Brilliant But Bleak

Saturday was spent with my friend Tony as he bought a new car. I was the designated chauffeur, which meant I spent most of the day sitting around, people watching, sports watching, and drinking car dealership free coffee (which happened to be Starbucks for the most part). Tony eventually settled on a new Ford C-Max Hybrid.  It is kind of a cool car.  Not necessarily the car I would have chosen, but we are different people. Tony liked it, but like most people he was crashing into a little buyers remorse today.  We'll see how that goes.

Sunday I met Tony and Ty in Fremont for breakfast at the Classic Diner, then Tony and I caught "The Counselor", the latest Ridley Scott film, written by Cormac McCarthy.  Outstanding film.  Typical McCarthy in tone and subject and masterfully directed by Ridley Scott.  I would recommend it if you are a fan of both, otherwise beware that it is a rather bleak film. Brilliant, but bleak.

From there, I came home and loaded up the laundry - five loads worth.  I headed down to the laundromat in Campbell, loaded the big machines up, and spent the afternoon doing laundry and reading SciFi magazine, with a brief stop at the sporting goods store (they did not have what I was looking for) and then Nob Hill for a grocery run.

Home, folded and hung laundry, a simple dinner of a big green salad, an episode of Elementary, a call to the ranch, then an episode of The Walking Dead. I exchanged some text with TR, who had a long day and remained tightly in my heart and my thoughts through the day.  Life sometimes gives us long days.  I know I have had my share, so I can relate. I often wish I had the ability to bring peace to other people - but it is beyond my ability.  All I can do is love and be compassionate.

I'm going to wrap the evening up with another episode of Elementary (I've got two more on the DVR), then perhaps some reading in "The Name of the Wind", and maybe a spot of prayer or meditation, or perhaps both.  Tomorrow is another day at office where I get to pick up that particular set of burdens.  But, for tonight, I am going to leave it laying right there.

I think I fought off a low grade cold or flu over the last week because I was low energy during the day and then flat out sleepy at night.  I went to bed early multiple times through the week.  But, tonight, I feel pretty good - my energy level is about where I would expect it to be at this time in the evening, in this time of the year.  That is kind of a good feeling.  I am curious to see if the energy level runs constant through the week.

Starting A Reflective Day

Just a quick morning entry as I am getting ready to go to work.  Today is the day that I expect to here from my step-father on the scheduling for his hip surgery.  Based on that, I will make my plans accordingly.  My gut is tight and my inner stress level is pretty high. I am going to try to keep a tight focus and move as smoothly through the day as I can. I'll try my best to be authentically present through the day.  My thoughts are also on T.R. who has carried a lot through the last years.  It is going to be a reflective day.

Ordinary Days, On Confidence and Muses

I am planning on working from home tomorrow - I have 10 one hour meetings scheduled in a nine hour day, so there isn't any point in going into the office.  I can sit on the telephone from here just as easily - and I can wear my sweats.  So, tomorrow is going to be a day of teleconferences and email and incidental odds and ends that I can squeeze in between the meetings.

Today however was a good day.  Had a great conversation last night for about two and a half hours, then slept fitfully through the night, but was mostly rested by the time I headed into the office in the morning. The morning was meetings, a quick lunch (Los Gatos Chipotle Alfredo Pasta at Hobbee's) the back to the office for a productive afternoon working the reporting that I am going to take over for one of my co-workers while she is on maternity leave.

Then, home in the evening, a sandwich, a quick trip to the pharmacy, another great conversation, then a second conversation with my step-father  He and my mother are moving aggressively, with the assistance of their doctor, trying to get into the assisted living facility.  It is hard, as a son, to sit aside and not rush in and try and fix everything, but it remains their life, to live as they choose, as long as they want. I can offer my best advice, but in the end, until they can no longer make those choices, the choices belong to them.  "We must allow everyone the dignity of their own journey.", to use my favorite John-Roger quote.

Somewhere, in the last couple of years, I lost a part of myself.  I think I might have shaved if off due to stress and attachment.  It has only been in the last couple of months, as a result of quite a bit of wall staring meditation, that i have regained it.  Now, I just need to figure out how to describe it. I think, tonight, I would describe it as a certain self-confidence.  I don't know where it went, I don't know how I lost it, but it seems to have come back - so I assume it was always there and I just lost sight of it.

My great conversations within the last two days have been with TR and I've loved every moment of them.  She is an extraordinary lady in many ways - and, in her own words, mere in others.  It is that combination that makes here such an enthralling muse.  A person should have a muse in this world.

One Hundred Things

Transformation and change carry their own set of challenges. Whenever I find myself in a period of transformation and change, I find there are things that I struggle with.  That is not a bad thing - there are things we are supposed to struggle with as we go through life. I'd go so far as to say that who we are is defined in some of those struggles.  With that said I find myself redefining as I near fifty three.

It's been a year so far. One of the main relationships in my life transformed, or rather completed a transformation, at the beginning of the year. It happened to coincide with the high chaos at work, but that might have been a good thing. The demands of work were a distraction, a trivial little game that I played to the hilt in order not to be overwhelmed by a sense of loss.

T.R. has slipped, gracefully, out of my daily life, as she had slipped gracefully in. We played at the game of separation for the better part of two years, that dance of together and away and together and away.  Just writing that becomes one of those things, one of those things that I count among the hundred things.

At her request, for all the years we were together, I only wrote of her obliquely. She did not want her life exposed to the world, even in a venue as small as my little corner of the internet and that was okay with me, I understood it very well, seeing that at times I can be obsessively private.  She is a creature of beauty and grace, an adornment in this world. Wherever her journey takes her I wish her all the best.

The arc of our relationship crossed what was, for me, a rich and fulfilling time. I have wondered a hundred times at where we slipped apart,  I have my own observations, my own theories, as I am sure she has her's.

One of the journeys I went on with her was the journey into minimalism, the journey into zen. It was partly that journey that led me to love her with open hands. Whenever I felt myself grabbing, grasping, holding - I simply took a deep breath and opened my hands.

 I've often quoted John-Rogers - we should allow other people the dignity of their journey.  That is a pretty powerful statement. That is not an easy thing. But, within me, there is something that influences that, well more than one something.  There are a hundred things.  First is my abiding faith in God.  Second is my belief in the great mystery of life.  I don't think we are here to understand life.  I think we are here to experience it, to live it, to see all the facets of the beautiful gem.

T.R., wherever you are, I am certain you are embracing life, like you always have.  For the hundred things you taught me, I am forever grateful. When I look around me and I see the hundred things in my physical world you influenced, I am happy. When I go through the day and I practice or experience the hundred things we shared, I am happy. As the Teacher says - may all beings find happiness and be free from suffering.

And at the end of the day, I still love with those same open hands. I am still me, inside all the facets, among the one hundred things.

An Apple A Day

It's an eight meeting today. Normally I would not have even bothered to come into the office today, since I'm basically spending the day pacing around and wearing my telephone headset. It all means that, at the end of the day, I'll be completely fried, especially since I threw myself into work at 5:30 AM.

I am sitting in a scheduling meeting today and, to tell the truth, it's a pure fantasy land meeting. But, it's a pleasant enough fantasy land, especially since I've started to us my Zen tricks to not care about the outcome. I just do the best I can and then leave the rest to the flying monkeys.

My monkey mind was pretty attached today, though the rapid succession of meetings kept me busy enough that it never really got away from me, except for a time or two. I walked and breathed and pulled myself back into the moment.  The scent of the apple pictured above was a great tool to pull me back into the moment, smelling slightly sweet and crisp.

When I go through an emotionally difficult time the tendency to second-guess myself runs wild. The thoughts of the day become "what if, what if, what if..." and they spin around and threaten to run out of control.  But, I replay all the conversations, then think about them, consider what is done and not done, said and unsaid, actions taken and actions not taken - and the weight of things usually becomes apparent, painful, but apparent.

Then of course, wrapped inside of it was a great little section from "The Bowl of Sagi":

October 7th

If is a very high stage on the path of love

When one really learns to love another

With a love that asks no return

A difficult thing indeed, but a thing that we can accomplish.

Running Toward Emptiness

I've been on the journey toward minimalism for the better part of a year and a half now. It was a natural inclination that found a window of opportunity when I was recovering from surgery last year and was definitely inspired and encouraged by TR. She is my touchstone of simplicity among other things.

I woke up this morning thinking about minimalism, thinking about the journey to simplicity, and specifically thinking about what my next steps will be. I've got new carpet coming into the apartment on the 29th. To facilitate that I need to move everything off the old carpet onto the portions of the apartment that are hardwood or linoleum. Since I've minimalized it's all actually going to all probably fit in the kitchen.I may move some of the longer term storage stuff out to the storage unit near my carport. I've flagged half a dozen items of furniture to go.

And I'm about to start when may be close to the final run to simplicity. As I approach it I feel like I felt when I donated my Encyclopaedia Britannica. I feel attached to the things I'm going to sort through and donate. Though there is no real attachment when I think about it it's all an illusion. One of my other personal touchstones as I've gone through this process has been sort of the utilitarian approach to it. I made sure the value of things based on whether or not I use them. It takes some effort but I've learned to set aside my assigned value. I'm learning to understand that just because society or someone else thinks something has value doesn't mean it actually does.

So that brings me to the point where I'm standing right here, right now. Having spent the day in contemplation, having searched for some sort of theme, some sort of inspirational reference, I decided to take an approach that will limit what I retain. Two of the areas where I'm going to do some healthy purging are my movie collection and my books. Now, I haven't touched my movie collection yet. I have previously purchased a lot of books. The book part of it is going to be fairly easy, the reality of many of these books is as much as I like them I don't use them.

And it's that same reality that's going to let me purge a big portion of my movie collection. The truth of the matter is two thirds of my movies I will in all probability never watch again. I'm going to try and restrict it even more, I'm going to try and keep only 50 movies at the most. I'm going to aim at keeping 50 movies and 50 books. I'm going to aim at keeping one five shelf bookcase. I'm going to try and get the entire collection into it.

Honestly, I expected to be hard. Donating the Encyclopaedia Britannica's set was not easy. I really struggled with that for several months. But in the end utility wins out. If I'm not using it what value does it truly half. Most of the movies you can buy for five bucks to for 10 some cheaper some may be a dollar or so more. And of course it got almost no resale value two bucks at best. So why let them take up the space in my life? Purely and simply they need to go.

TR said something the other day when we were talking about a related subject that's actually given me some fuel for this last purge. We were talking about the changes of technology and she had commented that everything of course is going digital and that includes our movies and music. That was an inspiring thing to say. DVD's are going the way of videotapes, they are nearing the end of their run. Regardless of my attachment to them their value falls every single day.with on demand and streaming they've rapidly becoming irrelevant.

So here I sit, on the edge of another short journey of simplicity, coming closer and closer to my goal of minimalism. I'm actually kind of excited about it. I think that the end of this cycle of purging I'm going to come very close to having maybe 10% of what I had when I started two years ago.

Now there is one thing that I'm keeping, one item that I'm clinging to. That item is my comic book collection. My collection of comic books and graphic novels and trades. I'm going to parse through it in the coming months, simply because it needs a good pruning. But that's a pruning I actually routinely do. Like novels some comic books are read once and forget. When it comes time to forget them you simply forget them. Comic books and graphic novels are one medium that has yet to successfully migrate into the digital world. Oh, you can find all kinds of scanned works on the internet. But, a big part of the older of comic books and graphic novels is the format.with that format comes a certain look, certain feel, certain texture.

TR and I had talked about that in regards to regular books. I'm a big fan of my Kindle, I do probably 80% of my reading on the Kindle.but there are certain books we need the actual book. There is a substance to a book that's lost in the digital media. Again, it's texture, it's scent, it's look, it's feel. All of those contribute to the nature of books themselves. It's definitely a Neo-Platonic kind of thing.the shadow of the book is not the book itself. Electronic text is just a shadow of a book. We can learn a lot from that shadow, that shadow can be very revealing, but in the end there is some substance, some invisible essence, that resides in the form of a book. There is a purity in a book, appeared either doesn't exist in electronic text. Poetry, art, philosophy, great literature – all of those best reside between the covers of a book. Does my lifelong love affair with books reveal itself? Good, it should.

The Simplest of Things

I was wrapping up the evening here and I thought I would take a few minutes tonight and write about the simplest of things. Human contact is an amazing thing, whatever form that contact takes. T.R. has been working the last two weeks and traveling, so our contact has been limited to intermittent texts, a few email, and the occasional stolen phone call. (We're used to it, since both of us have jobs that, though different, sometimes require high focus and a high commitment of time.) When we are in these circumstances I am constantly amazed at how much I come to cherish just a simple incidental phone call, her words, her voice, her laugh, her thoughts. The simplest of things and the most astounding of things. So, if you have a moment, where ever you are, whatever you are doing - take it and call someone you love. You'll never regret it. That is my thought for the night, as I wind the evening down and get ready to slip into bed.

I finished reading Dean Koontz's "Breathless" and I have to say - though I loved Merlin, Riddle, and Puzzle - it tapered out at the end and ultimately didn't deliver for me. I followed it up however with an absolute page turner that has me laughing out loud in the middle of the night - Christopher Moore's "Bite Me: A Love Story", which is the sequel to "You Suck". I love Christopher Moore and he has never failed to pull round after round of laughter out of me - and in Bite Me - I love Chet the Vampire Cat. Chet rocks!

So, with Love, Voices and Vampire Cats, let me call it a night. Good night!

Poetry: All I Know

Sitting in the darkness
Inside the coolness of the night
Watching the clock spin down
Gleaming in the stereo light

I hear the sound of a voice
Rising into a simple song
I remember the taste of her lips
Has it really been that long

The memories we carry with us
All the things we recall
The glory of the rising
The pain of the fall

Sitting in the darkness
Inside the coolness of night
Watching the clock spin down
Gleaming in the stereo light

Sometimes love is a tangle
Equal parts rose and thorn
Sometimes love is dying
Even as it's born

The best that we can do
Is let love softly flow
Over the stones of the river bed
It's all I know

Sometimes love is a tangle
Equal parts rose and thorn
Sometimes love is dying
Even as it's born

The best that we can do
Is let love softly flow
Over the stones of the river bed
It's all I know

Sitting in the darkness
Inside the coolness of night
Watching the clock spin down
Gleaming in the stereo light

Tuesday Morning Visions

I woke up with a prayer on my lips this morning. They prayer was "Dear God, thank you for giving me another day to practice compassion and love."

I drove down Williams Road straight into the setting moon. Beautiful.

I listened to Rachel Yamagata on the drive in. Beautiful.

On north Mathilda I saw a flock of white birds rise up out of the creek bottom and do dazzling pirouettes in the pale light of morning.

I thought about friends and lovers.

It is an excellent start to a beautiful day.

Sent from my iPhone

A Thousand Worlds

The phone rings and wakes me
She stirs
I answer quietly
Laying there next to her
In one world
Listening to another
She wakes
Her eyes are wide and expressive
But a mask as she watches me
She hears half a conversation
It ends
I smile
I turn the phone off
I set it down
I have not always made that choice
She smiles
She kisses me gently on the neck
Below my ear
Her lips soft, dry, and warm
She drapes her body on mine
I close my eyes
I breathe
She rises and falls with each breath
A thousand worlds
Today, here, now
This one

She never burned for me...

"She never burned for me. No matter how many times I set myself on
fire for her, she never burned for me." Harvey Keitel, "Life on Mars"

Sent from my iPhone

Sorceror (Fiction)

I was tired.

I was living on the watch.

I had slept three or four hours a night for the last run of days. I had lived in hotels and airports and airplanes. When I slept it was not the deep restful sleep of dreaming but rather the fitful sleep of exhaustion.

I was floating. I floated out of the airport. I floated down the highway in the rental car. I was closer to home than I had been in a long time. I pulled into the parking lot of St. Louise's hospital just after midnight.

The nurse at the desk patiently explained the whole concept of visiting hours to me. I used my Sorcerers tricks to persuade her to pretend the rules didn't exist for me. She would not make the decision alone and had to call her supervisor.

I pretended I was human long enough for them to decide I was human and I moved past the artificial barriers of bureaucracy and took the elevator to the third floor where she was in a recovery room.

We were lovers once and we ended badly in a tangle of betrayal, blame and anger. We found a fragile truce in the years that followed. I do not think we ever truly fall out of love. We change and they change and the world changes. Loves loses its significance in the scheme of things.

She was frail and nearly invisible in the sterile room. She was never a big woman - small, slender, and compact were all accurate descriptions of her. She was substantial. She was always "there". She had presence. In that white room she was only a shadow of what I remembered. Her hair was still lustrously dark, a thick braided rope of night. Her skin was still translucently porcelain. But it was porcelain laid carefully across a gaunt memory.

I picked up a chair and carried it across the room and set it near the bed. I kept my coat on, even though the room was warm. I had a gun on my belt and explanations in my wallet, but I preferred not to deal with the questions that always follow, so I kept the jacket on. The weight of the gun was the weight of the world and I think that it was that weight that bore down on us and pulled us apart.

Her right hand lay on the sheets. It was frail and bore the bruises from repeated I.V. lines, though there are none then. There were other lines and tubes that ran into her and through them moved fluids. I carefully picked her hand up and cradled it in mine. She was flesh and bone, but aren't we all?

Her eyes flickered open and I saw that bright robin's egg blue that stole my heart and tangled my soul. She is in her eyes and within her eyes she is still electric. A smile flickered on the corners of her mouth. I remembered the softness of her kisses, impossibly soft. I remembered the harshness of her words, where, in anger, she cut quick and deep. We are all of those parts of us, good and bad. They are the sum of us.

Her hand curled slightly in mine and she squeezed it a time or two and then let her hand lay still there. She could not talk. Tubes ran down her throat. She simply watched me and I remembered all the other times she watched me. I remembered when those eyes sparkled and I remembered when they flared.

She lifted her hand from mine and found the center of my chest. She tugged at the buttons of my shirt. I stood up near the bed and unzipped my jacket all the way and unbuttoned my shirt. She rested her hand on my abdomen and pulled at my t-shirt. She reached across her stomach and touched the bandage on her side - thick, heavy, taped in place, covering a tube from which drained…death perhaps.

I knew what she wanted. I pulled my t-shirt up. Her slender fingers flickered across my skin, cold and impossibly light. She traced the set of scars there.

I remembered the conversation from years ago.

We were sitting at the pool in the Monterey Marriott. She was under the umbrella, sheltered from the sun, sprawled in a black one piece bathing suit. I was fresh from the pool, sitting on the chaise next to her, toweling myself dry. She was watching me with those eyes. She sat up and reached out and laid her hand on my side, her fingers tracing that same set of scars.

"Did you ever notice that the smallest of the scars nearly killed you and the largest of the scars saved your life?" She paused. Her eyes peered into mine. "I wonder, when we are done, if we will be small scars or large scars."

She kissed me and stood up and took a few quick steps and dove into the pool before I could answer.

Years later, in a hospital in Morgan Hill, I put my hand over hers and trapped her hand between the warmth of my skin and the warmth of my hand. I leaned down close to the fragile shell of her ear and I answered the question she never asked all those years ago.

"You ripped my heart out and left the largest scar of all."

She smiled and closed her eyes and fell back asleep.

The Truth of Us

Red leaves falling
Through the evening sky
Slowly going down
Like the dreams we'd spun

Red leaves lying
In a field of stone
The truth of us
Is just flesh and bone

The truth of us
Is just flesh and bone

There's a sea bird flying
On the evening winds
Riding on the current
Of all our sins

There's a sea bird spinning
On a sky of blue
Every single dream
I dream of you

Every single dream
I dream of you

The smell of rain
Lingers in the air
The memory of summer
Lingers in your hair

The smell of rain
And the coming night
Hunger in your eyes
And a shining light

Hunger in your eyes
And a shining light

Two lost lovers
In the evening winds
Riding on the current
Of all our sins

Riding on the current
Of all our sins

Two lost lovers
In a bed of stone
The truth of us
Is just flesh and bone

The truth of us
Is just flesh and bone

Thoughts on a Gentle Day

When I am writing, I often plumb my memory of the immediate for a hook, something to start the writing process. It usually tends to be a sense memory and from there - a topic often unfolds. Other times is flows out a specific event - either a peak event or a valley event - a good moment or a bad moment.

So, I was sitting here, taking a break from work, thinking about writing a journal entry and I ran through my sense memories of the day. Nothing really stood out. It has also been a day without a real peak or valley moment - nothing extraordinarily good or bad…

And the moment I wrote that last sentence I realized there was a peak moment. It was a gentle peak. Very early this morning while I was in the shower someone dear to me called and left me a voice mail.

It was a simple voice mail, gracious and humorous and sensual, all wrapped in a few short sentences. It made me smile, made me laugh, and gave me a bit of a thrill. I have noticed even as I sit here recalling it that the corner of my mouth has curled in a smile.

All in all it has been a gentle day. It is wonderful to say that. I subscribe to an email list that sends out daily quotes and small articles of a spiritual nature. It is non-secular, no particular religion or bend, just a collection of quotes. There is almost always something inside of there that I enjoy.

Today, it was a quote from Sophocles.

"One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life. That word is love."

That is a perfect quote for a gentle day. The other day in my journal I had written a poem about small gods. I also love the small god of gentle days like today.