Magnificence

I stared back

Today I stood outside by the dormant Engineering Fountain where there were kids on a field trip to college playing tag and laughing with huge smiles of joy and happiness on their faces. 
At that same time, a hawk came and landed on the ground next to me. At first I thought maybe he was hunting in the bushes for a mouse or rat but then he walked closer. I didn't move a muscle. He let out a small call and then looked at the scene I had been staring at, the children. He looked back and cocked his head, comparing, as if to wonder why I wasn't running and laughing like the other human things. I stared back.

He flew to a tree and called again. Other birds danced out of branches and flew without intention, free in the air...free like the children. He found my gaze. He flew back down and looked up at me, closer than before. He called once more and jumped at me, I jumped back. Again. And again. His cry louder. Again. He jumped faster. I jumped again and again, until I felt something from behind. I spun around, and a little boy stumbled back ending his giggle and breathing hard. "You're it" he said with a huff. I looked him wide eyed for a moment then at the teachers and gave a smile with a wave, they nodded. The boy cried to the others "The big kid is playing too! He's it!!" My arm shot towards him and he jumped over the bushes laughing loudly, I jumped over after him but stopped. Turned around... The hawk was gone.
The freedom inside our magnificence lies within the child that we are. Like birds we fly through life. Love every moment you have

Fire

The burn of every scarring thought still lingers behind my eyes. 

  ~Combustion of chemicals creating a violent and devouring oxidation of heat and light. That is how the dictionary defines the life of fire.

I am consumed by the everyday patterns of life.  I feel as though it surrounds me from the feet up as soon as I stand in the morning. Then as my interpretations of the current situations grow, so does the kindle beneath me. Like flames, we can't understand the path that life decides to take.  We try to contain it though, put it in a nice and controlled area of security.  Even if you set your fire in a pit, what will hold it from sparking away to the air and lighting one single leaf of a thicket into an irreversible destruction?

My days have been growing heavy these past few weeks.  One thing after another, I keep on getting my feet swept out from under me by milliseconds of a moment.  I know that my actions cause the repercussions which bring me to my knees as I close my eyes at night but what could ever bring these wild thoughts down to a tame constructive idea?
   Then I was struck by something...

       Late one evening after many failed attempts of falling asleep, I stepped outside to get away for a bit. I climbed in my car and drove down to a trail and parked beside the road. Instead of walking towards the trail, I turned and walked the opposite direction to the town's old bridge that is currently being remodeled.  I climbed up the side of the little hill and sat, letting my feet dangle over the bridge that was over-looking the river. I pulled my hood up to block the wind and shoved my hands in my jacket pocket just to find that there was a pack of small cigars waiting for me in there.
       I placed the cigar between my lips and let it rest on the outside of my teeth as I reached for my lucky lighter that I carry everywhere I go. I pulled the Zippo to my face and cupped around it with my left hand to block the wind. The flame was bright in this over cast setting of a night and it danced beneath the tip of my cigar, just tempting it to catch and burn.  I breathed in and watch the flame follow my lead but just as the cigar burst into red, the wind picked up and knocked my hood off my head. In my tired state, I fumbled to catch my hood and in turn, lost grip of my lighter. I scrambled in horror to catch my newly freed lighter and then cursed at the sight of it passing through my fingers and sail straight towards the rushing river.
      I leaped  down the side of the bridge and crawled towards the water in hopes that my favorite lighter would be in sight.  To my absolute amazement, I saw a dancing light above the water.  My lighter had landed on a rock that was only but three inches out of the water. I hopped from stone to stone and got closer to my friend, my feet slipping in along the way dousing my Chucks and sucking the opening of my pants to my calf.
     I finally reached it. The lighter was still lit! After what would have been at least 3 to 4 minutes of chasing after, that good ol' lighter was resting on the rock just dancing away.  I got closer and was about to pick it up when something else caught my eye.  There was something on the rock, or rather in. There was an engraving etched into the rock.  "T+S=Forever"
     Simple as that. I had run across a love rock. There was a story resting in my hand and I may never know but I held one piece that will remain forever.

    This brought me to the thought that, fire it'self burns and destroys. With that unseen chaos of our lives, we are set on fire by passions of  love, hate, confusion, and amazement (better known as the heat of the moment) we tend to forget the light that shines from these situations.  Fire is bright. We can learn from how we are burned.

In these times of trials, I will not lose sight of what is around me.

As I burn, I will see.

Blind Sight

 Here I am. Giving it all again.
   And again, it is still not where
            I need to put my priorities.

                                               

        What is it about love that makes us utterly blind?  It's not as if we can't see the other person and what they do but more as if we would rather stare at every crack in the sidewalk instead of the dump truck that flying off the road straight at us. .

        Silently, I remain a calm person.  As every bone aches with the burning passion to break and twist in a way that no one would ever except.  The only way I can come to terms with the process of my mind is to put all the artistic explosions into one place.  Unfortunately, it tends to come in the color of love.

I say unfortunately because it always takes another to make me feel like one. .

If I happened to be the bystander in my own life I would've interrupted myself long ago and pointed to every road I should have taken. There is a reason I am where I am today and I believe it is because of every right OR wrong road I took along the way.

     Have you ever been in your house alone and the lights go off, or maybe you wake up in the middle of the night to get a drink and you walk down that hallway... the hallway that you walk down hundreds of times in a day but then... in the dark, it all changes.  The corners are closer, the walls seem farther and that picture had never been there before, had it!?

    Love is that hallway we walk down hundreds of times and believe we know it so well.
        Then we become blind and lose our way along with ourselves.

There is always one thing that helps this situation



                                              Finding the light switch.

There is more to see
if you take the chance

            The more that you take your time through those dark hallways you will eventually find what you where looking for but as your hand drifts across the walls, you are always hoping you come across that little piece of plastic because when you do ... BAM!  comfort, ease and certainty rushes over you.  You now know you'll be ok.  We can all find that light switch.  It's just a matter on how you want to look for it.  

I know I'm still looking for it.





All in all, as we grow blind again and again you can be sure to know that in fact, your lovely hallway is never changing . . this is just how you adjust to the light.

There is More

~Searching for freedom in this unshackled state nothing seems clear with this second hand sin choking  my lungs


         I'm trying to find a place where my heart and mind could coincide and feel a general peace around day by day.  How can I see what God needs me to do when it is so hard to open my eyes after being so accustom to being blind?  My childish and untrained hands are still feeling along the walls looking for all the answers alone.  I've never felt so completely surrounded while understanding just how alone I am.

Determination is my fuel, but this rebellion stronghold is breaking. Instead of being so determined on going against the grain I need to search harder to walk along but still on my own path.

Help me find more to this story than just how detailed the prologue is... I'm chapters away from a climax with an unknown end. These are the nights of fear that hold me where I am.

Take my hand and show me that there is more to what I see and reassure me that each step brings a new moment to find out what You want for me.

Tiny Magnets

          I feel like I need to put myself out on a clothesline to dry after today's lovely little talent show of events.  It was a glorious way to start the day as I woke up and couldn't find my left shoe.  Yes, just the left one.  I ran all over the house in my desperate search for my laced bound friend.  I looked and looked EVERYWHERE, till I finally went right back to where I started just to see it wide out in the open.  If shoes could laugh, mine would've lost his tongue cracking up so hard.

   I find it funny that the only time we need something so so badly is exactly when we can't find it.

    I've learned a lot in my days of having something absolutely wonderful and then all of the sudden, it is gone. There was this time I had there tiny little magnets from a Dairy Queen kid's meal, (I was 10, which I believed was still kid meal worthy) with these magnets you could line them up in a certain order on your fridge or other magnetic object and then you could take this small wheel and let it slide down and if you lined everything up right you could land it right in a bucket that came with the toy.  I love that!  I found so many ways to set up those magnets and land that wheel right where I wanted it to go.
 
   I was fascinated with my accuracy and started to get a bit cocky.  I began putting obstacles in the way and would force that wheel to hit other magnets that where on the fridge and then I would start moving the original magnets farther and farther away and the drop for that little wheel would hit harder every time.

   One day I found magnets sitting in the disturbed and wild order I had left them in but something was wrong. The tiny plastic basket was tilting sideways and had a crack in it.  I ran to it and looked inside to find a piece of terrible news... my wheel was gone.

I looked everywhere for it! on the counters, in the cracks between the fridge, in the sink, the drawers and even back into my room.  My fear spread with each new destination and the lack of my wheel.
"Disappeared", I kept repeating to myself because that is what it truly felt like.

   I had not been fair to my wheel, putting each and ever other magnet in front of it and making things more and more difficult on purpose to watch just how far I could get my wheel to fall.  Eventually, I got what I deserved.

Years went by and I learned a few things in life.

Like my toy, I had challenged the very world around me and tested my heights and pushed all the obstacles right in the way and my growing pains consisted of self inflicted defeat and destruction.  Like my toy, I lost many loved ones and good friends by finding myself at the end of a rope that I had cut myself.  Like my toy, I couldn't find what I wanted most.

Almost a decade later, while packing up for college, I went to an old box full of crafts and gidgets from my elementary years.  I was looking at all my old drawings and paper airplane creations while I moved from box to box. I picked one up and put it far in the crevice of my closet and as I did so it got caught on one of the nails for my self and it tumbled towards me.  All the objects crashed to my feet and I sighed, bent down and grabbed a handful, then immediately stopped...

I felt something in my hand and my gut shock described what I held before I even looked at it. .

 

A small wheel.

    Even as a man, my heart flew with joy as my long lost pal had finally showed itself.  I sat, and laughed at memories of my favorite little toy.

    I realized that the similarity between this plastic, round object and my life was so striking.  I had lost my good toy, as time passed I had let it be. Stopped looking.  Stopped worrying.  Stopped hunting.  That was when the time had come for me to gain what I had lost.

So, like my toy, I have began to take life a bit more seriously and instead of making obstacles on purpose, I try to push those tiny magnets away from my path to the basket.

   Never forget what you have - do all you can to hold on 

     Take it slow and watch your wheel go

                                   

                                 

To Begin

Back and forth. That is about the best way to sum up the way things go for me.   I have a strange habit of starting something with this furious motivation and moving passion of will and determination, then it all just stops. Not much of a transition, just an abrupt end to a quick take off.

That is why I'm starting this Blog now.  To truly test myself in starting a new way of sticking on to things.  Even if this is a small fashion of starting a new habit, I'm just thankful to get going on something.

in the beginning...

There is a certain thing about writing that is so captivating because no matter who you are, as you write (whether it's by choice or not) your truest thoughts can be put down in a somewhat organized design and you get to see into the purest parts of that person.

With this Blog, I hope to respond to my daily life in a bit of a controlled manner.  I tend to run myself on a very unstructured coarse that tend to leave me with a very restless way of being.
So lets see how this goes.