So very few of you know what I've been going through for the last 40-something days. For those who do, you have brought me this far, I can't tell you how much that means. People I thought would be closer, could not be- people who I was unsure about embraced me in the most positive ways. It's been a very life changing metamorphasis and I'm really humbled by many of you. Macie, you're more than I have words for...
More I'm learning...
Every decision I make, no matter how small, must be made from the mindset that I'm looking for long-term happiness. I'm in this for the long haul, when I refuse or ignore working hard for the things that will enable my long-term happiness, I will have failed.
Character matters. No matter how much you can get away with.
The right decisions, when made, yield an unbelievable reality.
Say what you mean, stop wasting my motherfucking time.
This is not a popularity contest.
People who you have confided in, will betray you for the sake of gossip. People who honor you will not betray you for the sake of anything. The identity of these people will surprise you.
If I live my whole life and the greatest compliment I receive is "you're pretty" I will feel like a failure. Beauty is luck and money. Everything worth having is worked for.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Impotent Cigarette
For those of you unfamiliar, Macie and I have a fake band named Impotent Cigarette. I will be posting the names of our albums and songs on here shortly. Off the top of my head I can tell you our first album is entitled "Dude, I love your mom too but can we order the pizza now?" and our second album is entitled "Because your mom breast fed you."
One of my favorite fake songs on the second album is "I don't think they party in Cairo, I think it's more like running from the religious police."
Anyway, again- full fake band info will be posted shortly... our only review comes from ourselves which outlines our music as such: "it's not rap, it's more like rhymic speaking..."
One of my favorite fake songs on the second album is "I don't think they party in Cairo, I think it's more like running from the religious police."
Anyway, again- full fake band info will be posted shortly... our only review comes from ourselves which outlines our music as such: "it's not rap, it's more like rhymic speaking..."
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Dear best friend,
I feel that you and I are kindred in so many ways. Often I muse that it is most probable that we were never meant to roam the earth without one another.
Today has been a hard day. It's been a good day, but it's been a hard day.
You haven't ask, and it really makes no difference, but here is what I wish for you:
Presence. Kindness. Thoughtfulness. Patience. Humor. Memory. Sensativity. Passion. Focus. Appreciation. Loyalty. Humanity. Generosity. Vision. Humility. Someone who is dynamic. A place that feels safe. The feeling of falling in step with someone and trusting it's taking you the right direction. Perseverence. Commitment. Good sense.
Hear my prayer.
Today has been a hard day. It's been a good day, but it's been a hard day.
You haven't ask, and it really makes no difference, but here is what I wish for you:
Presence. Kindness. Thoughtfulness. Patience. Humor. Memory. Sensativity. Passion. Focus. Appreciation. Loyalty. Humanity. Generosity. Vision. Humility. Someone who is dynamic. A place that feels safe. The feeling of falling in step with someone and trusting it's taking you the right direction. Perseverence. Commitment. Good sense.
Hear my prayer.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Beauty; it's birth.
We walked for what seemed like forty-five minutes. At four o’clock the sun was beginning to fade behind the dramatic green hills that rolled high above our town, Jaco, on the Central Pacific coast of Costa Rica. At one crest in the path we stopped at a vista which was laid out with two rows of cement benches painted and chipping white. The benches were opposite an arch at the end of the short aisle. Standing out beyond the arch and looking across the countless shades of green vegetation spiriting up through the rainforest and onto the ocean and beach which lay below us brought a whole new life. The group stopped to catch breath and enjoy the view. I was filthy, mud crusted over my overpriced hiking boots caked with the decay, vegetation and various aspects of life that lived or fell on the rainforest floor. I was sweating my ass off in cut-off men’s shorts; I took a deep breath and looked out on the Pacific Ocean below. My legs were so eaten by bugs that I had enough time between overwhelming vista views to scratch my legs until they bled. As I stood and stretched, the sunscreen slowly dripped down into the bites-- stinging as the sweat sunscreen mixture smelted over my open wounds, I paused and absorbed the moment. I stood sweating, smelly, blotched with red bites, and tired.
I am more beautiful in Costa Rica than in any other place in the world.
I am more beautiful in Costa Rica than in any other place in the world.
Beauty; action.
So I'm breaking up the beauty essay into sort of a series of short stories, or in the case, short reflections, each centering around different areas of my life where beauty has unmasked itself.
I'm going to post this section first even though it won't be the first in the set...
One of the most profound revelations I would come to was the broadening definition and insight that beauty would develop. This particular strand I learned through death. It is truly ironic the way life goes about handling itself, as if every lesson has to be painfully learned in the most beautiful of way.
And so it does.
My best friend’s mother was dying. I had sensed that she would from the moment I heard she had cancer. I had felt it in my soul, like when the situation was explained to me I thought, “this woman is going to die.” It was just as clear as day in my mind. And the guilt I felt right along with that made me sick. My own thoughts disgusted me in a way I could not swallow. I had no way of knowing that 3 years later I would be right, but I had an instinct, I felt the hesitation in my best friend’s voice and we both knew this was doom, even if we wouldn’t admit it or look each other in the eye when we would talk about it early on. Then as time went by we would refer to it, as something she had to take care of, something she was doing- a project she was working on-- taking care of her mother. It was easy for me to not dwell on it because we lived so far away and I did not know her mother particularly well. I could forget that she had put aside all of her own dreams, moved home after college and nursed her mother for years until her death. She and her brother, one of the most honorable men I have ever known, were the guardians, the nurses, the angels of their mother’s battle. It was not until things were literally on the edge of all create on that I truly began to realize the lesson I was being given. And I say given, because every single time we have an experience in our life that brings light, brings knowledge, into our world- it is truly a favor that life is doing for us. It was beauty again, becoming to rear its mighty head.
So we got the call while she was visiting me, I remember it was New Year’s Day. We had spent the weekend playing in the city and dancing every night, snorting as much shit up our nose as we could muster. It was a much needed break from reality. We had both just taken showers and were still each standing with our hair up and robes on, chatting about going shopping up in the City when she noticed she had a message. It was her aunt, who was caring for her mother while Jessica and I spent time together. Jessica called back. It was not good. It was bad; it was the worst we could have imagined. We stood in our towels and robes and cried at the dining room table of my shabby apartment. We cried and cried and I held her soggy towel-wrapped head against me. I had wanted to speak up and say a blessing- at that moment I felt moved to speak together with the Great Spirit and ask for something in unison. But I stopped myself. I thought it would make her uncomfortable. I knew that prayer would mean we were both admitting out loud that that’s all we had left. We both realized a little piece of the world was coming to an end. They gave her thirty days. Jessica went home early the next morning. Four days went by, the doctors and nurses said about a week. I called all of our friends and told them to pray for Jessica, pray for her brother, not to mention their mother.
Her mother lived for two more months. In her final days I was with them. Only when I could manage but that was nearly every weekend that I could hustle or borrow the money to drive or fly down and be there. Someone once said to me that the hardest thing to do in life is to just show up. For the first time in my life I showed up. I truly showed up. I had actually been visiting them for 4 days, helping support them when we knew the end was near, and hours after I left she passed. What’s interesting about those four days was the amount of life that the three of us lived, as we watched another slip effortlessly away right before our very eyes. We had important talks, we had more important cries, then we had more important talks than the previous important talk and then we cried harder than we cried before. We read to her and each other, we read alone. We shared books and watched musicals. We listened to the same cd for 4 days straight and I will probably never be able to hear it again without absolutely breaking down and losing myself in grief. But what became of three young adults in their twenties was something more powerful and breathtaking than I had ever known. It was then I learned how beautiful action is, how powerful the offensive are and how desperately painful the passive become.
It was a Monday when she died. It was early in the morning and I hate mornings. This made me hate them more.
I walked differently after that experience; held my head higher. I was beginning to understand more now. Beauty wasn’t just what I thought or how I thought of myself, it was how I handled myself, how I carried my light. I could share it, I could break down and give it away and I could walk on, erect and magnificent to share it with still others. I talked at length with a chosen few, maybe 3 or 4 about my experience. I felt it was private, very personal- and I didn’t want to touch it, didn’t want to get it wrinkled with trying to remember it too hard.
I’ve had this theory that if you try to think of a certain memory to much it makes it more blurry, almost pushes it away out to sea so it’s hard to find in your mind. So I kept this very close to my heart, as I kept them.
The relationship I built with my best friend has also taught me significantly about beauty; has taught me to embrace mine. The balance and trust that we engage in is almost uncanny. It’s like we’re trained animals with one another- give and take; ebb and flow.” It’s a dance”, as my mother always said about family, “you can just never stop dancing.” When you hit a stride with someone in this way, as I’m sure it is with love (hopefully we’ll get to that someday) it’s the least work you’ll ever do. Its work you want to do and I think when you’re in the midst of participating in an action and relationship which you feel so naturally apt- it makes you beautiful. It’s the most bizarre thing in a lot of ways. How action becomes beauty. How trust becomes beauty. I find when we one has these things in life, you can just about see it on our face. It translates into how we look and how we react to our life; making a harmony of sorts.
It took nearly 10 years for me to understand that beauty had nearly nothing to do with what assets you already held and everything to do with the assets one worked to achieve. Grace, dignity, maturity, passion, skill, enthusiasm, legitimacy, sincerity-- these were not things you were born with, these were earned and awarded virtues based on the kind of person you were. I need to believe we are granted these traits by diligence and honesty. These are not things one slips into. One can never say, “So-and-so was accidentally passionate.” Passion is not accidental.
I'm going to post this section first even though it won't be the first in the set...
One of the most profound revelations I would come to was the broadening definition and insight that beauty would develop. This particular strand I learned through death. It is truly ironic the way life goes about handling itself, as if every lesson has to be painfully learned in the most beautiful of way.
And so it does.
My best friend’s mother was dying. I had sensed that she would from the moment I heard she had cancer. I had felt it in my soul, like when the situation was explained to me I thought, “this woman is going to die.” It was just as clear as day in my mind. And the guilt I felt right along with that made me sick. My own thoughts disgusted me in a way I could not swallow. I had no way of knowing that 3 years later I would be right, but I had an instinct, I felt the hesitation in my best friend’s voice and we both knew this was doom, even if we wouldn’t admit it or look each other in the eye when we would talk about it early on. Then as time went by we would refer to it, as something she had to take care of, something she was doing- a project she was working on-- taking care of her mother. It was easy for me to not dwell on it because we lived so far away and I did not know her mother particularly well. I could forget that she had put aside all of her own dreams, moved home after college and nursed her mother for years until her death. She and her brother, one of the most honorable men I have ever known, were the guardians, the nurses, the angels of their mother’s battle. It was not until things were literally on the edge of all create on that I truly began to realize the lesson I was being given. And I say given, because every single time we have an experience in our life that brings light, brings knowledge, into our world- it is truly a favor that life is doing for us. It was beauty again, becoming to rear its mighty head.
So we got the call while she was visiting me, I remember it was New Year’s Day. We had spent the weekend playing in the city and dancing every night, snorting as much shit up our nose as we could muster. It was a much needed break from reality. We had both just taken showers and were still each standing with our hair up and robes on, chatting about going shopping up in the City when she noticed she had a message. It was her aunt, who was caring for her mother while Jessica and I spent time together. Jessica called back. It was not good. It was bad; it was the worst we could have imagined. We stood in our towels and robes and cried at the dining room table of my shabby apartment. We cried and cried and I held her soggy towel-wrapped head against me. I had wanted to speak up and say a blessing- at that moment I felt moved to speak together with the Great Spirit and ask for something in unison. But I stopped myself. I thought it would make her uncomfortable. I knew that prayer would mean we were both admitting out loud that that’s all we had left. We both realized a little piece of the world was coming to an end. They gave her thirty days. Jessica went home early the next morning. Four days went by, the doctors and nurses said about a week. I called all of our friends and told them to pray for Jessica, pray for her brother, not to mention their mother.
Her mother lived for two more months. In her final days I was with them. Only when I could manage but that was nearly every weekend that I could hustle or borrow the money to drive or fly down and be there. Someone once said to me that the hardest thing to do in life is to just show up. For the first time in my life I showed up. I truly showed up. I had actually been visiting them for 4 days, helping support them when we knew the end was near, and hours after I left she passed. What’s interesting about those four days was the amount of life that the three of us lived, as we watched another slip effortlessly away right before our very eyes. We had important talks, we had more important cries, then we had more important talks than the previous important talk and then we cried harder than we cried before. We read to her and each other, we read alone. We shared books and watched musicals. We listened to the same cd for 4 days straight and I will probably never be able to hear it again without absolutely breaking down and losing myself in grief. But what became of three young adults in their twenties was something more powerful and breathtaking than I had ever known. It was then I learned how beautiful action is, how powerful the offensive are and how desperately painful the passive become.
It was a Monday when she died. It was early in the morning and I hate mornings. This made me hate them more.
I walked differently after that experience; held my head higher. I was beginning to understand more now. Beauty wasn’t just what I thought or how I thought of myself, it was how I handled myself, how I carried my light. I could share it, I could break down and give it away and I could walk on, erect and magnificent to share it with still others. I talked at length with a chosen few, maybe 3 or 4 about my experience. I felt it was private, very personal- and I didn’t want to touch it, didn’t want to get it wrinkled with trying to remember it too hard.
I’ve had this theory that if you try to think of a certain memory to much it makes it more blurry, almost pushes it away out to sea so it’s hard to find in your mind. So I kept this very close to my heart, as I kept them.
The relationship I built with my best friend has also taught me significantly about beauty; has taught me to embrace mine. The balance and trust that we engage in is almost uncanny. It’s like we’re trained animals with one another- give and take; ebb and flow.” It’s a dance”, as my mother always said about family, “you can just never stop dancing.” When you hit a stride with someone in this way, as I’m sure it is with love (hopefully we’ll get to that someday) it’s the least work you’ll ever do. Its work you want to do and I think when you’re in the midst of participating in an action and relationship which you feel so naturally apt- it makes you beautiful. It’s the most bizarre thing in a lot of ways. How action becomes beauty. How trust becomes beauty. I find when we one has these things in life, you can just about see it on our face. It translates into how we look and how we react to our life; making a harmony of sorts.
It took nearly 10 years for me to understand that beauty had nearly nothing to do with what assets you already held and everything to do with the assets one worked to achieve. Grace, dignity, maturity, passion, skill, enthusiasm, legitimacy, sincerity-- these were not things you were born with, these were earned and awarded virtues based on the kind of person you were. I need to believe we are granted these traits by diligence and honesty. These are not things one slips into. One can never say, “So-and-so was accidentally passionate.” Passion is not accidental.
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