standing on fishes.
The deep parts of my life pour onward,
as if the river shores were opening out.
It seems that things are more like me now,
that I can see farther into paintings.
I feel closer to what language can’t reach.
With my sense, as with birds, I climb
into the windy heaven, out of the oak,
and in the ponds broken off from the sky
my feeling sinks, as if standing on fishes.
-Rainer Maria Rilke
it always catches me off guard how people come in and out of our lives. how there is no stopping it. does it happen for a reason? do we just absorb all that we can from people before letting them go…or before they walk away? or is it all just random coincidences…random people running into other random people. that it just so happens that their paths crossed. and as time goes on those paths for no reason randomly divert or for no reason at all stay forever glued together?
i’m not going to play fair. i think its both. somehow, beyond my imaginiation/intelligence…i think it randomly happens…for a reason.
because its worth it…
i made a new friend this weekend. his name is buddy. he is 67 years old.
i met buddy at brazos river bottom. its a two-steppin bar right in the middle of mid-town. except this two-steppin bar comes with a twist…men two steppin with men, women with women, men with women, and women with men. once you can get past the awkwardness that this may induce, you find a friendly bar full of people who just want to have a good time and dance.
so back to buddy. buddy and i were watching the two-steppin/line-dancin going on the floor from the sidelines. somehow conversation was sparked, i think i asked him why he wasn’t dancing, and i was once again suprised by what this city has in store for me. buddy has been with his partner 27 years. he has only been “out” for 2 (about as long as i have). he told me how he had been living a double life for the past few decades. how he was never comfortble being honest to his friends, family, and co-workers. his life in the shadows. one day it hit buddy that it just didn’t matter anymore. it took him a while, but now he can live openly and happily. it really took me back. i told him how happy i was for him and how i look up to him for being committed to another man for 27 years.
it scares me that a grown man could live his life hiding from who he really is. that he had to wait 60+ years to be okay with a part of who he is. but i guess the good news is that something hit him and told him it was alright. that what mattered was his happiness and his love, not other peoples thoughts or judgements. its a struggle to be completely honest to yourself and to others, especially when you see the fear in others eyes that change can bring. but to me…it is so worth it.
just do it.
“You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
-Christopher Columbus
please hold…
i’ve been getting a lot of calls at work (the marketing department is the temporary receptionist until the new one comes in on monday)…and i always wonder about the person on the other side…
WHAT DO YOU EVEN LOOOOOOOOOOOOK LIKE?!!
interstate 45
red tail lights heading north, climbing up and down the steady overpasses of the freeway. that eerily beautiful “Doves” song about love and loss playing just loud enough to hear over the hum of the engine. my tradition of heading back home on a sunday night after a long weekend. calm and collected, but wishing i didn’t have to return. back to the other life. the one thats just waiting. eyes on the calander, counting down the days.
in the gray.
supposedly there are rules out there that keep us safe. you are supposed to do “this” that way and “that” this way. everything is black and white.
know what i gots to say about that?
“feck it.”
Want to take a walk with me?
“In his wildest dreams Larry would never have imagined he’d once again be in this position, where precious minutes count. Tonight he could save a life. He knew Ronnie had done some bad things in the past, but so had Larry. You couldn’t change the past. But the future could be a different story. And it had to start somewhere.”
-Narrator, Little Children
The weekend was pleasant. It was full of good times with good people. Lots of new faces that I can’t wait to get to know better mixed in with some of my bests. But for some reason, during it all, their was this quietness about it. Maybe not the whole time, but here and there I felt it. Sometimes just looking around me thinking how did I get here? What am I doing? I think I’m still in that weird bubble between a past life and the new one blossoming before me. Driving back home today I began to think how deeply I missed the guys back up in College Station. How even if I was to go back up there it would never be the same. I know its a part of growing up and moving on. “Bigger and better things to come”. But if anything, I hope I can take a few pieces of the people that made those times so great with me into my future. Actually, I know I already have.
hunger pangs.
oh life’s simple pleasures…
in other news my dog ate a squirrel AND a turtle yesterday. i don’t know to be proud of her hunting abilities or sad for the loss of innocent lives (one of which was a family pet). either way my parent’s said she was a hot mess when it all came back up. serves her right?
