Day 222: Tired Eyes

When my daughter gets tired toward the end of the night, which doesn't happen all that often, she tell's me that she has "tired eyes." It always reminds me of those nights as a kid when I got "tired eyes." Those nights when I watched television deep into the night, trying to stay up longer than my dad, but always failing. Those nights when my parents would take us to the drive-in for a double feature and I try desperately to stay awake, only to fail. Those nights when I would be in the back seat of the car on a ride home from one place or another and trying to watch the lights pass out the window, trying to watch the stars, and trying not to give in to the stillness of the night and nod off. On those nights when I would manage to stay awake, I would do my best acting that I was fast asleep as we pulled into the driveway. My dad would open the car door, pick my sister up first and carry her in, and then come back to get me. Today, when my daughter tells me she has tired eyes, I wonder what my parents were thinking back then. 

Day 221: The Places I Will Go

Fridays are the best day to let the brain run free, to let imagination take you places you might not be able or fit to go the rest of the week. I like Fridays for planning the escapes and escapades I plan to make someday. Hell, deep down I know most of the journeys I conjure up in my mind will never actually take place, but I have a hell of a lot of fun planning the whatifs. Life is all about the possibilities, people. 

Some day, for example, I want to attend The Gathering of The Juggalos. If for no other reason to just get funky and nasty and live among the Juggs, I would love it. I mean, what's not to love about leaving responsibility behind, entering the woods where the Juggalos congregate, and just going for it? Survive and imagine the stories you'd have to tell. Perish and at least you would have went out in a way that few can say they have or will. 

I also want to get myself to Amsterdam one day down the line. Sure, a guy can get freaky and let it all hang out there just as well as with the good Juggs of the world, but much like the Juggalos, I would also just love to observe the local scene. I'm that guy who takes a seat anywhere and everywhere and just watches the people walk by in fascination, always taking mental notes, always making best guesses about their histories, always wondering where they'll wind up. Amsterdam would be great for that. Grab a cup of a coffee and whatever else I desired and get caught up with the locals. 

Then I head over the Tokyo, Taiwan, and Tibet. In Tibet, I'd find a monastery and forgot about the world, myself, troubles, problems, quagmires, stress, tension, pain, pushing, pulling, and everything else that sucks for a good long time. Eventually, though, I'd get back in the game, and when I did I'd hike the Appalachian Trail. All of it. All at once. No breaks. 

Once that was done, I'd hop on a two-wheeled cruising vessel and crisscross the country as a snail's pace, stopping each and every time the urge struck. No regrets and no wish-I-would-haves. I'd follow that up with a summer road trip touring baseball parks across the country before heading to Australia for some surfing, after which I'd scale a few mountains in the Rockies, enter my first cage fight, and take a cruise along the West Coast before settling in for a month or so in some remote Alaskan region with the natives who adored me. 

Today, though, I'll resign myself to hole up in Lincoln, NE and do some more plotting. Someday, though. Someday. 

Day 220: Why I Believe In (A) God

I've been taking photos of sunsets and sunrises for longer than I can remember.  These photos are only the most recent. I've probably snapped 200 or 300 in the past few years on various cameras. 

I've been staring at the sun even longer (which would probably explain a lot of things about myself). I've spent a lot of time thinking about what it is exactly about the sun that especially turns me on and makes me stop and take notice. It doesn't matter where I am or who I'm with, the sun has a pull on me, especially in the morning and fading daylight hours. I know I'm not unique in this way. I've met plenty of people who feel drawn to the sun and believe it holds or provides some kind of power over or to them. For me, the sun is a spiritual gift. It gives me faith and makes me believe. 

I've tried to describe to many people over the years why the sun convinces me that there's something bigger than you and I that's at work in this world, why the sun convinces me that there is a god of some sort, if "god" is what you want to label this "something." Words never do my feeling justice, though, and they probably won't here, either. 

Simply put, a sunrise and sunset creates a very positive disturbance for me. The way the sun reflects off of water, the way it hits a window, the way it bounces off chrome,  the way it lights up a face or burns through someone's hair, the way it separates one minute from another is proof of perfection. 

The colors that the sun elicits in the clouds and in the sky shakes me to the core. It concentrates me. It focuses me. For me, those colors are the essence of beauty. They are the embodiment of tranquility and meaning. Those colors cause a reaction within, and it isn't a chemical reaction as some would want me to believe. It's a reaction to being. It's a reaction to feeling integrated with life, to being a tiny part of the bigger whole. Those colors are church. Devotion. Truth. Existence. Love. 

Those colors represent everything that is living and breathing and growing inside myself. Those colors are proof to me that something indescribable exists, and it is creating and drawing out something that resides inside me to make me aware and make me care. Make me conscious. Those colors are the gift from something that is desperately trying to deliver enlightenment to me.   

Like I said, words fail. But I believe. I'm not always entirely sure in what or what form it takes, but I know I believe. For me at least, photos like these are the evidence. 

Day 219: Welcome To High School

Last night, we attended incoming freshman orientation proceeding for my "little girl" who is entering her first year of high school. I say "little girl" because she's my baby and will always be my baby. Yet, the reality is, she's not a baby anymore, no matter how much I wish she  was. She's as nearly as tall as me now. She's every bit as intelligent and probably more so. She's witty and clever and thoughtful. She in tune and in touch. She's worldly in ways I couldn't have conceived of being at that age. The world she lives in demands kids her age be. In short, she's grown up. She's not the five-year-old kid who I told stories to at bedtime each night. She's not the little girl who stuck it to the boys by being just as good and better than them on the flag football field. She's not the little kid who learned to ride her bike with the help of her big sister holding her up and chasing after her down the sidewalk. She's the big sister now doing the teaching. 

In so many ways, I dread the first day of school. It means my kids are another year closer to being gone, out of the house, and on their own. In so many ways, I look forward to the first day of school because it means they are one year closer to becoming the adults I envisioned them as being as they were growing up. 

Every year, as another new school year starts, I still get the same nervous feeling in my stomach that I did when I was in school. Those little butterflies start flapping their wings furiously inside my stomach. The waves of anxiousness start tossing and turning with no ending in sight. The possibilities of the great unknown start to play out over and over in my head. The freedom of summer draws closer to an end, bringing with them responsibility. Those few years when one of my kids had to start a school year at a new school where they didn't know anyone only made was is already difficult even more so.  This is one of those years. 

For as many mixed feelings as I'm feeling about my "little girl" who is starting high school, I'm feeling just as many mixed emotions over my other "little girl" who is starting her last year of school. By December, she will have graduated and will be making her way into the "real world." I'm beyond proud, beyond excited, and beyond scared.  What will the real world that I know all so well hold for her? How well will the real world I deal with every day regard her? How will it treat her? Have I fully prepared her? Have I done all that I can? My feeling is that no parent can honestly say that they have done everything possible.There's too much that the "real world" does on a daily basis to interfere and keep that from happening. The "real world" is too demanding and manipulative to allow a parent be the type of parent he or she would like to be at all times. It just isn't possible. But I hope I've done enough given the constraints I was working within. 

All these emotions and feelings are only compounded by the fact that I'm not nearly done with all this. By this time next year, my baby baby, all four years old of her, will be starting her first year of school. Sweet Lord, am I prepared for 12 more years of the public school system? Am I ready at this age to tackle more choir performances and field trips and conferences and all the ups and downs that are sure to come? The answer is that I don't have a choice but to be. I must be ready. At least I've been well broken. At least I have many, many years of experience under my belt. 

Day 218: Freedom To Pop Off & Bite My Lip

On some issues I tend to pop off with little provocation. On others, I'm able to take a few minutes, mull all the issues over carefully, form my stance, and then proceed with a calculated, articulate argument. 

For whatever reason, all this talk about frickin' chicken sandwiches has me flustered and unable to do either. I want to pop off, but I can't bring myself to. I want to gather my thoughts, and in fact have attempted to do just that more times than I can count, only for them to become entangled soon after for any number of reasons. 

This dilemma tends to happen to me each an issue comes to the forefront in which a group of people introduce their First Amendment Rights into the equation. I can't think of anything that's cited more often and used with such carelessness and disregard. I can't think of anything people will pull out of their pocket and fire the trigger on, only to turn around and try choke off the words from coming out of the opposing  outh of someone who attempts to use their supposed same right to free speech. 

I know where I come out on the great Chick-Fil-A debate of our times, and anyone who knows me a little bit can probably figure that out without too much help. Deep down, I can't foresee my stance, however, from stopping me from conversing with those who oppose my view. It's not going to cause me to "unfriend" anyone or denounce their opinions or think any less of them as I've heard more than a few people do in recent days. I hope those who disagree with me would choose to work to come to common ground, but if not, so be it. It's not my job to make you like me, or for heaven's sake, agree with me. Our true right as Americans, at least in my opinion is to have the freedom to disagree. 

Where I will take more aggressive steps, however, is when bigotry, blatant or subversive, becomes the issue. I will take sides when the issue concerns inequity. I will stand firm when I believe a specific and targeted group of people are being singled out, whether it's done through the use of weak semantics that carry all kinds of connotations or through the instant use of a gun fired by a member of an extremist group out of hatred for a particular group of people, as happened over the weekend in Wisconsin. 

In the end, I'm fine if an owner of a business wants to expound on his personal beliefs in a public manner. It's my choice later not to buy what he's selling. He's a human being and entitled to live his life by the means he chooses. But please don't characterize his words as not having ill intent. Please don't say their not in some way not meant to exclude a certain group of people. Too many people in this country have become good and clever at expressing comments meant to target certain groups of people, whether for their religion, race, sexuality, etc., in a way that's politically correct and in a way that most people refuse to examine beyond the words' faith value. Words carry intent. Always. 

In my opinion, whatever that is worth, a business owner is allowed to think and say what he wants, and I believe further he can put his money that he's earned from that business where he wants, including the Family Research Council and other anti-gay organizations, if that's what he believes and sees fit. Just don't tell me that because he delivered his words in a manner that you might deem harmless and within ill intent that I don't have the right to examine his words, examine his past actions, and examine who he associates himself with to make up my own mind. I do have the right, and I will. 

Day 217: Being At Peace

Nothing beats the sense of being completely comfortable with one's self. I am right now. Not caring about caring what others think is uplifting.