Peace To You

Quoting

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.
  - Albert Einstein

Washing Clean Blues

Her hair

Strummed by tears

Falls a mess upon the pillows

 

The blues

Broadcasted in waves

Washes him down off her

 

The morning will find her empty, but clean.

Christmas Hunting

I have a theory. Women Christmas shop. Men Christmas hunt. That is the way it should be.

This past Saturday, I took my list and went hunting for those items. My goal- kill something and bring it home.

The way I see it, I'm programed to hunt. If I need meat - I go out and look for meat. If it is made out of meat, I kill it and bring it home. Done. Same goes for Christmas hunting. I needed several specific gifts and if it doesn't smell, look, act, and taste like one of those gifts - it doesn't matter.

The end result is that it took only a few hours to complete my hunting. No browsing. No scoping out the potential additional gifts. Killed. Dead. Done. I did stop for another moment at the 42" plasma TVs. Sigh.

Then came the wrapping. Need I even expound on the wonder of pre-printed gift bags? Drop, tug, done.

I love Christmas.

Work Out Music

So, a friend's question about what workout songs I liked, got me thinking. What are your favorite work-out tunes?

Some of mine are:

1. Bad to the Bone - George Thurgood

2. Crush - Dave Matthews

3. Because I Can - P!nk

4.  Before He Cheats - Carrie Underwood

What about you? What's on your iPod?

Save The Critters

By way of Dena, I am supporting a simple contest that could raise $10,000 for a local animal shelter. Just vote here for the Rockingham County Animal Shelter.

It will only take a click and a few lines of text to vote. Go! Thanks.

Bye.

New York City In 3 Days

We are back from out Thanksgiving trip to New York City. This was my first trip to the City, so I wanted to make the most of it. My wife and I met up with my daughter (she is doing an internship with the David Letterman Show) and we were off and running. I've listed below a quick, and I am sure incomplete, rundown of our activities. Once I get some sleep and the pictures in order I am sure I'll have more to share - photos and links to come.

NYC in Three Days

Wednesday
6:00 a.m. travel to Charlotte, NC
9:10 fight to Newark, NY
1:00 South-West Manhattan Marriott Downtown – check-in
2:00 - First subway ride to Uptown (47th and 7th)
Walked Broadway, Lincoln Center, Time Warner Plaza - until 3:15
3:15- 5:30 – taping of David Letterman Show Thanksgiving Eve (Terri Hatcher and Ludacris)
5:30-7:00 – walk to and dinner at Carnegie's Deli with friends
7:00-11:00 walking Broadway, Times Square, then to Shubert theatre for Spamalot
11:00 – 2:30 – walking Uptown, Central Park, Watching the Macy’s parade balloons filled up, subway back to hotel (accidentally via the Bronx. Darn subway detours).

Thursday
2:30- 6:00 slept - sorta
6:00 – 8:00 up, eat, dress and walk to Battery Park – ferry to Liberty Island
8:30-11:00 Liberty Island - Statue and museum tour
11:00 – 3:00 Ellis Island and tour of Immigration Museum
3:00 – 3:45 back to NYC and nap until
4:50-8:00 – subway back uptown, walk, eat (Carnegie's again), Rockefeller Center, Carnegie Hall, Saks Fifth Ave (great Christmas Windows), Empire State Building (from a distance)
BACK TO Manhattan

9:00 p.m. - 7:00 a.m. slept better, ate, showered, planned

Friday
8:45 – out for coffee at Star Bucks
9:30- World Trade Center site debris
10:00-1:00 St. Paul’s Chapel, SOHO, Greenwich Village
1:00-2:00 Tour of Madison Square Gardens – Nicks and Rangers locker rooms (size 21 shoes!)
2:00- 5:30 Madison Avenue, Park Avenue, High Tea at Lowell
5:30 - 10:00 Central Park, Roosevelt Plaza, Radio City Music Hall, Rockefeller Center, ST. Patrick’s Cathedral, The Plaza, Grand Central Station, Wall Street

10:30 – Lights out..

Saturday
2:45 a.m. up and out to the Airport…Zzzzzzzzzzzzs in flight
11:45 Back in Winston-Salem, NC!

November 25th, 2008

Happy Birthday Dad.

Worth The Click

Click Me For Music

Not Unto Death

I’ve had a battle with a nasty head/chest cold the last couple of days. I’m getting better.

Such times are a reminder to me of my need to be flexible, to allow for change. Life changes, my life changes. I don’t count it as a bad thing that I get so enmeshed in the work of living each day that I lose touch with my own frailty. It is somewhat necessary to forget that any moment life can rip us from our seemingly normal path and demand something else of us. Such a continuous awareness – of my frailty – would be immobilizing.

But, when sickness or injury comes, it is interesting to witness the struggle I have to allow for them – life changes.

Today my chest burns, my eyes are puffy, my nose and throat are tender, and it is too much effort to think and plan for tomorrow – as much as tomorrow may need plans. Today my reason is tainted by surges of emotions that hack away at my serenity and taunt my self-worth. Physical and emotional sicknesses seem to be dear bedfellows, with me at least.

So, I’ll rest and limit my number of decisions. Sometimes doing nothing is the best choice. I’ll sip tea, read and sleep and let the world wait – for me.

As you were… -cough, cough-

Perhaps This World Needs

As I strive for self actuation
Demanding more of my mind, spirit and body each day
Determined to succeed, to claim yesterday’s distant horizon
As today’s dawn

It occurs to me that I might have it all wrong
What if these images of status and position
That haunt my mind each evening are self contrived
And the resistance that pushes me backward
Each hard fought day is prophetic

What if my truth is that
This world simply needs another bum?

Muscial Guest

As a member of Rotary, I am privileged to hear a variety of people speak on any number of topics. From revolutionaries to politicians, I hear the stories, missions, beliefs and art of people who are seeking to impact the world around them with the gifts and values they hold dear.

Today, we had a musical guest, Laurelyn Dossett of “Polecat Creek.” Laurelyn Dosset has a delightful manner and shares willingly of her passion for music, life’s stories and nuances, and her artistic prowess.

Learn more about her music with Polecat Creek here and her musical theater endeavors at her site, here. What fun.

Loud Hope

There are times when I speak as one with authority out of hope that my words are true. Words about a loved one’s success and well being spring forth from my lips in the midst of much evidence to the contrary. I can hope. Even when everything around be screams otherwise. I can hope and forgive me if I hope loudly.

I believe there is a Divine power working against the odds and since I am powerless over this one, whom I adore with every ounce of my being, I am proclaiming that which my heart cannot feel.

Be victorious my child!

The Last Cicada

The last cicada sings
Into the crisp fall air
A final call of
Fall’s end, winter’s era

Leaves cling
To branches high
Not one wants
To release and die

A father dreams
Of his son’s flight
But silence returns
From this season’s night

[Chorus]
Seasons change
Seasons go
Season remain
Ever so slow

Summer leaves
To find its fall
The stillness breaks
Upon us all

The last cicada sings
The final tear falls
We are cold
We are so small

A baby cries
Her first breath of life
Mother’s arms are gone
An women will live in strife

[Chorus]

Sometimes we must burrow
Deep into the earth
Waiting there, searching
For the matter of our birth

Remembering when we can
That as this begins
We can return as
The last cicada sings

[Chorus]

The last cicada sings
Into the crisp fall air
A final call of
Fall’s end, winter’s era

Leaves cling
To branches high
Not one wants
To release and die


NOTE: in the depths of a hike in SC, i heard a lone cicada. while only weeks before i had heard the deafening noise of thier community screaming, only one remained. the words above come from that last cicada's song.

Quoting

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted. - Martin Luther King Jr.

Hiking It Off

The earth under foot
Passing
Thoughts fade into
Absence
Embraces singularity
Feels
Effortless striding
Forth
Coming homeward
Bound
Less of me resting
Heavy
Burdens dripping
Soaking
Into the soil beneath
Me

Wisdom

An illusive wisp
Sophia dancing
From our grasp and swirling
Into brief awareness
Remembered only as afterthoughts
Insulting epiphanies
Propelling us to the next level
Of incompetence

Tanked

The sputter can surprise us
Running wide ass open
Taking no prisoners
Casting laughter like caution
To the wind
Blowing up a storm of passionate dreams
And friends cheering us on

The road turns, twisting
Thought and perceptions
Into unrecognizable shards
Broken, poured out, spilled
Across memories of tomorrow’s
Dreamers awake
When the fuel of creation
Runs dry

Thus fools rush in
Where angels fear to tread
And shout
"Fill’er UP!"

Quoting

There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers. - Richard Feynman

An Evening of Musical Empowerment

Saturday evening I had a disturbingly wonderful night of music thanks to the folks at Mack and Mack Clothing, Triad Acoustic Stage and the Queen of the Eighty Eights – Kelley Hunt!

Ok, I must confess that prior to this event I had never even heard of Kelley Hunt. How my life ever had the illusion of completeness without knowledge and experience of this woman’s music, I shall never know. Her art, passion and superb talent reached deep into my spirit and shook out, up and over my blues and boogie-woogie.

Google her up and take a listen. You will be glad you did – otherwise, completeness will remain beyond your grasp.

Be sure and check out her songs 'Mercy' and 'Love.'

On Words Episode #080929

There are certain words, that if you are going to use them, you should really know what they mean. Today’s example includes three words with related, but quantifiably different meanings. Read on, dear reader and just feel the brain matter expanding.

Our words are: Moron, Imbecile and Idiot. According to a very old and not necessarily contemporary dictionary of mine, these words reflect classifications of mental aptitude related to a person’s IQ.

Idiot = < 25 IQ
Imbecile = 25-50 IQ
Moron = 50-75 IQ

Therefore, while it may make sense to proclaim, “Don’t be an idiot, you moron!” Stating, “You’re a moron, you idiot,” would be a compliment – of sorts. Which begs the question, which is worse, a moronic idiot, or an imbecilic moron?

Aren’t you glad you stopped by?

FW: a father's wisdom - profanity

My mother tells stories about my dad. He died 44 years ago, but I have learned much about his fatherly ways by these stories. It is interesting to me how a father’s wisdom can be forwarded.

“Your father never swore. He just didn’t believe it in. I heard him say more than once, after I said ‘shit,’ that I ‘had something in my mouth that he didn’t want on the bottom of his shoe.’

There was the one night that I remember him cussing. We were driving from Baltimore, Maryland to South Carolina to visit with family. This would have been before your sister was born (before 1952), and it was dark and rainy. It was a messy, slow rain that just wet everything and kept the windshield dirty. We had stopped and William Earl had done his best to wash and clean of the windshield. As we started back onto the road, a truck came by, hit a mud puddle and splashed muddy goo on the windshield. Your father said, ‘damn it.’ I knew better than to say anything because he was m-a-d. That is the only time he ever cussed that I know of.”

My father use to say, “Profanity is a sign of a person with a limited vocabulary.” I suspect he was right.

Enough Gloom Already

As much as you do or do not consider yourself an artist, you understand the following – I feel intensely and often, and more often than not my creative expressions are moved by the 'dark side' of my feelings. It is more often struggle, pain, fear, anxiety or despair that will propel itself through me and into the words of these pages. Joyfulness, peace, love, contentment – these are not so demanding of a voice. I am usually content to just feel them. The others, those 'dark side' feelings, I usually want to get them out and go beyond them, so I write. It helps.

If you are wandering around here, this concept of self preservation through expression is important as is the tendency for those expressions to be a bit – well – dark. Strangely enough, if you were to speak to me, even on the days I wrote the darkest words, casting gloom, despair and agony on me (be sure and catch the reference to HeeHaw), I would not appear unusually troubled.

I guess what I am trying to claim here, is that I am a positive and hopeful person. I literally ooze hope and faith. I do. Those overflowings of hope don’t always make it here.

Please accept my apologies for being so one-sidedly creative here, and that is what I do.

Now, follow the rules and leave a comment or else I’ll get depressed and launch into poetry.

Quoting

Some mornings it just doesn't seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps. - Emo Phillips

Relief

Wandering in the woods

Or In the mind

Of seasoned 'scapes

Brings reasonable

Lavish dreamers

Hopeful clarity

I Feel, Therefore I am

Sympathy

Empathy

Solitude

 

Sometimes feelings are so deep and personal that all that can be done is to feel them.

Crashing

My son and one of his friends were in an auto accident this past week. As you can tell by the photo here, they are ‘lucky’ to be alive. They both have injuries, but none that are now life threatening.

It is too soon for me to try and process what we have been through. Let me just claim that I am truly grateful for the people in my life who offer love and support at times like these. I am grateful to God for a faith that abides.

My heart aches. My mind strains to find some understanding. My fears scream dark shadows. I am struck by how powerless I am. Life can change very fast.

Congruence

I believe we all wander through life, at times or for a time, cloaked with various masks, skins of textured facades, living as much with our fabricated external selves as with our inner truth. Therein rests our deepest self, the pain, loss, ache of life’s journeys won and lost. Therein lies that being so often sought and revered as the true self, the real us – with its’ complete measure of joy and depth.

Yet, is either the outer or inner more real? Are we not both mask and soul?

The beauty and grace of the dance, without the well hidden strain and sweat of the all but stumbling artist would not exist, nor would the precarious effort have any value, but for the fabric of the art finding form.

It is a dance, of sorts, this thing we call life - isn't it?

Quoting

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. - Ludwig Wittgenstein

6 of One...

I have been tagged so that I may embrace blogging self-centeredness and force the same on others. I will enjoy this. Thank you bellamocha for the tag, and now on to the task.

6 unspectacular quirks of mine

1. Locks – I think locks should be locked and latches latched so I do both regularly (obsessively?).
2. Poetry – when I try to describe my thoughts, ideas, or concepts they naturally come out in poetic images and expressions. It is as natural for me as water cascading over mossen stones... heh.
3. Trilogy – I tend to think of three examples and categories for everything. So doing this list of 6 is like doing it twice as far as I’m concerned.
4. Tall sitting – I am average height (5’7” – ok I’m short) but when I am sitting I tend to be the same height as much taller people. This means my legs are short and the rest of me is tall.
5. Questions – I love asking questions, especially when it is in response to a question. My colleagues and family find this habit aggravating. I like it – the habit and their aggravation.
6. Attitude – I am courageously committed to the belief that my attitude does in fact decide my life’s path. It isn't that I don’t sometimes feel sad, negative, and disparate – and I believe it is my responsibility to manage my outlook and that my success is directly proportional to how well I do just that.

Taggage – I tag Dena, Monica, Paige, Mr. Althouse, Addict and Simonne.

Here are the rules from Bellamocha:

1. Link the person who tagged you.
2. Mention the rules on your blog.
3. Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours.
4. Tag 6 following bloggers by linking them.
5. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they've been tagged.

Have a great day!

Nonsensical?

Why is it that we insist, and I do mean “we” for it is my plot as well, in making sense of life – our life? Making sense of it all is a feeble attempt to remove the inherent mystery of life. Life does not ‘make sense’ if we mean by such rhetoric that life can be fully understood and explained in the same manner one might give directions to a favorite restaurant.

Myth, mystery, paradigm are words more akin to describing life, one’s life, one’s journey. Yet, we persist in trying to explain and reason our way through this existence and hope that we can find enough solidity so we may linger for another moment in the vain and frail belief of a life that makes sense. When in fact, are we not confounded by our attempts at truth and fact?

We are left with nothing more than the necessity of surrender as we fall into the chasm that reason cannot grasp and find there not a plummet to the death, but rather a descent of rapturous delight engulfing the senses that plays ever so amusingly with our spirit and carries us aloft, not down, and sets us once again on the seemingly solid ground of tomorrow. There we can imagine that we are secure, safe, and reasonable – until life comes passing again and we are unable to understand, forced to believe in and then against reason, again.

Ours is a riotous ride of delight.

Spanish Moss

Spanish Moss

Clinging to branches among the oaks
Timeless observer of time's passing
You sway through breezes and revolutions
Directing humanity's passage
As if orchestrating a divine symphony

With nothing but a wisp connecting you
To the lofty vantage from which you
Observe us, coy and unaffected
Your slight presence fans our dreams
As a winter wind stirs the smoldering fire

Little more than air feeds you
A hint of sea salt to spice your tasting
Of our adventures and chaos
You remain, lingering luscious
As the memory of a lover's sigh

Eternally upon us

Spanish Moss

Clinging to branches among the oaks
Timeless observer of time's passing
You sway through breezes and revolutions
Directing humanity's passage
As if orchestrating a divine symphony

With nothing but a wisp connecting you
To the lofty vantage from which you
Observe us, coy and unaffected
Your slight presence fans our dreams
As a winter wind stirs the smoldering fire

Little more than air feeds you
A hint of sea salt to spice your tasting
Of our adventures and chaos
You remain, lingering luscious
As the memory of a lover's sigh

Eternally upon us

Success Is When You Win

The Pelican

A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His mouth can hold more than his belly can,
He can hold in his beak,
Enough food for a week!
I'm damned if I know how the hell he can!

-Dixon Lanier Merritt, a Southern newspaper editor and President of the American Press Humorists Association, penned this famous limerick in 1910. It is carved in stone and displayed prominently at Brook Green gardens in SC.

Watching several Pelicans feed in the tributaries of Murrells Inlet, SC, I was taken by how often they fail to catch fish. It is fairly easy to mark a successful dive, as the stately bird will raise its beak skyward to send the fish wiggling down its gullet. I began keeping score. I counted a total of twenty five dives between four birds and could only verify a catch seven times. With a slightly better than 25% success rate, these gobbling fowl still are known as great fishers.

I guess nature confirms the old saying, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

1. Hunger for something will keep you trying.
2. The pain of failure is quickly forgotten once the benefits of success arrive.
3. Never give up.

Truth In Advertising!

ExOfficio™ touts that there Give-N-Go briefs are the most comfortable and functional underwear that you can buy. I have seen their ad displayed at a local outdoor supply store for a couple of years and thought, “What the heck. I’ll give it a try.”

The ad slogan reads - 17 countries. 6 weeks. 2 pairs of underwear.

I had eight days in Bermuda and took two pairs of ExOfficio™ briefs. As a safe guard (a man has to be careful) I also packed additional underwear – just in case.

Result – 8 ½ days. 1 pair of underwear (and a couple of swim shorts).

It isn’t a gross as it sounds. Honest. I would have used two pairs, but a lot of my time was spent in bathing shorts, so there was plenty of time for the 1 pair to dry in-between wearing.

All I am saying is that the briefs lived up to their claim of comfort, durability, and ease of use. Simply follow the instructions on washing, care and wear and you are good to go, and go, and go, and go…

I have even switched to the ExOfficio™ briefs for all my hiking.

I dub them the “Energizer Bunny of Underwear.”

Go get you some here.

On Having Lunch at Panera

The din resonates
Countless voices frantically
Proclaim facades and personas

Below the cascade
Simplistic souls stand
Wall flowers alone and longing

Within, a voice asks
Shall we dance?

Good Morning Life

Virtually, each morning I am the first awake in my household. I shower, dress for work, feed and care for the dogs. In the quiet of the predawn dark, I check my email, print my work schedule, and perhaps, if time allows, visit a blog friend or two.

The dogs rush with me back upstairs and are off to nestle in bed with my wife. I wash a few dishes from the night before, make coffee and in rhythm to the churning drips and gentle aromas, prepare my breakfast. I usually have a bowl of cereal topped with some fresh fruit and a little protein powder. In the dim light of morn, I walk out front to retrieve the paper, scanning the headlines as I settle back at the table to eat, sip coffee with a touch of cream, and begin my day.

Shortly, I make my way back upstairs, walk quietly into my bedroom, and into the bathroom. I shut the door in darkness and turn on the light. A moment spent brushing my teeth and then I turn out the light. I pause, just allowing my eyes to adjust, open the door to the bedroom and as much by touch as sight, find my way to the bedside. I follow my touch, finger tips tracing the mattress top, over her pillow to the top of her head. I lean over slightly and kiss her.

“Have a great day,” I always say softly.

Sometimes she will whisper a similar greeting, words finding their way through sleep’s veil. Sometimes she will remain silent, perhaps unconscious of my presence, captured still by the arms of deepest slumber. Yet, always, always, she will stir a bit; snuggling toward the sleeping dogs.

In that moment I know why I work, why I strive to be a better man, and why I am so determined to succeed today. In that moment, I am alive as much as any man can be, and I am grateful.

Free Dive

I thought only death would be so peaceful
My ears are useless, muffled, and deaf
I don’t breath now, lungs stopped, idol
My heart slows, relaxing under increased pressure
Sight is all that remains
And that an opaque vision of color and life

I can’t stay here, not and live
This momentary peace must yield
To the screams of my lungs and flesh
So I head toward the surface
To the world of air breathing creatures
And over stimulated demands

Note: On free diving in the Atlantic near Bermuda.

Slower Vision

I spent 8 wonderful days in Bermuda last month, and many of those days were spent basking on pink sand beaches and snorkeling in aqua marine, clear waters. It is amazing what you can see. It is amazing what you can miss seeing.

Having been snorkeling a few times, I settled in over a small reef and relaxed, waiting for the marine life to give its show of color, movement and characters beneath me. Suddenly, the waters were disturbed by a family of four swimming steadily by, chatting loudly as their mask-clad faces bobbed in and out of the water, splashing forward as if they had some hurried agenda to accomplish. The fish below me darted away in reaction to the sound and movement of the churning water. The family passed and I heard one of them ask, “Do you see anything?”

As the water returned to its own rhythm, so did the fish. I watched their dance and the beauty of the ever-changing sea for some time. It is an unparalleled wonder to behold.

Sometimes we have to slow down, even stop and wait until our eyes focus on the life moving around us. No matter if it is an Atlantic sea view, the back yard, or the movement of our family, we have to be careful or there is much we can miss.

Fresh From Reality

I found this via a contact at work. Strengthfinder.com is a test that rates your natural tendencies from a list of 34 talents/skill sets. You can purchase the book and it includes an online code to access the test and get your results. The concept is based on the belief that we will reach success by knowing and capitalizing on our strengths rather than trying to become good at something at which we are innately inept.

The test gives you a list of your top five strengths and a report detailing the strength and offering suggested actions to move into that strength.

My top five are:

Empathy - People who are especially talented in the Empathy theme can sense the feelings of other people by imagining themselves in others' lives or others' situations.

Competition - People who are especially talented in the Competition theme measure their progress against the performance of others. They strive to win first place and revel in contests.

Futuristic - People who are especially talented in the Futuristic theme are inspired by the future and what could be. They inspire others with their visions of the future.

Communication - People who are especially talented in the Communication theme generally find it easy to put their thoughts into words. They are good conversationalists and presenters.

Ideation - People who are especially talented in the Ideation theme are fascinated by ideas. They are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena.

The report includes several pages of definitions and action suggestions. I’m off to discover more about me… It is all about me, after all.

In From The Sea

In From the Sea

When the wind blows in from the sea you can hear the

crackle of palm fronds breaking free from the heat
hiss of sea oats defiantly bowing inland
whisper of sand celebrating its lofty release from gravity
sputter of foam cascading skyward cut from wave caps
chimes of delicate shells dancing across dunes

When the wind blows in from the sea you can hear the
prayers of ancient mariners reaching home