((
))
The metal of my feet strip away the turf from the soil, rip and render it into useless follicles of fiber fit for only the re-saturation and nourishment of the organisms that will no doubt tread where my heel has already been.
Pulsing and pounding I feel the gears turn in a silent cacophony that shudders under my skin. Each twist and lift precise, just as it was specified when it was manufactured to be.
I feel the metal move and slide into place, oiled and smooth functioning. The dull sheen of the exterior parts as it changes spots, giving rise to a chrome unlike any other, worn and polished by continual use. The edges razor sharp from where but are never to be feared as they do not slip or stray from the guided course that has been predestined.
The red, twist lock gears shift from position to position, jerking into place. Such a stuttered step seems almost unnatural to the natural but to me it feels just like home. The hydraulics shriek out as the weight is shifted, supported, and accelerated. Short, white puffs jet out of the vents and cloud the area around my ever moving form.
I can feel the metal pulse, reverberating against the engraved bar codes and model numbers and manufacturer specifications. A metallic heartbeat of electricity and gears churns along deep within the cavity of my chest, pumping blue and green fluids through the entirety of my system.
Cooling the red hot pins, keeping the joints lubricated and smooth. There is a sizzle in my sensors and I can feel that all is well, my diagnostics precise.
The twitch and jerk and shudder of my body, the bass of my footfalls and the shudder of the ground. A new mechanical Christ come to save --erase-- ------
There is a glow behind my eyes and it illuminates my vision with a dull orange light that casts out all hues, bathing my mind with the illusion of a monochromatic world as my gears continue to twist, lock, --fail-- --function-- --repeat-- the ever cycling locomotion towards the end line of my command prompt.
I feel --sensor operation: 0--- and i hear --sensor operation: all-- as the turf gives way to stone, crumbling beneath the titanium treads that are not fitted to my toes but in fact have been form --forged-- for this purpose. Crushing, rolling, never stopping.
--failure != option--
Yet as I scan the broken, distant, --charred-- world around me an --err-- run through the fiber optic synapses that have elevated me to --maximum-- standard. An --err-- that kicks my systems loose, losing power to my legs --acceleration limbs-- and I find my face, hands, shoulders --self-- smashing down through the stones that I had up to this moment been treading so heavily upon.
--online--
I push myself up, metal fibers twisting and churning in time with the reset thrums of my gears, diagnostics flooding my already blurred vision. I recalibrate and am off again, minor --err-- to worry about after the end line has been tested, run, --100%-- and my soul can earn it's escape from this hellish world of orange and red.
Yet the machine rolls on across the broken landscape, gears slipping into place, indeed as they were manufactured and specified to do. Soft puffs of exhaust echo off of the now dead walls of now dead places. There is no face, only the silver death mask of kings long dead. Orange light bathes all around, and metal foot stamps all below.
There's something to be said for the indiscrimination of a machine born of blood and folly. More graceful than a human would ever be, more precise in it's form and function than a person could ever hope to be. It steps through walls and rocks. It steps through oceans and armament. It steps through corpses and tissue.
And it tilts full into the wind, rain pelting the shell covering the internal fusion machine and fiber optic sensor line running the length of its back.
And it tilts full into the wind, as ice begins to build into the sensor slits built into it's featureless face.
And it tilts full into the wind, as the sound of bone and sinew scatter it's sonar for only a moment.
Yet here is the true amalgamation that was intended. A machine of purpose and design without a flaw except --err: tissue generation detected-- that purpose should not be given to an animal.
Yet I move on, scan-nnnn and move to the next poin-nnnt, without feeding, without drinking, without resting, without forgettttttting my purposeeeeeeee --offline--
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
I know it's...
((
))
There's something to be said for flowing along a landscape of endless blue. Flapping about like the tassels on a child's bike, erratic and twitching every so often, but once up to speed flowing smoothly back on the currents of the air.
But it makes its own currents with its long flowing body, smoothly skipping about with small twitches undetectable by inferior eyes. A rocky, rust riddled landscape rolls underneath as it moves further on, to where everything becomes less clear. It shuttles off into the haze of the unknown, waving goodbye as it goes.
It slips and slides into crevices, finding the edges of rock that have always sheltered this corner of earth from the sun. It squeezes in, making a frigid home for itself, tucking every fold and curve and muscle neatly inside. It seems impossible for something to be as if it were liquid. To have no ascertainable mass, nothing that can be measured by visual and logical standards. To understand the possibility is to believe in magic and miracles.
Yet through no magic and through no miracle is it able to accommodate its own body. Through sheer will and ages of genetic engineering it has become almost perfect, possibly sentient, and thoroughly beautiful. With its nerves hardwired for grace it has almost reached its peak. To be gentle enough to lift up the smallest pebble, yet strong enough to wrest away someone's hard earned possessions, that is a truly balanced thing.
I think of putty when I see it work; smashed out, spreading across the surface, rolling back up into a single, unified piece yet again. I trace the contours of its fleshy skin, the ever changing curves that always sway to and fro. My mind sees its muscles contract, pulling itself along, much like an inch worm, only more compressed motions than languid reaching.
True hydraulics.
Flesh and blood, not metal and fluid.
It masks itself against prying eyes, filtering in against the landscape like some social outcast hidden behind the cheap wooden doors of his cheap wooden apartment. It watches as everything passes by, barely winking as their movement stirs up against its eyelids. To have such concentration, such resolve. I imagine it to be like holding one's breath underwater for too long, when you start to get panicky, but you know you can't let those bubbles go just yet. I wonder if that's how it feels, deep within its shapeless skull.
And then it moves, extravagant and flamboyant, knowing full well how easily it is seen, how easily it attracts people, and just how awestruck the gathering crowd is. Full and strong arms whip through the haze and back into the clarity, pale palms touching on whatever it pleases, and whatever it pleases not being able to fight back....or perhaps wanting to. It's a jaw dropping display of power and curiosity.
Exploration is a key ingredient to any developing being's mind.
And then it begins to change, the colors once so well hidden among the landscape, so desperately needing to blend and mimic. Flashes cover its body, like an old television on the fritz, with wide white waves cycling down across the picture, changing hue, tint, contrast with fluorescent Technicolor brightness. It shifts in front of the eyes against a background of haze and depth. Colors unthought of cycle through its face and down its arms, yet its palms still show the true nature of the being. Deep purples to bright tye-die to speckled browns.
Color wheels have no grasp on its beauty.
And it flashes for a moment, parading around, dancing as effortlessly as a weightless being can dance.
And then with the precision and speed of a sprinter, it shoots off again into the haze, a small aura of light and wonderment surrounding it until even that too fades from sight.
So quick and so intelligent that it leaves trails along the center of your vision, able to still trace its path with a finger. That's how memorable of an impression it makes, that instantly you've already charted where its been, what it's done, the wonderment it's shown you. To know such a fearful creature exists is a wonderful thing, to keep you guessing when your bubbles start telling you it's time to be let out.
But another glance out past the haze is hard to resist, in hopes of seeing its trailing arms waving a final, brilliant goodbye to you.
))
There's something to be said for flowing along a landscape of endless blue. Flapping about like the tassels on a child's bike, erratic and twitching every so often, but once up to speed flowing smoothly back on the currents of the air.
But it makes its own currents with its long flowing body, smoothly skipping about with small twitches undetectable by inferior eyes. A rocky, rust riddled landscape rolls underneath as it moves further on, to where everything becomes less clear. It shuttles off into the haze of the unknown, waving goodbye as it goes.
It slips and slides into crevices, finding the edges of rock that have always sheltered this corner of earth from the sun. It squeezes in, making a frigid home for itself, tucking every fold and curve and muscle neatly inside. It seems impossible for something to be as if it were liquid. To have no ascertainable mass, nothing that can be measured by visual and logical standards. To understand the possibility is to believe in magic and miracles.
Yet through no magic and through no miracle is it able to accommodate its own body. Through sheer will and ages of genetic engineering it has become almost perfect, possibly sentient, and thoroughly beautiful. With its nerves hardwired for grace it has almost reached its peak. To be gentle enough to lift up the smallest pebble, yet strong enough to wrest away someone's hard earned possessions, that is a truly balanced thing.
I think of putty when I see it work; smashed out, spreading across the surface, rolling back up into a single, unified piece yet again. I trace the contours of its fleshy skin, the ever changing curves that always sway to and fro. My mind sees its muscles contract, pulling itself along, much like an inch worm, only more compressed motions than languid reaching.
True hydraulics.
Flesh and blood, not metal and fluid.
It masks itself against prying eyes, filtering in against the landscape like some social outcast hidden behind the cheap wooden doors of his cheap wooden apartment. It watches as everything passes by, barely winking as their movement stirs up against its eyelids. To have such concentration, such resolve. I imagine it to be like holding one's breath underwater for too long, when you start to get panicky, but you know you can't let those bubbles go just yet. I wonder if that's how it feels, deep within its shapeless skull.
And then it moves, extravagant and flamboyant, knowing full well how easily it is seen, how easily it attracts people, and just how awestruck the gathering crowd is. Full and strong arms whip through the haze and back into the clarity, pale palms touching on whatever it pleases, and whatever it pleases not being able to fight back....or perhaps wanting to. It's a jaw dropping display of power and curiosity.
Exploration is a key ingredient to any developing being's mind.
And then it begins to change, the colors once so well hidden among the landscape, so desperately needing to blend and mimic. Flashes cover its body, like an old television on the fritz, with wide white waves cycling down across the picture, changing hue, tint, contrast with fluorescent Technicolor brightness. It shifts in front of the eyes against a background of haze and depth. Colors unthought of cycle through its face and down its arms, yet its palms still show the true nature of the being. Deep purples to bright tye-die to speckled browns.
Color wheels have no grasp on its beauty.
And it flashes for a moment, parading around, dancing as effortlessly as a weightless being can dance.
And then with the precision and speed of a sprinter, it shoots off again into the haze, a small aura of light and wonderment surrounding it until even that too fades from sight.
So quick and so intelligent that it leaves trails along the center of your vision, able to still trace its path with a finger. That's how memorable of an impression it makes, that instantly you've already charted where its been, what it's done, the wonderment it's shown you. To know such a fearful creature exists is a wonderful thing, to keep you guessing when your bubbles start telling you it's time to be let out.
But another glance out past the haze is hard to resist, in hopes of seeing its trailing arms waving a final, brilliant goodbye to you.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Ride, Sally ride...
((
))
So we kinda covered the majority of yesterday's post in my lit class today. Enjoy where you are. The moment. Slow those moments down and take them as they are.
William Carlos Williams was a little pissed off at how much Americans seemed to bounce around from one thing to another, always running around like fools, never concentrating and understanding.
And through a poem about a small, red wheelbarrow he exposed our attention deficits.
I wonder if erratic thoughts will ever have a place in prose. It may just be my only hope.
So it's the start of another 30 minutes, and Sally's still riding. I'm not yet to the point where I'm coming into these with an idea, with a purpose, or with an outside motivator other than a girl miles away who wants the best for me. It's really nice how that works out.
Bullheaded. Stubborn. Pain in the ass. Strong willed. Exactly what's needed.
So I've been doing some research on my credit hours needed until graduation, and my DARS audit tells me I just have 36 more to go. I hadn't really kept tabs on them, only looked at the report to see which classes I needed to take. And of course I've peppered in classes that interest me, because if there's one thing my mother told me about college, it was to at least take a few classes which I think would be fun. Hasn't let me down yet.
I've learned symbolic logic and it's argument solving puzzles, and enjoyed the hell out of it. They should put derivations in the Sunday paper alongside the crosswords, hell, maybe even a weekly running. Maybe I should talk to the Guardian (the school paper) and see if they'd be willing to do something like that. Just a little in joke for the nerds.
I've taken Stoicism and found out that if there was one class that I was made for, if there was one class that the Creator had in mind when he shaped my ass from clay and dirt and mud, it was Stoicism. Great ideas, but of course I'm biased. Now when people ask, I can tell them my philosophy.
Make the best out of what you have. Enjoy it now, because tomorrow it might be gone. Don't worry about it being gone, but enjoy it fully now. Preparedness and involvement. It's amazing how they rationalize the two going together.
I've taken Ethics. I've fussed with the Trolley Theory, I've played devil's advocate, I've dis-proven my own points in papers, just like a good boy should. I've learned that very few people know what life on a farm is like. The image of slaughtered pigs and bulls and sheep have been all these kids have ever seen. Not one of them has harvested their own food. Not one of them has killed their own dinner. I almost think that should be a pre-requisite for that particular discussion, but then again, I'm just as inhumane as the worst factory farmer in the world.
I've taken Linguistics, and learned the different between tensed and untensed. I learned the IPA, and all about boundary accents. Localization was an awesome thing too, and now I know why, when I drive back home, my twang comes out loud and proud. And also why it comes back when I'm drunk.
Anthropology. Dramatic writing. Mental Health in Contemporary Fiction. Things that keep me entertained and cross over into other classes.
Did you know the French used to punish their school children for speaking any other language than French? Did you know that there are some African cultures that did the exact same thing? Persecution from your own god damn language. How terrible is that? One of these facts I learned in German. The other I learned in Anthropology. Which is which? It doesn't matter.
You learn one thing here, it's going to eventually be applicable there.
Don't be afraid to branch out, to try something new, to dig into a subject that might seem completely irrelevant to your goals in life. And this isn't just for school either. My understanding of paintball equipment helped me understand the procedures in my last job. My leisure became integrated into the mundane daily activity that put food on my table.
Hopefully my German will come in handy with my Technical Writing. Hopefully my Creative Writing will come in handy with my Ethics. Hopefully my Stoicism will come in handy with my personal affairs, those every day matters that mean so much.
But I digress. Fully and completely. Without digression, there really isn't any fun. You're just mundane and to the point. But is that what people want? I dunno, maybe I should take a Psychology course.
Actually, that's not a bad fuckin idea. I always wanted to be a psychologist, or something of that sort. Now I just know people too well. But it's certainly interesting. (Mental Health in Contemporary Fiction. That was taught by a Creative Writing Ph.D. and a Psychology Ph.D. Amazing how shit lines up.)
But now I'm just rolling along here, I'm afraid I bore people with this. Who's paying attention and who's just smiling at the words on the screen? Is any of this making an impact? Ithink know that's what I really wanna do. I want to make an impact on someone, and impression, with my writing.
Just like it says on my gay little nameplate for Communication Graphics:
Translate, Write, Design, Impress someone.
And with the help of a certain someone, I feel like I can do that now. I know if I typed in another window I'd be chastised and told "it's not 10:00." Damn that's a good feeling. This is a good feeling.
It's like the back of my brain is surrounded by beautiful scenery and a hand is reaching in, just above my right eye, squeezing its way back painlessly. Those fingers just stroke along the folds and bumps of my brain until they can palm the back of the lobes, and gently but somehow forcefully pulling back towards my eyes, sending my brain spinning, flinging those trees and flowers and blue skies all over the inside of my skull, smearing the paint all across the inside like a masterfully painted panorama.
I can almost feel it tingle across my nerves, as my entire brain becomes a singular eye itself, looking at the hectic patterns of the walls, shifting from limb to petal to wing to blade. It's almost like I can actually see what I want to throw down onto my keyboard. It's a hectic scene, but for me I think writing's always been a cluster fuck of image and emotion spread across the vast eternity of my thoughts.
And every time I think the scene has been said, that these images have been laid out for you to see, something new drifts in for me to latch onto for a paragraph or to. Those fingers reach back in, maybe through my nose this time, past the hair and boogers and other gross cootie stuff, and swirls the background around again. The blue skies become dark and star filled, a wolf pack trots out from the tree line, the crickets hidden deep in the grass begin to strum on their violins and the music notes take on visual aspects and flow out on a perfect 5 lined scale in 4:4 time.
But I have to leave something for later, and I let the ink and paint and pencil lead sift back together. But it feels like they funnel into the folds a little closer to the front.
We talked of lobotomies, freaking out the kids on the bus.
That's how you know you've got someone good, when random shit like that pops up.
So here's my thirty minutes. My pleasure.
(I can hear my upstairs neighbor pissing off his balcony. Fucking shit.)
))
So we kinda covered the majority of yesterday's post in my lit class today. Enjoy where you are. The moment. Slow those moments down and take them as they are.
William Carlos Williams was a little pissed off at how much Americans seemed to bounce around from one thing to another, always running around like fools, never concentrating and understanding.
And through a poem about a small, red wheelbarrow he exposed our attention deficits.
I wonder if erratic thoughts will ever have a place in prose. It may just be my only hope.
So it's the start of another 30 minutes, and Sally's still riding. I'm not yet to the point where I'm coming into these with an idea, with a purpose, or with an outside motivator other than a girl miles away who wants the best for me. It's really nice how that works out.
Bullheaded. Stubborn. Pain in the ass. Strong willed. Exactly what's needed.
So I've been doing some research on my credit hours needed until graduation, and my DARS audit tells me I just have 36 more to go. I hadn't really kept tabs on them, only looked at the report to see which classes I needed to take. And of course I've peppered in classes that interest me, because if there's one thing my mother told me about college, it was to at least take a few classes which I think would be fun. Hasn't let me down yet.
I've learned symbolic logic and it's argument solving puzzles, and enjoyed the hell out of it. They should put derivations in the Sunday paper alongside the crosswords, hell, maybe even a weekly running. Maybe I should talk to the Guardian (the school paper) and see if they'd be willing to do something like that. Just a little in joke for the nerds.
I've taken Stoicism and found out that if there was one class that I was made for, if there was one class that the Creator had in mind when he shaped my ass from clay and dirt and mud, it was Stoicism. Great ideas, but of course I'm biased. Now when people ask, I can tell them my philosophy.
Make the best out of what you have. Enjoy it now, because tomorrow it might be gone. Don't worry about it being gone, but enjoy it fully now. Preparedness and involvement. It's amazing how they rationalize the two going together.
I've taken Ethics. I've fussed with the Trolley Theory, I've played devil's advocate, I've dis-proven my own points in papers, just like a good boy should. I've learned that very few people know what life on a farm is like. The image of slaughtered pigs and bulls and sheep have been all these kids have ever seen. Not one of them has harvested their own food. Not one of them has killed their own dinner. I almost think that should be a pre-requisite for that particular discussion, but then again, I'm just as inhumane as the worst factory farmer in the world.
I've taken Linguistics, and learned the different between tensed and untensed. I learned the IPA, and all about boundary accents. Localization was an awesome thing too, and now I know why, when I drive back home, my twang comes out loud and proud. And also why it comes back when I'm drunk.
Anthropology. Dramatic writing. Mental Health in Contemporary Fiction. Things that keep me entertained and cross over into other classes.
Did you know the French used to punish their school children for speaking any other language than French? Did you know that there are some African cultures that did the exact same thing? Persecution from your own god damn language. How terrible is that? One of these facts I learned in German. The other I learned in Anthropology. Which is which? It doesn't matter.
You learn one thing here, it's going to eventually be applicable there.
Don't be afraid to branch out, to try something new, to dig into a subject that might seem completely irrelevant to your goals in life. And this isn't just for school either. My understanding of paintball equipment helped me understand the procedures in my last job. My leisure became integrated into the mundane daily activity that put food on my table.
Hopefully my German will come in handy with my Technical Writing. Hopefully my Creative Writing will come in handy with my Ethics. Hopefully my Stoicism will come in handy with my personal affairs, those every day matters that mean so much.
But I digress. Fully and completely. Without digression, there really isn't any fun. You're just mundane and to the point. But is that what people want? I dunno, maybe I should take a Psychology course.
Actually, that's not a bad fuckin idea. I always wanted to be a psychologist, or something of that sort. Now I just know people too well. But it's certainly interesting. (Mental Health in Contemporary Fiction. That was taught by a Creative Writing Ph.D. and a Psychology Ph.D. Amazing how shit lines up.)
But now I'm just rolling along here, I'm afraid I bore people with this. Who's paying attention and who's just smiling at the words on the screen? Is any of this making an impact? I
Just like it says on my gay little nameplate for Communication Graphics:
Translate, Write, Design, Impress someone.
And with the help of a certain someone, I feel like I can do that now. I know if I typed in another window I'd be chastised and told "it's not 10:00." Damn that's a good feeling. This is a good feeling.
It's like the back of my brain is surrounded by beautiful scenery and a hand is reaching in, just above my right eye, squeezing its way back painlessly. Those fingers just stroke along the folds and bumps of my brain until they can palm the back of the lobes, and gently but somehow forcefully pulling back towards my eyes, sending my brain spinning, flinging those trees and flowers and blue skies all over the inside of my skull, smearing the paint all across the inside like a masterfully painted panorama.
I can almost feel it tingle across my nerves, as my entire brain becomes a singular eye itself, looking at the hectic patterns of the walls, shifting from limb to petal to wing to blade. It's almost like I can actually see what I want to throw down onto my keyboard. It's a hectic scene, but for me I think writing's always been a cluster fuck of image and emotion spread across the vast eternity of my thoughts.
And every time I think the scene has been said, that these images have been laid out for you to see, something new drifts in for me to latch onto for a paragraph or to. Those fingers reach back in, maybe through my nose this time, past the hair and boogers and other gross cootie stuff, and swirls the background around again. The blue skies become dark and star filled, a wolf pack trots out from the tree line, the crickets hidden deep in the grass begin to strum on their violins and the music notes take on visual aspects and flow out on a perfect 5 lined scale in 4:4 time.
But I have to leave something for later, and I let the ink and paint and pencil lead sift back together. But it feels like they funnel into the folds a little closer to the front.
We talked of lobotomies, freaking out the kids on the bus.
That's how you know you've got someone good, when random shit like that pops up.
So here's my thirty minutes. My pleasure.
(I can hear my upstairs neighbor pissing off his balcony. Fucking shit.)
Monday, September 27, 2010
It's far, but I like night drives...
((
))
30 fucking minutes.
And you never know where it's going to go. You just kinda settle into the routine, leave the window open so you can hear the rain splatter across the shattered pavement of the parking lot and hope to god you stumble across a word or image that evokes some primal, unique desire in the bottom of your soul.
Stream of thought writing is what they call it. Not thinking too much, saving the editing for later, and just writing something. It is a great cure for writer's block, I must say.
There's a girl who's image pops up on my monitor each day, smiling and laughing and telling me what a pain in the ass I am. She's the reason I'm starting 30 minutes. She's the one pushing me to this, by my own request. How gravy is that?
So it's raining and cold as hell. I love the rain, how it lulls you to sleep, how it sounds against a tin roof, the smells that it kicks up. But that pleasure's kind of damped by the cold, knowing I'll have to turn the heat on in the next few weeks to keep myself from hating everything.
Was outside smoking with Nate last night, burning hard earned work up and inhaling the essence of sweat and dirt, blowing the remnants up into the cool, night sky. He remarked on the change of weather, how it was so much more comfortable and reminisced about his home. Cold sand being therapeutic, freezing water being a joy. I still retort with how god damn insane you have to be to enjoy something like that. Sand is a pain in the ass enough, quite literally if you stay too low in the water while the tide goes out, but cold sand? I'd rather have my eyes scraped out with a lemon zester.
Really not sure where to go with this but maybe it'll become clearer when the pounding rhythm of the keyboard finds its tune.
A melody, something to flow along with.
Maybe my keyboard will like where this is going too.
Who knows, but that's part of the fun, always having something new to find out, to overcome, to change you.
I've signed up for the German Immersion event on campus, hosting to high school students who've had 3 or 4 years of this shit. I'm still not sure if just because it's high school level stuff if I'll still be ahead of them linguistically, but worse comes to worse, I can always tell'm to fick auf and go about my business.
It'll be interesting, when and if I get to Germany, to learn the colloquialisms and the actual every day speech patterns of a new culture. Oh to be sitting in a street cafe with Eins curled up by my feet, enjoying an open faced sandwich on the thickest bread anyone's ever seen, chatting over whiskey and coffee in a language that's not yet my own.
To see the sights, truly ancient history jutting out in broken pieces among the new, modern look, the definition of advancement and beauty. Yet I have to wonder if they actually look on these items with reverence, still. Or a sense of nostalgia, maybe wonderment. Human beings can get used to anything. You see the same miraculous things every day, the same objects that people travel across continents to take a snapshot of, and don't even bother to trace the outstretching arches and sunken roofs with your eyes. The wonders of the world are only sought out by those who have never gotten a chance to see them.
Many of us walk by the same things, day in, day out, that a visitor, an immigrant, a tourist, a passerby would stop and gaze at for hours on end. Without a second thought we flick our ashes and drop our bottle on their steps. We've become so inoculated to the beauty that's in our own back yards that we don't even think twice. It's always been there. It always will be.
But then I go home, and see all that has changed. The trees that are no longer there. The school that is no longer there. The stores that have been reshaped and re-purposed to fit the new and ever changing face of the town. But the sights that have always been there, I don't think twice about.
The old baseball fields.
The tressel.
The sale-barn.
The mountains.
The saw mills.
The swimming holes.
She tells me about the Mum-Fest, how it's the first she's never been to. She realizes just what it meant to her.
People rarely have this kind of clarity, to look back, to understand, to realize those bright, bright gems that their towns have held for them.
Saw Mill Days. The 5k. The center of Glenwood being shut down.
I am pissed that that has changed, been cordoned off.
Are you tired of where you are? Tired of having been there day after day after day?
Shut the fuck up and realize just what this place holds for you.
Sitting in the old Glenwood cafe at fucking 4 in the morning listening to the old farmers talk about their farms and familys and old traditions. I learned how rough it could be to rely on the land. The sacrifices it would take. And the payoff that could come of it.
The farmland itself. I always had the up close view, never looking more than 5 feet ahead of me, searching for the next rock or root that had to be upturned.
It's not until you show someone else what you have that you realize just how amazing it is.
I show her pictures, just one or two, of sights I saw for 22 years. The view of Hot Springs from the summit. The view of hay fields from the tree line. The small glimpse of the swimming hole tucked back in the woods. Her eyes light up, and there's a hint of excitement somewhere in there. And I realize where I came from.
And I realize where I am now.
The Strawberry Festival.
The alley behind O'Brian's.
The benches along the river.
The falls in Glen Helen and Greenville.
The endless cornfields with long straight stretches of highway.
The graffiti under the bridge over the Miami.
The sidewalks and lights stretching from the courthouse all the way through Troy, past the projects and drive-thru convenience stores and the rich neighborhoods on the hills.
It's startling what we have once you look at it. It just depends on whether you decide to look at it or not. Be a tourist in your own town. Be a fresh pair of eyes just coming in, hear the accents for the first time, start fresh with all the friends who make this town your home, give it all a second chance, every day, and you'll find that you don't need rich mansions and upscale clubs and a country club to make your home better than anyone else's.
It's your home. It's your town. Your city.
Find some beauty in that.
))
30 fucking minutes.
And you never know where it's going to go. You just kinda settle into the routine, leave the window open so you can hear the rain splatter across the shattered pavement of the parking lot and hope to god you stumble across a word or image that evokes some primal, unique desire in the bottom of your soul.
Stream of thought writing is what they call it. Not thinking too much, saving the editing for later, and just writing something. It is a great cure for writer's block, I must say.
There's a girl who's image pops up on my monitor each day, smiling and laughing and telling me what a pain in the ass I am. She's the reason I'm starting 30 minutes. She's the one pushing me to this, by my own request. How gravy is that?
So it's raining and cold as hell. I love the rain, how it lulls you to sleep, how it sounds against a tin roof, the smells that it kicks up. But that pleasure's kind of damped by the cold, knowing I'll have to turn the heat on in the next few weeks to keep myself from hating everything.
Was outside smoking with Nate last night, burning hard earned work up and inhaling the essence of sweat and dirt, blowing the remnants up into the cool, night sky. He remarked on the change of weather, how it was so much more comfortable and reminisced about his home. Cold sand being therapeutic, freezing water being a joy. I still retort with how god damn insane you have to be to enjoy something like that. Sand is a pain in the ass enough, quite literally if you stay too low in the water while the tide goes out, but cold sand? I'd rather have my eyes scraped out with a lemon zester.
Really not sure where to go with this but maybe it'll become clearer when the pounding rhythm of the keyboard finds its tune.
A melody, something to flow along with.
Maybe my keyboard will like where this is going too.
Who knows, but that's part of the fun, always having something new to find out, to overcome, to change you.
I've signed up for the German Immersion event on campus, hosting to high school students who've had 3 or 4 years of this shit. I'm still not sure if just because it's high school level stuff if I'll still be ahead of them linguistically, but worse comes to worse, I can always tell'm to fick auf and go about my business.
It'll be interesting, when and if I get to Germany, to learn the colloquialisms and the actual every day speech patterns of a new culture. Oh to be sitting in a street cafe with Eins curled up by my feet, enjoying an open faced sandwich on the thickest bread anyone's ever seen, chatting over whiskey and coffee in a language that's not yet my own.
To see the sights, truly ancient history jutting out in broken pieces among the new, modern look, the definition of advancement and beauty. Yet I have to wonder if they actually look on these items with reverence, still. Or a sense of nostalgia, maybe wonderment. Human beings can get used to anything. You see the same miraculous things every day, the same objects that people travel across continents to take a snapshot of, and don't even bother to trace the outstretching arches and sunken roofs with your eyes. The wonders of the world are only sought out by those who have never gotten a chance to see them.
Many of us walk by the same things, day in, day out, that a visitor, an immigrant, a tourist, a passerby would stop and gaze at for hours on end. Without a second thought we flick our ashes and drop our bottle on their steps. We've become so inoculated to the beauty that's in our own back yards that we don't even think twice. It's always been there. It always will be.
But then I go home, and see all that has changed. The trees that are no longer there. The school that is no longer there. The stores that have been reshaped and re-purposed to fit the new and ever changing face of the town. But the sights that have always been there, I don't think twice about.
The old baseball fields.
The tressel.
The sale-barn.
The mountains.
The saw mills.
The swimming holes.
She tells me about the Mum-Fest, how it's the first she's never been to. She realizes just what it meant to her.
People rarely have this kind of clarity, to look back, to understand, to realize those bright, bright gems that their towns have held for them.
Saw Mill Days. The 5k. The center of Glenwood being shut down.
I am pissed that that has changed, been cordoned off.
Are you tired of where you are? Tired of having been there day after day after day?
Shut the fuck up and realize just what this place holds for you.
Sitting in the old Glenwood cafe at fucking 4 in the morning listening to the old farmers talk about their farms and familys and old traditions. I learned how rough it could be to rely on the land. The sacrifices it would take. And the payoff that could come of it.
The farmland itself. I always had the up close view, never looking more than 5 feet ahead of me, searching for the next rock or root that had to be upturned.
It's not until you show someone else what you have that you realize just how amazing it is.
I show her pictures, just one or two, of sights I saw for 22 years. The view of Hot Springs from the summit. The view of hay fields from the tree line. The small glimpse of the swimming hole tucked back in the woods. Her eyes light up, and there's a hint of excitement somewhere in there. And I realize where I came from.
And I realize where I am now.
The Strawberry Festival.
The alley behind O'Brian's.
The benches along the river.
The falls in Glen Helen and Greenville.
The endless cornfields with long straight stretches of highway.
The graffiti under the bridge over the Miami.
The sidewalks and lights stretching from the courthouse all the way through Troy, past the projects and drive-thru convenience stores and the rich neighborhoods on the hills.
It's startling what we have once you look at it. It just depends on whether you decide to look at it or not. Be a tourist in your own town. Be a fresh pair of eyes just coming in, hear the accents for the first time, start fresh with all the friends who make this town your home, give it all a second chance, every day, and you'll find that you don't need rich mansions and upscale clubs and a country club to make your home better than anyone else's.
It's your home. It's your town. Your city.
Find some beauty in that.
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