It’s Not Just Sitting on a Bench to Prove Something

With weather like today’s it’s hard to not drop everything I’m doing to jump in my Jeep and head into the canyon for a hike. The sun was shining and by midday the temperature was in the 50s. However, today was Sunday and I was able to enjoy the peace found within the walls of church. I and the rest of the congregation were able to convene and commune with God and renew our covenants with Him. As I sat there in the chapel, I was amazed and Comforted by the concept that millions of people were all doing the same thing at or around that same time. We sat there, most of us – not to prove to the other people in the rows of pews that we can get out of bed and dress nice to go shake hands with other people who think they’re perfect – to humbly sit, as sinners, in solemnity and listen to the messages of peace, faith, love, charity and hope that other members of our faith have found to help bring them closer to God.

Another wonderful thing about sitting in a chapel that looks like most other chapels is that even though I am far from my family, I know they are closer to me by taking part in the same actions I am. We can be nearer to one another by sitting together on those benches, whether they are separated by 3,000+ miles or not, we join each other in worship.

As I left church and approached my Jeep via the sidewalk, I looked at the snow-laden mountains and felt the sun on the back of my neck. I thought about the water that would soon fill streams and rivers as spring approaches around the bend. The grass will rise again, and with it, the joy in our hearts. Another Easter will come, and we will remember He that Atoned for us – bought with a price we all are, and it is our choice to do with His property what we will; I choose to carry on in the low path and tarry through life’s good times and sorrowful times together, with my family in mind and love in my heart. As for my friends, you can come to!

I Stood Up to Fight

It’s been too long since I’ve visited my blog and written. As I was in Pennsylvania for three weeks visiting family and friends, I tried several times to sit down with my laptop and crank out a few paragraphs. Each time, I would get a couple of sentences in and think to myself, “Who the hell would want to read this?” Over the last few months that I’ve been writing this  blog, I have gotten a dozen or so posts that I’ve really thought “Okay, that was solid, that should evoke some emotion.”

I have to say, I’m really happy with how my last trip back East went. I almost typed back home – in fact I did, I had to go back and erase it – the East is not my home, it’s where I’m from and most of my family is there, but my home is here, in the West. I was, of course, sad to say goodbye to my wonderful Nana (my mother’s mother) and my mother and father. I hoped, as I left, that I would see them and my sister and the handful of people I call friends all again. However, I was happy knowing I would be returning to my own bed and my own niche.

For several years after I moved out of my parents’ house, I felt like a wild animal. Survival was my way of life. I was almost always inebriated or thinking about wanting to be inebriated, or high. Providing drugs, alcohol, food, shelter and companionship were the short list of things I eked to collect – and they are listed in their former order of importance. The evil spirit many of us call the adversary had me pinned down. I was his bitch. God has had his hand in my life in so many ways I couldn’t list them all. He is the reason I am alive and free and not incredibly unhappy. In fact, I am very happy. I have my days where I’m pissed off at the world, and I am nowhere near being perfect, but at least I have my head out of my backside, and the adversary is having to try a hell of a lot harder to win me over. I may have lost many battles in my life, but this war is nowhere near over.

Tomorrow, if the sun won’t shine, and I can’t seem to find a smile in those worn out muscles in my face, at least tonight I know that there is a bright future ahead. This day is almost over. Today I am happy, and I hope you’re happy too.

2011 is going to be a great year. 2010 was really an awesome time. Life gets better as it goes.

My Family – My Friends

Regarding family – I realize as each year goes by and as the holiday seasons come and go, that family becomes more and more important. I am not necessarily a heavy traveler; but I have moved around the country a little, while my family, for the most part, stays stationary.

When I was 18 and I had just graduated high school, the situation at home precipitated a hasty move to my Nana and Pappy’s house. I lived with them for a couple of years and then moved to the West, briefly. From there on, I was more or less living on my own. Among the myriad bad choices I made as a young adult – or overgrown child – I periodically had moments of clarity in which I ventured back to visit my family.

For anyone who is coming to realize their life is changing in their early adult years – as they move on to college or anything else that would necessitate leaving home – I can tell you that if you have and love your family, it never gets easier being away from them. The adage, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” has a lot of truth to it. The longer I stay away, the more often I schedule trips back, and the longer the trips become. Don’t get me wrong…I love where I live and what I am doing. Life is a constant game of growing, learning and adapting to what you have in front of you. If you don’t love what you see and what you have, then you need to find change within yourself. This is easy for me to preach, but not so easy (all of the time) for me to live by. I can say with hope though, everything is going to be alright.

Realize that if you are blessed enough to have a family, whatever its makeup, don’t ever take that for granted. Your friends may change, you may not feel like you have any, or that you have too many – someday you may realize that a true friend is something you’re still looking for – no matter what, your family will always be there in some way, shape or form.

The beauty of a belief in God – no matter what your perception of such a Being – is that we can know, and understand to some degree, that we will eventually transcend the current state of affairs and be reunited with our loved ones again…permanently. In this eternal return to the beginning of forever, we will all be reminded of exactly why we all came here in the first place. Until then, we’ll all just continue to scurry around on this big, round rock, scrambling for explanations and vacations, lattes and smoke breaks, cocktails and bong hits, church on Sundays and Family Home Evening on Mondays, cat-naps and dog-walks, yoga and zumba, spinning and Pilates, facials and massages; back, crack and sack waxes, ad nauseam – my point is, whatever it is that helps you feel a sense of fulfillment at the end of the day, always keep your loved ones in your heart. If we remember where we came from, we should always know where we are and where we’re going.

A Hopeful Concession

It started out as a simple acquaintance. Random chance – fate smiling on two souls. When I looked in your eyes, I saw that glow for the first time. When you’re glowing, you burn white-hot. Your magnetic charisma warms my heart. For the first time in years, you gave me those butterflies in my stomach – the ones I thought had flown away. I never knew I was going to fall for you after knowing you for such a short time. You didn’t know that all you had to do was be who you are, and I would cling to the idea of you and me.

I got caught up in a whirlwind of surrealism – dreaming up a world that existed only in my mind. I imagined sitting next to you, feeling you breath next to me, wondering what your thoughts were. I wanted so much to have that first kiss, that first touch, the first simultaneous thought of “I love you.” These thoughts were all so wonderful to live in. But I trapped myself in a dream that became a nightmare when I realized I expected the impossible. The reality of the situation came to light. The phone would not ring. You didn’t – you couldn’t feel the same. It was unfair for me to expect that. There’s nothing right about a perfect world if it’s only perfect for me. So with this, I say I’m sorry. I finally feel the happiness I should’ve felt before….it’s the happiness that derives from you being happy, no matter who it is you’re with. That, I think, is true friendship. And I’m alright with that.

The Light that Shines

I haven’t visited my blog in a while to write. Lately, I’ve been suffering from a writer’s block. This can be a detrimental thing to a person who loves to write – who needs to write. The past couple of weeks have tolled on my soul in the most hellish ways. I have felt like I’ve been on an emotional teeter-totter, going up and down and always staying in the same place. I have avoided my blog because I usually try to write positive, insightful things. I try to save all of the nit-picky, sarcastic cynicism for my Facebook page.

I feel as though I’m walking through a corridor, any random hallway, in any random building. As I walk through the hall, the lights above my head do not all function the same way. Some are bright, some are pale in comparison to others, some flicker out, pause, and flicker back on, and others do not work at all. My eyes suffer from photon-induced hallucinations that become disorienting and even daunting at times. I squint to see the path that lays ahead of me. In an indefinable distance, there are noises that are sometimes loud and at other times very quiet. The loud noises are like shrieks and cries, certainly from something enduring pain and frustration. When I hear the quiet, almost silent noises, they penetrate my inner ear, and move through my heart and brain. Even though they are nearly inaudible, I can still understand what they are…they are calm suggestions and reassurances: “Pick your head up…keep going…you can do this…trust in me…” and so on.

At times, as I walk through these corridors and my legs begin to feel as if I cannot go on, I sink to my knees and pray for strength to continue. As I kneel, with my eyes tightly shut, I can see clearly a green pasture with a sun shining on it so bright I can almost feel its warmth. With my eyes still closed, I take in this vision and what I see surrounding me. In the grass there is a footpath, lightly trodden and shallow. Ahead of me, in the distance, I can see many who know and love me. They beckon me –  waving me on. But I open my eyes and find myself back inside the corridor.

As my eyes shutter open, the lights above me all flicker out and then instantly they beam on, all of them as bright as they once were. The end of the hallway is not far away. I see an exit sign and a door with a window in it. Through the window shines a light so bright. Can it be that I am so close to finding my way back?

My heart aches for love. I desire companionship more than anything else – companionship from God, companionship from Christ, companionship from a loving woman, and companionship from family and friends. With faith pointing forward, I close my eyes again and can almost taste my longing for the future. Can it be? I must completely accept the now. I must be grateful for all the wonder and beauty that surrounds me. I must rub my tired, tear-soaked eyes. I must continue to stand tall on my knees and bow my head in humility. I must arm myself with strength, courage and faith. I must find that iron rod and never let go. I must always know…He is with me.

We’re Slowly Beginning to See Ourselves…

2010 Revision. This is a slightly modified version of a poem I wrote in 1999. My friend drew a picture and said I should write what came to mind. This is what I came up with. It illustrates the angst that I often experienced as a 19 year-old. In those days, I explored life through the eyes of curiosity and wonder. I often found myself in sticky situations, orchestrated by my own foolish design. The end of this piece highlights, as I usually try to, the hope that I often had to convince myself that I had. I’m happy to say, that hope has brought me to where I am today…in a very hopeful place. Illustration by Nicholas Van Strander

The only time I’ll ever rhyme about the other side of human kind, is when I don’t mind the sunshine, because I only like when it’s dark, at night. On the left side of life, nothing yet, feels alright. I’m paranoid and giving up the fight. I’m out of breath, out of life, and out of sight.

The nervous sweats and urges get to the point where I can’t even write. The pings and pangs inside our veins, where things like LSD remain, cause us to feel the pain and live in vain…but all the dopamine is still the same!

All of us are born addicted to pleasure, sex, drugs and guns – not all-inclusive, I’m forgetting some. But it’s understood, we’re all on the run and born dumb enough to fill in the pun. When we all finally wake up, in a time when we all have enough, we’ll remember all the important stuff. And we’ll walk into the better life where nothing’s quite as rough.

But this still leaves now to deal with. All of the images and illusions, trees, leaves and sticks…the stupid shit that makes the muck so thick. The millions of stupid kids that all act like nitwits. I’m ready to say the hell with it!

We’re all running into one another…blending, mixing, dripping, slipping – all being smothered. We can’t see the difference between ourselves and the others. We’re getting sick and pissed off, pissed on, the world is so cluttered.

Mercy is the backbone of a nation unfounded. That’s where we’re going to when this flight is finally grounded. We’re all scrambling to get there without getting pounded. Some have wasted their whole lives waiting for it and still haven’t found it. But, we all said yes to coming here, can you remember how that sounded?

Whoever She Is…

I felt like I was standing in front of a vertical puddle of the most reflective liquid. I could see my face, I could touch it and it reacted to my palpation. It was as if I could’ve stepped into this vortex and entered into another reality. My whole world was disintegrating before my eyes. Nothing I could conjure would’ve helped me to feel comfortable or calm. I was on edge and anything I thought of only seemed to end in an undesirable future.

As I looked into the crystalline refractions of light that rippled across this portal to another universe, nowhere in there did I see her face. I was refusing to accept a chronology that did not include her in its history. A woman can be part of your dreams every time you go to sleep, but if she is not in your bed when you wake up, the waking world is not worth wandering around in. At least, for the time being, this is how I felt.

I struggled for days to construct a world in which this woman of my affection would finally understand things the way I did. Nothing I formulated ended in success. I, as a man, could not change the tangible variables of life that were suspended in front of me. Am I trapped in this world, where I feel I will never find solace? Will my capacity for love go unrequited for eternities? I looked at every temporal object at my disposal and found no combination of structures that would facilitate a path to happiness. My calculations were of no positive accord. My efforts could no love afford.

Then I prayed. I asked God for the strength to endure, to go on, to have hope when I needed it most. The faint whispers of comfort that surrounded my once fevered head, allowed me rest. I was able to sleep and dream of bigger things, of futures filled with love and success, with family and companionship. I was able to not necessarily understand how the ship got into the bottle, but I could see the wonder, the miracle that it was, simply, there. I thank Him for comfort. I thank Him for a simpler understanding of a complex world. Thanks to Him, I will wake up some day, and she will be there with me.

Newly Efficacious

The onion is the allegorical example best applied. As layers are peeled back, the core is better revealed, better realized. It may take some tears, it will definitely take determination, and what you find on the inside probably won’t look much at all like what you started with on the outside.

As I used to wander through life, it was easy to carry a chip on my shoulder, my heart on my sleeve and a monkey on my back. My mind was open to any possibility, however, at the time, I only put myself in places where not very much could’ve been possible. I was like a photographer using a wide-angle lens to capture a very narrow pocket of space, like the intersecting vertices of two walls meeting the ceiling. I had my head buried in the sand, so to speak, and I was nosing my way deeper and deeper into oblivion.

The day I met the Colorado River, a whole new world of possibilities began to show itself to me. The water, the current, the silt, the blue sky, the never-ending sun, the red rock, the yucca, the whiptail, the turkey vulture and the golden eagle…the list is endless. Torrential adrenaline rushes in whitewater and serene scenery in calm water opened my mind like no batch of acid ever could have. I saw nature for everything it was worth. As each day on the river went by, I knew less and less what this world, this life and my place in it was all about. What was most important, was that I was beginning to feel alive. When you spend any length of time under water wondering if you’re going to be able to come back out, it’s like a rebirth. The river takes you under and coddles you. It shows you that the world around you as a whole is exponentially greater than the sum of all your parts. A niche was found…my niche. This writer of experiences realized that the world is out there to be explored, for every element of wonder there is. This is God’s world and we’re living in it! This adventure is our homage to His creation. This life is His homage to our integrity. The river rolls on down to take-out beyond take-out. Every run, a rebirth. Every breath, another reason to live. This is where we prove our integrity.

Snow, Like Sadness, Falls

Excitement flows inside my veins with blood full of adrenaline. I walk across campus and gaze at the snow-capped mountains to the east. The Northern Wasatch Range stands not quite so tall as its sisters to the south, but still, there is a majesty all the same. From the mouths of the canyons comes a bantering breeze…whispers, that together, gossip of the final end to summer. With a short fall, we already see previews of winter and what’s in store. Powder days on Beaver Mountain, blistering cold winds that chill to the bone, freezing our lungs as we hike Old Main Hill. Morning darkness will soon abide and give way to a sun that triumphs over the morning peaks. Each day, I will address the cold with vigor, I will happily jaunt throughout my world. I invite my brothers and sisters to share in this affection for all that life has to offer. With chins up, faces to the sky, and smiles cheek to cheek, the brisk winter months will bring happiness where we seek.

Sips of Warm Tea on a Soggy Day

Fallen beauty lays trodden in the streets. The cold rains from the clouded skies fall and weigh down the discolored leaves. The gutters run with murky water and drain into their subterranean underworld. Winter’s shroud closes in on us, and we wait for its cold, cold grasp to grip us. We train to endure these slumberless winter days, like the bears endure through hibernation. I wait for those romantic winter days of sunshine glistening in the snow. Alas, I digress, for it is still the middle of autumn. What do I have to worry about? February is so far away, and soon, spring will dawn anew…ending those winter days.

As the leaves fall and the beauty falls with them, I will await the strokes of winter’s paintbrush to blot out the old and make room for the new. As I close my eyes, I will remember all of the fearless adventures we did partake. The springs and summers of past years, and all of the friends we did make. My heart grows fond of friendship in the absence thereof. I look to the green eyes and blue eyes of pale autumn beauty and forget the tan of summer. I look to the grey and pink winter skies and, without fail, will remember…without skipping a beat, will always remember love, in my heart.