

Realize... Realize... Realize... the tiny fragments we have are priceless pearls in my collected box of moments.

Reaching... Reaching... Reaching... for everything out of reach, wishing for stolen kisses under the stars, rushing to feel everything before the eggtimer rings, hoping each corner I turn was the best choice for me.

Sigh... restless.. wanting time to suspend and stop so i can catch my breath...

Einstein My Soulmate...

"The World As I See It"
An Essay By Einstein (http://www.aip.org/history/einstein/essay.htm)


"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving...

"I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible.

"My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude..."

"My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the few ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that for any organization to reach its goals, one man must do the thinking and directing and generally bear the responsibility. But the led must not be coerced, they must be able to choose their leader. In my opinion, an autocratic system of coercion soon degenerates; force attracts men of low morality... The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.
"This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man... I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."

The What If Game

When I was little the game of ‘What if…’ was my favorite – ask my mother she will tell you how exciting it was to play this game with me- day in day out. ‘What if…’ is my own little personality flaw and now as an adult I still play this game frequently. This game is often my greatest nemesis and sometimes my best ally – depending on how I decide what frame of mind is controlling me.

Today, I keep repeating - What if everything works out just fine? What if nothing is really as hard as it seems? What if my life is going exactly as planned and something spectacular is just around the bend? What if I just keep smiling until things stop making me so sad – will I believe it then? What if love sometimes gets hidden in the folds of stress, but it’s really actually there? What if I let myself fall and everything doesn’t shatter? What if for one day – I am not afraid? What if I just feel thankful? What if I stop over analyzing every little thing? What if I walk up to him and say exactly what I feel? What if I just feel content in my own skin? What if I decide to become best friends with myself? What if I am the answer to all the problems?

And this folks is how you play the game… now you know how noisy it is in my mind.

Stars and Dark Cluttered Corners.

Sometimes in worn shoes I go dancing on the thread of existence. Other times I hide behind a willow tree peeking through long flowing limps until the coast is clear. Today, I am neither of those things...

Right now, I’m dreaming of a blue truck with a white camper driving down my street to knock on my door and invite me to stare up at the stars for awhile. A perfect recipe for an evening is only complete with silly grins, funny pauses, blue jeans, backward baseball cap, intoxicating presence, and the fear and excitement of what it truly means to learn what defines someone.

I think the best part in life is getting to know someone who lets you in – to see all the cracks in the foundations, the mismatched furnishing of their lives, and the dark cluttered corners they hide. Realizing we are all cluttered, worn, shattered, and afraid … sometimes. It’s the broken pieces, the awkward knick-knacks, and the sloping foundation which makes a vintage dwelling truly amazing – because of its personal story. Sometimes the rarity makes it feel like home.

My favorite moment is when I am invited inside- to see the complete person - what nobody else can see from the outside… and then realizing that even after I have been shown around, I still unconditionally want to stay and clear out a dusty worn room.
The best part of my day is when you invite me in to look around your world.

Taking a Ride on My Crazy Train

Back when I was a kid - I thought nothing would was worse then when I realized there was no Santa Claus. A tiny human realizes the world you knew is shattered and you wonder how much of what you were told was never really true at all – by the people you thought and would always believe would never lie to you. Over time you realize it was a “kind lie” the kind of lie that told across the nation for the fun and spirit of an American Tradition. Ever notice how it’s ok to lie for “Traditions” sake? I always find this kind of collective reasoning amusing.

What is worse then the Santa Claus realization is believing in a cause and a person who you once respected, admired, and thought of as a mentor. When the colors of a person change and the banner you use to wave in there defense seems heavy and humiliating... you are left with a vacant feeling. There is nothing worse then realizing everyone has an agenda and that at twenty-eight years old you just figured out what most figure out at the age of sixteen. When you feel like the last naïve person left and you realize the supporters you thought were behind you, left the show a long time ago.

Lately, I have been feeling like the guy on the side of the road that stands there all day with his cardboard sign with hand written letters that says: “Honk for Peace”. Only this peace loving Average Joe seems excited and eager for his message, and never notices he is standing on this little corner all alone – waving his message with a smile. Granted, for all I know he suffers from a mental illness and has a slew of people with him in his mind, but seeing him always makes me silently sad. Like him and I are both the same – wanting to believe in something extraordinary in a world that might only be capable of ordinary. Perhaps our delusions of unrealistic beliefs in humanity is a mental illness, maybe me and peace loving corner guy are just strange crazy eccentrics in a world full of self indulgent developmentally stilted adults.

If I am mentally challenged in my view of the world, then I guess I rather be hopeful and believe in what I thought I saw in those around me who wore a mask and offered a lie. I choose to take the crazy pill of kindness without agenda and without personal gain. This is my kind of crazy – and I just hope the world doesn’t “get to me” and somehow change my crazy into their idea of normal. I just have to believe – in the hope for extraordinary

Shackled Life

Overwhelmed with life – I step outside. Then silently I stop, as if walking into a room and interrupting two lovers, I stand looking down the empty street watching the wind shift debris across the ground. As if not to interrupt the leaves, I inch closer quiet and watch the twirling and spinning - A synchronized dance under the brilliant sun. I am hypnotized. If only I could escape in the motion and become part of the performance. Air playful tosses around my hair as an invitation. It’s unbearable to resist joining the chaos of shifting change. Envious of the paper, leaves, and bags suspended in the air as the cell phone in my hand reminds me I am late for work. Remembering the chain on my ankle a mile long with worries, car payment, insurance, rent, bills, work… I limp to the car dragging it with me. Pulling out of the driveway I take one last glance at the dance – I dash away a quick tear and head in the opposite direction reminding myself… I am all grown up.