The Only Stoneless Grave

Doesn’t feel like home yet
Driving to the new house
Fifteen minutes in
Night turns me around
Up a gravel road
Lined by sentinel trees
Which loom over my decision
Frightening me almost
But not enough to turn back

Slowly, so as not to interrupt
Those who are sleeping
Gravel crushes against itself
Underneath the foreign tires
As headlights illuminate stones
And I creep the car forward
And backward again
Attempting to locate in limited light
One spot in particular

Even though wind blows
I know it’s not the cold
And I’m unsure if it’s the darkness
Or the mission I’ve undertaken
That gives me these shivers
For which this scarf does nothing
As I stand in this garden
Which I haven’t been in
For a long while

Sometimes one has to just
Do a thing instead of thinking
So that it’s not too frightening a task
You taught me that
So I park my vehicle
And quickly shut the door
With myself on the other side
Letting pride to take over
And lead the rest of the way
To the frightening destination

There is still no tomb stone
Just a plastic marker in the grass
Broken rusty and dirty
Waiting to be replaced
With little inspiration
Especially when compared
To the one next to it
Bold dark stone with tiny stars
Given flowers unlike this one

Unsure why I’ve come
Standing before the expectant site
Afraid of what to say
That it might sound wrong somehow
To me or the invisible
But honestly it was never meant
To sound like poetry
Just simple honesty
Straight forward honesty

So it comes out
Accusations for the hurt
And expression of the pain
That might have been prevented
By the absence of a choice
That is frighteningly permanent
And regretfully affecting
Providing questions to which
The answers will never satisfy

Strange I suppose.
Home is where the heart is.
Lame phrase.
What happens when
Your heart has been broken?
Are you homeless?
Forever lost between worlds?
As I stand in the garden,
Before the only stoneless grave.

Sometimes

                  I find
                        it's not so impressive
                              sometimes

                  when I ask a question and
                  SomeoneAnswersItQuickly



      I mean,

            yeah that is impressive
                        to some degree

      But to have

                        One Good Answer

                  even if it takes

                              ...more
                                          time...

                              or
                              ...more
                                          thought...

                              is
                              ...more
                                          impressive...

                        ThanOneFastAnswer




            And yet,
                  sometimes,
                        more impressive
                              than both

                  is the answer

                        "I don't know"

      Which takes more courage
                        more trust
                        more love
                                    enough to be ok
                                    with not knowing an answer

            And sometimes
                        ...silence...

                  is the perfect answer.

Together

I can't tell if that is my stomach being hungry, or loneliness. There are times I envy married people because it's a less lonely world (and not just for the easy meals). For those of you who know me well, you know how hard it is for me to admit something like that. I don't like the idea of being completely vulnerable and open with someone, and yet I feel as though I miss it dearly. How truly marvelous it is for those who are married to share that safe world together where it's ok to be vulnerably open with the other. How beautiful to be able to share life and all it's wonders together.

That is something I miss. If I ever had it. To laugh, to smile. To hope, to hold. To lift, to comfort. To praise, to play. To dance, to sing. To grow, to live. Together. To live in the beauty of the moment or the rush of the day, or the schemes of special occasions, or the calm of summer reading, or the invigoration of discussion, or the chase of the dreamers dreams... together. Any and all become a cure to the lonely soul. And possibly hungry stomachs.

Not Just Mess

If you ever decide to rob me, check the bible. That's where the valuables are.

Most ELSE of value lies on the floor. To be stepped upon, unfortunately. Microphone... video camera... CD player... even a portable sewing machine (don't ask). I would like to insist that this is just my way of reinforcing the belief that "stuff" in comparison to people, isn't worth all that much in the end. Just joking. I don't actually leave stuff on the floor for that reason. It's just a junk yard for a short/small amount of time (hopefully!!) until I get my mind sorted properly. I've said it once, and I'll say it again: The state of my room directly correlates to the state of my mind. If one is messy, the other will be also.

And messy - my mind is. It's a jumble of half-hearted successes and whole-hearted failures. When an opportunity comes my way, I'm likely to misguidedly refuse to take it due to my lack of cognitive ability in that moment or I may accept with momentary clarity of mind, only to thwart myself later (once again) with a lack of cognitive ability. Either way, you can likely imagine the state of my room, as half of it is whole-heartedly organized with shelving, drawers, labels etc, and the other half is half-heartedly "almost" organized on the floor in different semi-quadrants of my room by what would be defined as "mess". And I wish that every time I removed an item from the floor, some part of my life would magically unravel itself and grab hold my brain to say "a good idea for you to chase right now would be [insert high-priority activity]".

But it's easier for me to ignore the messy room for now, just as it's easier to socialize away my problems, and simply procrastinate the things I know I ought to get done. I've learned lately that I say "yes" to all sorts of different activities, to avoid the inevitably uncomfortable ones. I wish I were a little more on top of things because there are many things I would like to succeed at and seem incapable of succeeding at. Unfortunately, I have big dreams, lots of pride and a very SMALL attention span. All in all, not a good combo for success.

Is it silly to hope for that to change? I'd say no: step one is to hope. Step two would be to DO something about that hope. Which I will call faith. Step three would be to thwart the challenges that make me want to quit by exercising faith a second time to persevere enough to actually SUCCEED. (^^ you can tell I think too much when...)

There's a whole lot of wishing on my part, that I could get up the guts to be more than I am. I believe I can achieve success, but for some reason it's hard to make it real. I wish it were more than wishing. I've come a good distance through this journey so far, but I have a ways to go yet. But I'm a speed junky and don't like to wait. Apparently I have a lot to learn.

Stories end. Life doesn't.

Life keeps happening, doesn't it? It's actually a strange concept considering how many stories I'm used to ingesting via movies and books. In all of these stories, there are endings. Sometimes things nicely wrap up and resolve themselves, and other times it just ends messily. Either way, you can always predict one thing: The story will end. But life isn't like that.

I think that life ought to have stopped for me some time ago considering how nicely everything seemed to be fitting into place, and how awesome an ending it could have been for a movie or novel. The main character wants courage, friends, and a lovely home. The main character is afraid of everything in life, has no friends, and is a vagabond. The main character goes through hard challenges, bests the challenges and becomes courageous and happy with everything they had originally hoped for. The End.

But like all good novels, strange and unpredictable twists are thrown in last minute which completely shake the foundation of the audience (in this case, myself), and test the newly acquired abilities of the hero. Strangely enough, it feels that I closed one chapter of my life recently (the one with the happy ending wherein confidence replaced fear), only to find that there was another chapter already in the making. Beginning the story by living in fear and living in the shadows of unknown outcomes, my life was somewhat small and unexplored. Afraid of trying new things, afraid of people, afraid of myself, afraid to live... That was me.

Some time ago, I faced a few changes in my life that have completely swathed me in new experiences where two simple ingredients have changed the world I used to know. In the first chapter of my life, I would have let my fear guide me when faced with a tricky situation and taken the easy way out. But then I stumbled upon faith in God and this strange thing I call Doing-it-even-when-you're-so-scared-you-are-shaking-bad-enough-you-could-stick-yourself-in-the-arctic-and-warm-the-place-up. Otherwise known as choice. The world I now know is bright, hopeful and full of light. Choosing to do something even when it's freekin' hard, or when I can't speak I'm so scared, is the difference in me between now and then.

I smile more. I trust more. I have confidence. I see truth. And I am happy.

And then the next chapter of life hits.

There's this family move... and reaching toward a mission... and a crazy stressful job... and the recording of my music... and this out-of-the-blue guy... and an attempt at publishing a story... and rifts and bonds of friendship... And all at once, I am faced with myself. Did I REALLY learn my lesson? Did the main character hold to the values she learned? I ask myself this briefly, each time I take a new step past one of my old fears. I look at my metaphorical reflection and exclaim, "No. See? This is who I am now. And I can conquer this fear too," then I step forward and choose to make waves in the ocean on page 1037 of chapter 2.

And I know I couldn't have this without God. I didn't have this courage before I knew Him. He taught me what it is to be happy and to love and to live. He taught me to trust again, and to enjoy the moment. He taught me to see through eyes I have never seen with before, and because I see what I do now, I know He is.

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."
C. S. Lewis

Again and again, I can not deny what I know, because again and again He's shown that He lives. God lives, and because He lives, I live. And now, I want to share what I know. It's burning like a fire, steady, warm and contagious... But this doesn't mean I don't make mistakes. I've hurt people and I don't mean to. Even so, I've learned that making mistakes isn't bad. Failing to learn from them kinda sucks, but even that isn't "bad". It just kinda sucks. It makes people less happy. When people hurt other people, it just isn't as happy as it could be. And that's what I believe wholeheartedly. That life is meant to be happy. That's the point. Chase dreams, live happy, make friends, share, serve, be together. This is happiness. This is real. This is the moral to the story for the last chapter I've been through.

I hope this next chapter has as good an ending as the first. Life keeps happening, and now, I'm finally ok with that. I'll embrace it even. I am finally free, and I've got a freekin' awesome sidekick. Come on, Life. Keep happening.

Glow Stick Dance

This is a project a bunch of us worked on. We had tonnes of fun. I wish you could see the little things we had on there, but the footage wasn't the best. I'll upload another version when possible. There's a rocket ship that goes across the stage, and a superman symbol at one point. The other video will show it better.

How to take down the Board of Directors (metaphorically)

There is something I want to put a name to. But I feel watched like a rodent being hunted just in mentioning it. There is a name for this thing that I wish to speak out loud, but I fear the hunter. Who is the hunter? I think it is several people, myself included, locked in the room of the Board of Directors. And yet the hunter can be summarized into one horrific word: Fear.

I want to say it though. I want to tell myself out loud that I know it’s name and I know where it is, and let myself know that I’m coming to find this… this… thing.

There are oceans to sail, mountains to climb, souls to meet, adventures and dreams to discover, and while I sit here writing all these things that I ache for in my heart, I feel a part of me slip away because I know that it’s all just wishful thinking. The Fear will not let me have these things. It will not let me take risks. More than anything else in this world, the innermost workings of my soul seem to Fear the one thing I ought to already have, and that I want most: a Life on Fire.

To live, to feel excited, elated, empowered, on fire! And oh how I envy this in other people - when they are alive, with a glow in their eyes - I can not. I am filled intensely, immediately with the Fear. Overpowering, petrifying, damning… I remain shackled and hunted. At any point when I let out for a moment the desires of my yearning soul for adventure, love, or life, I am turned directly over to the Board of Directors who unceremoniously and predictably steals my feet from beneath me and leaves me hopeless, struggling and fatigued.

I am so very tired. So very tired of the battle that is constantly raging and killing inside. So much of my life has been stolen by the phrase “What if …”. I fear life - really living - more than this half-dead state I am in. How backwards is that? What happened to that Flame? Where I can I go to access it? If the hallway that leads to the Board of Directors is in my physical form, then is not the Flame of Life hiding somewhere in here too? Maybe I just need to explore these rooms some more… these corridors, and storage rooms in my head. But the problem is, if I go exploring and I get caught, I’ll go straight back to the Board of Directors. And somehow I always feel that my mind gets wiped of any and all traces of the Flame, so I have to start from scratch if I want to search again.

In other words, if I begin searching for a way to make me feel excited and happy, the Fear will immediately kick in, and find me, and haul me off, stealing any chance I had of becoming excited or on Fire. So maybe what I need to do is find a way to get rid of the Board of Directors. They aren’t doing a very good job of directing… Maybe I can get rid of them. If I get rid of the army on one side of the battle, then I should be able to stop the war.

So how do I get rid of the Board of Directors?

June Beetle

I've never seen a roach fall out of a sock before. Or maybe it's a June Beetle. It's dead unfortunately, so I can't ask it by which name it is called. It's dehydrated too...

It wasn't my sock though. No, it was some sock from some factory in China. It sat on the little hanger in the Dollar store. It gives new meaning to "If you get it from China, you probably shouldn't put it in your mouth." And yeah, I know that we don't normally put socks in our mouths, but it does not encourage me to put my foot into it either. Quality control, anyone?

And well... The truth of the matter is, I was actually going to buy the stretchy sock to pull over my head for a ninja mask for a costumed dance performance. Not anymore.

I brought the bug home. Does that mean I stole it? I mean... I didn't pay for it... or tell the cashier....

o.O

Things I learned today

I learned two things today of very high importance. They both have great significance to living a happy and fulfilling life.

First, I learned that if you know you should do something, but don’t really want to, write it down on a list of other happy things you want to do, and don’t do anything else on the list until you get it done. And then, not because you are permitted to, but because you are instructed to - laugh after you complete the task as though you were a crazy maniac.

This will a) make you look crazy and frighten off people who may deposit on your lap future projects that you don‘t want to get done either, and b) helps you feel like you accidentally took over the world - thereby reinforcing the effectiveness of the priority-list-making-technique.

The second thing I learned is this: DO NOT PUT THUMBTACKS IN YOUR POCKETS - especially if you have thin pants - that are not jean. After which, I learned to NEVER FORGET THAT YOU PUT THUMBTACKS IN YOUR POCKET. I also learned to, NEVER PLAY YOUR GUITAR BY RESTING IT ON TOP OF A POCKET THAT HAS FORGOTTEN THUMBTACKS IN IT.

Very uncomfortable. And somewhat shocking. And simply thoroughly embarrassing.

ETERNITY - ʎʇıuɹǝʇǝ

Yay! It worked. So this is mostly for you, Ryan. Karen, this is what I wanted to send.

And for the rest of you, well here is something fun I made because Ryan had an idea to turn the text upside down so you could read it any which way. You can turn your head upside down and read it that way too.


:)

Love!

TJEd Presentation

3. Simulations
4. Field Experience
5. God

In any given classroom, there are 4 mentors present:

1. The instructor
2. The work they are studying
3. other students
4. God

The three fundamentals of GWU are:

1. Read
2. Write
3. Discuss

And lastly, Community:

Community is simply the belief that students should be well rounded, thinking of other students, lending assistance, reaching out where one knows more than another and so forth.

I hope you enjoy the presentation. For any more information, there's the book "A Thomas Jefferson Education" by Oliver DeMille, and the website of George Wythe University.

1. Shake hands with a celebrity

Quite some time ago, somewhere in the vicinity of a year and a half or more, I went to Waterton with a foursome group. There was Christy, Dustin, Davis, and some other kid I still can't recall the name of.

We went to Waterton - a really great national park during a time when the grounds were impeccable - the perfect season for exploring. I didn't feel like hiking so much as just wandering around and enjoying it all. Davis was of the same mind set. We kicked around for a while enjoying the scenery and then after quite a few hours, the other three came back from the hike, and we went for ice-cream in the tourist part of town.

I noticed a sign across the street about some sort of appearance by David Suzuki. I absolutely loved watching his television programs as a kid. I loved his insight, and his stories, and of course the pictures. After the initial shock/wow-this-guy-is-actually-here, I mentioned to the people around me that there was this great opportunity to meet this famous person right across the street from us.

We headed over to the book store across the street, and immediately I saw him. I saw David Suzuki. Not in his glamorized form, but in his disheveled appearance of a book seller.

But that was it. I personally didn't go talk to him. Jon, Christy, Dustin, and the other guy all went up and talked to him. Shook his hand. Inside I was shouting "NO! This is MY personal hero! This was MY hero, and they didn't barely know who he was! How dare they go talk to him when I couldn't!"

But that's just it. I couldn't. It's not that I didn't, or shouldn't. I could not.

That haunted me the whole trip back. The question kept going around in my head, "why couldn't I talk to him? Why couldn't I shake his hand?"

Since that time, this experience has been relived by me over and over again as I have met incredible individuals who I can not speak to or confront in anyway. I've watched members of the 70, celebrities of note, and acquaintances whom I respect greatly all pass before me like pages of a book I wished to skip. And each time I have questioned myself. "Why? Why didn't I speak to them?"

And since then I have found an answer. And the answer hurts. I couldn't talk to any of them because I was afraid that I was so insignificant that I was unlovable. So insignificant that it didn't matter what I said or did, they would either take no notice of me, or barely tolerate my frustrating intrusion on their world. I have come to understand that fear that I am just another face in the crowd, unlovable and despicable and I do not wish to pester them. For they, of all people do not need to be pestered by people like me.


Yesterday I realized something different. Someone who I consider amazing was leaving on a mission. I don't really know him all that well, but I've seen him quite enough to realize that he is open and giving almost constantly. Every time I have seen him, he has a smile on his face, and a compliment for someone, and always always genuine. I couldn't speak to him. In the same way that I watched Davis, and Christy and Dustin go shake David Suzuki's hand, I watched my friends go talk to and congratulate this man.

At first I sunk into the same depressed state as with Suzuki. I lowered myself down with thoughts like "Who would want to talk to me? I stutter, and I'm awkward. I'm a nobody to talk to someone so amazing."

But then I just stopped. "No. I don't like this. I exist, and I'm proud of that fact, not embarrassed by it. I don't need to be ashamed of who I am." It surprised myself. For some reason I didn't want to let others get what I wanted, while I just sat there, jealously envying them. I wanted to want, and be ok with wanting.

I'm ok with who I am. I don't need the rest of the world to reach out to me before I get what I want. This is new, and I'm still adjusting, but I'd like to prove to myself that this is really what I believe.


So, this is to the Next Celebrity I have the opportunity to meet: I'm shaking your hand. Not because I want your contact, but to prove that I can do it. To prove that I am ok with myself enough and believe that I am not of lower rank than you. Sorry if that's inconvenient or intrudes on your little world, but that's life, and if shaking someone's hand intrudes on your world, then that's an interesting fact about you, not a sin on my part. And maybe we can even have a decent conversation. I think that would be nice.