Walls Within

An ordinary Tuesday night, and I was mildly bent out of shape over a snippet of douchebaggery I heard about on the news.  By now you've probably heard about the mental belch emitted by Hank Williams, Jr. regarding his idiotic and odious comparison of Barack Obama to Hitler.  Please note he said he was sorry that the remark offended some people.  He didn't say he was sorry to have said it in the first place.

Anyway.  This irritation I was feeling threatened to ruin my evening so I pushed myself to think of something else, something more constructive.  So I got to thinking about walls.

Walls.  The walls we build around ourselves, the ones we build around our hearts and in our minds.  To protect and to defend, to keep out the hurt.  And which can inadvertently keep out the help.

So as I cooled off and backed away from the rant that was forming in my head, I mused a little more on the walls I'm tearing down and the bridges I will build out of the fortress of my heart.  I wondered what it takes to truly overcome the bricks and stones of our souls, and how we return ourselves to the world.

I wondered, how will you tear down your walls, so I can see the true and wonderful you?

Art Thief

I sat down to write something completely different, or rather that was the plan I held from days ago.  But to paraphrase, no plan survives contact with reality. 

I like to to think that we as human beings are works of art, running the full gamut of whatever "-ism" you care to throw at us.  All of us, great and small, beautiful and maybe not so beautiful, abstract and realistic, wondering this interactive art museum we call Earth.  It's amazing and beautiful and complicated, and a lifetime may not be enough to comprehend or understand it all.  We sure can enjoy the effort of appreciation, can we not?  Maybe this is what we humans end up calling "love".

I fancied today that God is a great appreciator of art, too.  This is why every so often He/She/It steals these works of art we call our friends and family, leaving us with empty frames and memories.

In my more optimistic moments,  I picture God as one of those uber-wealthy collectors, who just has to have the beautiful, the rare, the sublime in his own personal art gallery, thus sometimes leaving the rest of the world a little bit poorer.

Be that as it may, if the analogy holds true...I hope when its my turn through the door of the heavenly gallery, I get to see all the art I've come to miss.  That kind of beauty deserves to be shared, just like love.

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In memory of my Aunt L.

Vox Vocis Pacis

The rush and clatter of modern life overwhelms us…

Ambushed by sorrow, overrun by anxiety…


Occasionally a flash of insight penetrates the clouds…

The soul knows to seek relief…

From that which would tear us down…

From that which would cause collapse…

And turn away from the machine…

which growls but cannot follow…

Soul cleaves to the mother-spirit, calling, seeking…

Diving into the balm of good shadows…

Through earth, water and leaves walks the body…

Coming to rest in a refulgent center…

…where listening closely to the sibilant whisper of water, trilling birds and the conversations between rock and stream…

…listening closely…

…it hears the voice of God.

150 Lumps O' Goodness: A Sesquicentennial Of Sorts

I know what I said yesterday about being tired and pulling back, but truly this was too good to pass up.

The Family Unit and I went out for dinner at a nearby pan-Asian eatery. They put ‘diner’ in the name, but I have to believe that the Chinese equivalent of a US diner would be a very, very different creature indeed. I doubt Toto or Kenny G would be the music of choice.

One thing they do have is these big bins along the wall, under the condiment racks, containing big piles of fortune cookies. As part of the evening’s entertainment for Wee Lass I took her over to the fortune cookies so she could pick out some for us.

And lo, look at the fortunes I found! How about that for a tweak on the nose from the Universe?

Sitting there in the light of the table lamps, the “designed-to-make-everyone-happy-so-noone-ends-up-enjoying-it” type music, the clatter and blare of the open kitchen hard upon my ears, my vision narrowed in on those fortunes. It was an illuminating moment.

Combined with the common human fascination with round, even numbers, the fortunes served as the perfect base for this, my 150th blog post in 150 days. Given that my 100th post was a bit of a fireworks display, I thought something more sedate would be nice.

150 posts. Wow. I know there is a lot of hard work involved in that. But I have also had lots of good luck as well. I won’t try to figure that out, I’ll just ride the wave, and have another cookie.

Happy 150th, everybody! Thank you for giving me some good cookies!

I Am (Not) a Rock, I Am (Not) an Island

Setting: Office cubicle, somewhere in Baltimore, Maryland. It is late morning on a cold, rainy day. Sitting in his office chair, a middle-aged architect stares out the window at the grey, wet street and contemplates a future without his current job. He rubs his temples and coughs, thinking this is what it feels to be a dead man walkin’…

If my last day at work had been a movie, it would have bordered on cliché. All the requisite somber faces, the packing up of personal effects, a cubicle with bare walls and dust bunnies on the countertops. Even the weather was playing it up: cold, grey and raining. All day I had that weird feeling of being an outsider, a fifth wheel, a good friend with a contagious disease. Thinking about that this morning when I woke up, I started to laugh. I couldn’t have written a better script without it being totally ridiculous.

Yesterday I received a grand total of two phone calls. No regrets there, I was never keen on working the phones anyway. But it was weird to overhear a page or a call that ordinarily would have come to me ending up with someone else. Conversations like that make me feel like I was overhearing secrets through a closed door, discussions about me in the third person. Remember when you were little, and you parents would talk about you to others, in your presence, as if you weren’t there? Yeah, it was like that.

I was struggling to put my feelings into words, as if naming them would make them less noticeable. Was it regret I was feeling? Was it sadness? Relief? I finally decided it was a mix of the three. A gumbo of emotions, one might say. Hah. Regret that this had happened, sadness that I was leaving against my will, relief that it was over.

The wonderful people I worked with, my colleagues, asked me if I wanted to go out for lunch. Of course I did; no way was I working through lunch THIS time! I did not realize at the time just how many were coming. When we got to the restaurant, there were nine other people at the table! Counting me, over half the office was there. I was touched and honored. The curmudgeon in me was feeling small and fading fast.

Cut to close-up: “Dead man walkin’!” the warden shouts. The condemned musters all the dignity he can, making his way through the office for a last round of handshakes, hugs and goodbyes. The quiver in his voice doesn’t quite disappear. Mercifully his eyes stay dry, no easy task as his officemates offer thanks and regrets, sympathy and warmth. One last hug and a final walk to the dim, cold garage where his car awaits. The steel door shuts behind him, a dull boom that seems unusually loud. He starts the car, opens the garage door, and drives slowly out into the cold rain falling from a sky the color of beaten lead.

So the cameras continued to roll as I drove away from my career perch for the last three years. I did look back once, but not for long. The road leading over to I-95 is a busy one, and I didn’t want to compound the misery by rear-ending another car. It is about a mile to the underpass where I always turned right to get to the interstate ramp.

It is dark under the highway. I consider it a record of sorts that I did not burst into tears until I had made that right turn and was heading up the ramp up onto I-95. And do you know how hard it is to drive at highway speeds, when it is raining, getting dark and your eyes are filling up with tears? VERY hard. I do not recommend it. I felt really stupid at first. Why was I crying? Because I was forced out of a position that, in reality, wasn’t optimized for my happiness? Because the Universe is a harsh, uncaring place and life isn’t fair? Maybe yes on both counts, but only a little bit. There will be other jobs and the universe has always been that way.

The real reason, the main reason, was because I had to leave behind some relationships that were teaching me to truly be human. Three years is not that long in the lifespan of career, but it was long enough. In spite of my animal nature, I was (and hopefully still am) on the way to opening up as human being. I know that this isn’t the end of everything, but I couldn’t help the sadness. The universe may be an uncaring place, but the people in it do not have to be. This is why I broke down; I may never be able to repay the kindnesses I received, the lessons I learned. All I can offer is my gratitude and my thanks.

A job is a job but it is people that matter. I’m thankful I learned that before it was too late.