In the break room there is an unusual silence that fills the air when it is only occupied by one. Occasionally there is the constant hum of some mechanical effort being put forth by a behind the scenes system, but mostly it's just silence. Once in a while the oddly pitched holler of another machine wails steadily as its top presses downward toward its bottom, but mostly it's just silence. Idle conversations and minor declarations perforate the doorway if it is left ajar, but mostly it's just silence. Crumbs and leftovers litter the table and one or two coffee pots rest quietly on the counter amid the dozens of dirty dishes. It's a break room after all. A place of seclusion and rest. A quiet corner of the busy world to sit and reflect and replenish and restore before heading back out into the chaos and splendor that is the holiday shopping season. The break room is so many things, but mostly it's just silence.
12.15.15
There was an open ended building with concrete floors where friends rolled toy trucks in my direction. The building faced a beach that was bookended on the right by scores of people. I was trying to ride over the train of trucks from nose to tail, but was on a bike whose gear was to big to turn over in a fast enough succession. I made it over, but it wasn't clean. We tried again. This time I went outside to get proper momentum. I pushed the bike to the right amid screaming beach goers on four wheel driven ATVs and my feet sunk in the wet sand. Side steps were made and shoes were muddied. Above me, people hung from parachutes and glided over the grass hills. With enough room to make a clean run, I started back. To my surprise and fully acknowledged content, the room was now empty and the trucks gone.
I joined a friend in an adjacent structure. A party was underway. A band had just gone on for its one song set and I was invited into yet another room. Here I was asked if I had any interested in getting away. I was asked if I was ready to start over. I replied, "I can start today." Things looked promising.
At this point, I shared some recent knowledge with my friend. They replied with some undisclosed insight as to me burning all the bridges I had once crossed by failing with my pen. I was perplexed.
Elderly people shuffled past and took their seats in what appeared now to be an industrial work space. Lights hung from long cords and tucked themselves into metal canisters. Long tables and simple metal stools filled the room. A video played on a screen where the band once was. I was confused, but certain. I woke up.
11.19.19
Why do you get up so early just to write things down? It’s foolish. You’re foolish. All those lies. If you had only been honest with me. What does that even mean? It’s almost as if you have no concrete knowledge as to where your bread is buttered.
A fucking sandwich
A sandwich and a salmon and a saddled sister swimming in from out of state. A seven and an eight and another round of trouble from the troubled twins and the conjoined faces. But how do they see? But how do the sea? But how!!
It isn’t obvious. It isn’t pretentious. It isn’t your business you lying piece of shit. How can you be so obtuse? Don’t you know that you are what you drive? Don’t you know that I never once asked to see who you are or where you live? Don’t you know that this depression is a killer? What do you know and where is it that you go? You don’t go down to Dixieland and I’ve never seen you at Disneyland. I doubt you’ve ever even been to Florida let alone driven there and back. Who are you, anyway? Why is your tongue split? Why do your fingernails curl backward? Why don’t you look like me? Why don’t you sound like me? Why can’t I smell your hair?
Go back to sleep. Go back to bed. Go back to where you belong. Go back. Go back. Go back.
11.17.19
The cycle breaks when the cycle breaks. Conversations get had and awareness is developed and dice get rolled. Somehow acknowledging self.
A positive mental attitude. An understanding of time and space. The triggers didn’t trigger. The gun never fired. It cannot even be determined that a bullet was ever loaded into the chamber. Perhaps the gun only shoots water? Perhaps the gun isn’t even a gun? Does it matter? Do the reasons or the causes even matter? Is the hatter mad? Is the man a dad? Do the trips down seventh and the stops at the stop drive themselves inside like a nail? They do not. At least not in this case as there is no hammer. In this case the case was premeditated when the incense burned and the smoke filled the nostrils. In this case the case held four clean aces and a face that wouldn’t let the librarian read it.
A new jacket and some time behind the wheel. All the music in the world couldn’t muster up the well because all is well as long as the well doesn’t well. If that makes sense.
Hot coffee and waffles and some bacon that easily folds in half. A bowling alley and the boss and some discussion about being sad. Riding mopeds down the stairs under the influence is not the same as counting sheep.
Words.
Say them to everyone, but hear them yourself. Messages in the messaging. A note in the bottle. Throw it out and it will come back. Boomerang.
11.14.19
All alone in a box on a street where a shoe hangs silently from a street sign. It’s some version of Franklin’s Tower minus all the chords and the refrain. It’s a little dance that’s done in the early hours of every day. It’s a dance performed by the aging and the young. It’s a dance that doesn’t have an end and a dance that doesn’t have a partner. It’s a quick exchange in the bus stop and a hustle for one that leaves the other filling up buckets and showering trash into the curb. This isn’t some nine to five gig with a lunch break and some posters on the wall about burnout. This is every city everywhere and an underbelly that doesn’t quite fit the shirt. It’s not tailored and it makes most vomit if they’re not too busy looking the other way. It’s a realness and a real mess and a landslide in an area that’s only ever been made of soil, except there’s more concrete here than one could ever find in a swimming pool or a skatepark in some small Wisconsin town along all but abandoned highway.
11.12.19
You are awesome. You are a thinker and a dreamer and bag of snacks. You are intelligent and charismatic and you like to eat fruit roll-ups and drink juice out of tiny boxes with a little plastic straw. You get tiny cartons of milk for a quarter from a push cart in the hallway and you enjoy the parachute day more than any of the others in gym class. You are in elementary school and you’re all grown up all at once. You find pleasure in the outdoors and you don’t read much, but your head contains a ton of knowledge on a variety of subjects. You write words as if they’re being spoken and you frame photographs in a way that feels pleasant to view. You are a bike rider and a car driver and you project an attitude of not giving a fuck even though anyone that knows you knows that you actually do. You eat food that tastes good even though you know it’s bad for you. You smoke cigarettes and find pleasure in riding your bike through the woods. Road rides turn you off and you no longer see the value in riding in circles. You are purpose oriented and goal driven to the extent that goal achieves some internal accomplishment. You are you and you are everyone else. The details might be different, but the underlying drivers are the same.
11.10.19
A weekly recurring loss. For twenty years. A vacancy repeated without respite. Now, and for the last five years, every seven days the feeling returns. It occurs in such a way that I am inclined to want to go to that space whenever I have a moment to myself. The alternative is submersion into work of fun. Some kind of absent therapy design to disguise my loss as some kind of ghost. A ghost that can’t exist because ghosts aren’t real. Yet every week I go back to the same place. Mentally I know there is an answer, but physically I cannot manifest it. No amount of self-knowledge can break the routine. Awareness is only good for preventing the unthinkable and it does a fine job of that. It’s like the record is scratched, always jumping back to the point from which it began. Sunday into Monday. Find some music. Feel it. Go there. Come back.
Moreover, my want to return to this place has to be rooted in the common thought process that is, feeling the loss is grieving the loss and through grief comes closure. The problem here is that because the loss is recurring, there is no time to grieve it and therefore no time to move through it and beyond it. It has persistently stood in the way of me getting anything done outside of employment and that is only true because I have for twenty years equated employment to success in dealing with this absence. It’s a cycle. A circular cycle that feels like a tornado at times and a toilet bowl at others. The speed of the cyclone is irrelevant to the damage. Onward. Forward. Smile. Everything is fine.
11.07.19 pt. 2
The second part is more strange than the first. Football on the tv and a quick switch of some parts on the car or truck or whatever it is we choose to call it. It sits a little higher than one would expect, but it’s definitely smaller than one might suspect. It’s cold, but not dangerously. Just enough chill to put a bitter wind down the spine, or up from the bottom of an untucked shirt. Cold enough to turn hands into slow moving objects. The slow that prevents thumbs from moving when the mind says “go”. There are books on the shelf and that’s no dramatic segue. It’s just an observation from the vantage point. A giant painting and a feisty dog and a brand new blanket. Candy bars for dinner and a reminder to fill up the coffee maker. Tomorrow makes five and the following six. Go seven and then eight and nine and ten. Lose track. Go back. Rhyme time. Prime time. Analogous. Analysis. Paralysis. Stuck here in this chair or on this bed and plagued by this unending head. No pillow big enough for the mazes and corridors that wind their way through the present and the past. Make it last. Make it fast. Fast. Fest. Rest. Under. Over. All the way around. Come back to the beginning and secure yourself a spot in line. Wait there for the bouncer or the door man or the ticket taker. Wait there for the undertaker and the grim reaper. Wait there. Just wait there and eventually your time will come.
11.07.19
Apathetic service in a space where service is the primary function. Lounging carefully and quietly behind laptops and ceramic mugs and some overpriced snacks. Found the spot. The quiet space that isn’t the bed and it isn’t the driveway. Perhaps that other space that can produce endorphins and good vibes. Maybe it isn’t this space? Maybe it’s another. The important piece is to keep getting out in the world. Try new things. Go new places. Feel things that are pleasant. Look out the window. Go through the door. Walk, but don’t play the drums. Those are for drummers. Same with guitars. Those belong to rock stars and people named Bruce and your name isn’t Bruce. It’s Chris. That is your name and drumming and guitar playing are not for you. You write words and take pictures. Stick with that. Stay away from caffeine, too. A cup in the morning is good for you, but after that drink water or tea. Sugary drinks are bad. You know this. Stay away. Even though we ain’t got money, I’m so in love with you honey. Lyrics. Airwaves. Brick walls and a countertop table that slides when it’s pushed. Not in a good way. In a bad way. Like the kind of way that suggests that maybe the construction is poor. It’s likely not a refection on the curators of this space. Rather a solution to a problem that once existed and then no longer did, but somehow has become a different problem that currently exists on a list toward the bottom. It’s just a table and this is just a coffee shop and nobody or any one thing is perfect. Everything is fine. It always has been. It always will be. Especially with headphones. Or at least that’s the impression I get from looking around this room. Headphones and coffee cups. Or mugs. I can’t be certain as the aura here is certainly one of art and artistic value. So cup is probably degrading or demeaning. I bet these are mugs. Fancy ones. Ones that were hand-crafted by some struggling genius that has yet to be discovered. Fired in a kiln that was made by hand behind some old rustic farmhouse. These are the mugs that will be handed down from generation to generation. The kind that will end up under glass in some museum of the future. But…how can that be? How could that be the future for all these mugs if they’re here? Here lining these shelves and waiting quietly for some new address to call home? Perhaps I have it all wrong? Perhaps there is no museum? Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…
11.06.19
What is the fear? What is the root? Where does it come from and how can it be boiled down to its most primitive state? Anxiety? Depression? Some overwhelming lack of personal understanding?
It could certainly be all of these or none of these or some combination of them. It could certainly be. It’s definitely worse when the sun doesn’t rise as high in the sky. It’s certainly worse when the air grows cold and the ground firms up.
It happens every year. It happens every Sunday. It happens again and again and there does not seem to be an end in sight. So the words come out. The words come out in some feeble attempt to wrangle whatever elusive beast this might be.
It’s like some kind of bizarre metronome that cannot seem to be stopped. There’s no finger that can be lodged between it and it’s fulcrum. It just sits there swinging back and forth perpetually. On and on and on and on.
Sleep on it.
11.05.19
A Tibetan restaurant smashed into the quiet polish neighborhood that used to be primarily filled with first generation immigrants. Two different styles of tile line the floor and a mixture of photos and poor paintings and some kitschy modern humor make up the exterior of this setback interior. Chop sticks and hot tea and an ice water. Six tables out of fourteen occupied by folks from up the street and down. Take time and set it aside. Find a space that suits you and become a fixture. Lights and televisions and some strange electronic music. Where do you go from here? Back to a headache? Under the sink, covered in water? Take the blanket out to the trash and shake your fist and call it what it is. This isn’t your past and it certainly won’t be your last. It’s the present and the future and a cacophony of shoes. It’s a rattle can paint job and a piece of history that can’t quite be resurrected to look like it once did. Words on top of words.
Pause.
Have another bite and wash it down with some more of that green tea. It feels good to stop for a second. It feels good to feel good.
Pause.
Outside cold. Inside warm. There are many among us that don’t have the luxury of choice. Many who wander aimlessly trying to find some level of unknown comfort. They exist adjacent to us. At the edge of our excess. Homeless. Vagrant. Transient. Drug addicted. Alcoholic. Criminal. Problems for the state. Problems for the feds. Problems for everyone except us.
The problem is that we have forgotten that which separates us is the same thing that connects us. The problem is that we have forgotten the importance of choice. The problem is that we have forgotten the outcomes of choice. Our distance is short. Our shortsightedness is blindness. Our blindness is ignorance. Our ignorance is our motivation. Our motivation is our accelerant. Our fire is us and there is no shortage of fuel.
11.03.19
A semi-regular stranger that visits late in the evening. Miles of broken white lines and anonymous headlights punctuate. Eighty or one hundred or a thousand. The number is irrelevant. Broken. Busted. Heartbroken. Abandoned. Worthless. Empty. Forgive. Move forward. There is no backwards. There is nothing to go back to. The past is passed. One room on a merry go round. Each week is a mirror of the previous and a cookie cutter for the future. Spinning. Passing the same rock underwater and believing every time that it is new. Keep walking. Keep moving. Don’t stop. Never stop.
11.01.19
Take the vitamin. Repeat the repetition. It’s getting dark and after yesterday you’re probably real close to the slope. It lingers.
It always lingers.
10.27.19
Early morning entries and a database full of empty trees. Fall has fallen and the air is crisp. Leaves litter the pavement and the dog wanders around the yard hoping to find some hopping treat. There is no rest for the tired and weary, only another cup of coffee and a cold Adirondack chair. The hoods are up and the ankles uncovered. Darkness. Quiet. Morning.
02.19.16
Sunshine pouring through the cloudy, permanently weather stained windows. Hot, fresh coffee steaming in an old, dented cup resting on a table of worn wood and rusted nails. A book about a bike race that used to consume me sitting quietly under a stack of poorly drawn drawings. Soft, well crafted music fills the air. This is my morning. This is how I am starting my day. Four out seven are similar depending on the status of the giant ball of fire in the sky. I prefer it this way. The remaining three are begun in darkness, under the veil of night that has not yet broken. My schedule is peculiar and doesn't allow my body to set itself. The result is perpetual tiredness. A constant yawn. It's who I am. It's the bed I've made. I enjoy it, but I know it's rough. It's rough on me and it's rough on those around me. That said, it has allowed me to look at all of it as training for that massive endurance event that has yet to present itself. Everyday is training. Every day is suffering. Every day is a success.
09.05.17
I saw my own death last night. In a dream. In a way that only a dream could produce, I saw myself lying in a grave and standing above it at the same time. It was a funeral for me, but I was the only one there. No one to direct. No one to weep. No one to toss dirt onto the coffin that didn't exist. Just me. Two versions. One alive and grieving, and the other stone stiff at the bottom of a hole.
I didn't look for meaning when I awoke this morning. I didn't try and connect the dots that got me to that point. I didn't. There were no good feelings and no bad. Things just simply were exactly what they were. One human body standing above a hole looking into it, and one human body lying in the hole looking out. Perhaps there is some deeper lesson to be learned, but instead of analyzing it, I simply acknowledged it for what it was, a dream.
Our positions on this earth are temporary. Our purpose is for no one to decide but ourselves. If something is standing in the way of your happiness, step aside and continue. If something feels like it's "off", it probably is and you should do something about it...now. I am responsible for me. You are responsible for you. Anyone that knows me, knows that I bleed this philosophy. It is true today more than ever.
10.23.19
Tonight, along the side of an empty stretch of Highway in the flattest part of the middle of nowhere, I saw a woman standing over the body of her recently deceased husband. The scene itself wasn’t gruesome, but it certainly was tragic and heartbreaking. I passed the whole thing at sixty-five miles per hour so I didn’t get to take everything in as fully as I might have preferred considering the circumstances. At the moment, and in hindsight my heart breaks for her loss. The expression on her face was one of absolute abandon. In one moment, everything in her life is as normal as it’s been for as long as she cared to remember. In the next moment, everything in her life is in upheaval. Uncertainty. Sorrow. Pain. Agony. Heartbreak. All of these things just standing there in the tall grass beyond the rocky shoulder of an aging piece of America’s infrastructure.
10.11.18
I hold three cards in my hand. Not one of which is closer to my chest than the others. I will not reveal my secrets. I will not let go of my burdens. To my deathbed I shall carry these. I shall package them all up nice and neat in my hanging baskets of pomp and circumstance. I’ll get the dogs lined up on the carpet. Their hair freshly cleaned and combed. It’s all a facade. It’s all part of the show. It’s all part of this dream I’ve been having for years. A dream that’s plagued my hours awake. A dream in which I wander around on a mountain of metaphors looking for the setting sun. A dream where direction is useless. Is it a dream, though? Is it my subconscious? Where am I? How did I get here?
12.21.15
Wrenches and old, crinkled beer cans litter the top of an oil stained wooden work bench. Sawdust covers portions of the floor and hangs like forgotten Christmas lights from long abandoned spider webs. Slow, depressing tunes filter through the cigarette smoke that lingers in the motionless air. It's hot. It's summer. This is the place where the things get built. This is where the hand is king.
05.08.15
Numbers. They are our identity. They are everything to us. They are the tool by which we measure everything. How old we are. How young we are. How much we earn. How far we have come. How far we have to go. What time we need to wake up. What time we need to go to sleep. Even the title of this post, those that came before it and those that will come after it. Everything in our modern lives is surrounded by numbers. For what?
It might be worth examining the moments in any given day that aren't submerged in numbers? Numbers can't really be attached to the innate senses most of us share? We can't smell or taste or hear or touch or see anything's approximate distance from us. Yet we constantly attach numbers to everything. And why not? Is counting not one of the things we learn first as infants? Are numerical values not driven into us throughout our fundamental education? If we examine our lives under the largest microscope we can find, are we able to truly identify the things in any given day that are not connected to numbers? Do we quantify a hug from a loved one by attaching a number to it? Do we estimate the numerical value of a letter received in the mail from an old friend? Do we statistically analyze the effects of having a door held for us as we pass through it? No. Are our lives truly not defined by those few moments a day when we lose sight of the numbers and just embrace the present and all it has to offer? Do we not find more pleasure in experiencing the limitless world of our natural senses than by those that we create mentally?
Our minds are impressive tools capable of incredible things. If we muddy them up by constantly addressing the numbers we've created to identify things, we are missing the purpose of our lives.
Numbers are for measuring. Measuring is for comparison. Comparison is for judgement. Judgement is for ego. Ego is for death.