Every Night, We Save Ourselves

Every night, we save ourselves from the doldrums of our daily lives.  We leave our offices, satisfied from having overcome the challenges brought upon us from co-workers and customers.  Maybe even quietly celebrating a breakthrough in one of our larger projects. But overall, it means nothing to us. Our work only serves to serve the conglomerate corporation.  Moving data from one form to another to make sure money gets moved from one hand to the next is not particularly self satisfying. We’re given no expression, we’re given no freedoms, we’re just given more paperwork.

So we file out of our little boxes carefully arranged inside the big box.  We climb into our mobile boxes and file onto the pathways and expressways that will take us to our homes.  The place we surround ourselves with favorite objects and memories. Our palace of relaxation, reflection, and release.  Some of us save ourselves by tuning in and tuning out. We allow ourselves to get lost in other people’s creations. Dramas, comedies, mysteries.  Breathing it all in so we can recall it with our neighbors the following day when we need to stretch our legs or stop staring at data. Others find savior in creating their  own work. Pouring out the stories that have grown in our own mind onto paper, or into sculpture, or into our food. We save ourselves, release everything inside of us, cry, scream, bleed, anything to move it away from us.  We work without want of stopping until the early hours of the morning, only to find we are excruciatingly exhausted and cannot take another breath unless we first rest and allow our muscles to heal so that we can find our strength to face another day stacked inside boxes, benefiting other people.

Fox Trot Trail

Hold my hand and dance with me, we’ll take this step by step

One and two and side together, now with a bit more pep

Over the drawbridge, under the trees down in the river dale

Together as we Fox Trot along the Fox Trot Trail

Listen to the water rushing over untamed rocks

Seagulls and pelicans floating from lock to lock

Past forgotten sculptures that no longer have a tale

Together as we Fox Trot along the Fox Trot Trail

Sit with me upon the shore

Across from factories before

This city’s ready to explore

With modern art and yesterday’s lore

The wind blows underneath our toes for winter will not walk away

But I feel warm inside your arms and I wish that I could stay

Gliding past the mural with the origami quail

Together as we Fox Trot along the Fox Trot Trail

You don't want her

You don't want her,  you want the idea of her

You don't want to play,  you just want to say you've won

You think she's got the answers,  but she's just another riddle

You don't want her life,  and she's not going to fit into your ticky-tacky box

You see she drinks the wine so you start plotting your own grapevine

You hear her sing away so you start building your own stage

You'd do anything to keep her you don't know she sees the free bird

Flying off into the night

Take flight

Start again into a new life

You don't want her,  you want the idea of her

You don't want to play,  you just want to say you've won

You think she's got the answers,  but she's just another riddle

You don't want her life,  and she's not going to fit into your ticky-tacky box

Birds need trees to build their nest

Grab some grub and take a rest

Stay for sunshine, hide from the rain

But when the cold wind blows, it's time to go

Take to the sky

Say goodbye

Never to come back again

You don't want her,  you want the idea of her

You don't want to play,  you just want to say you've won

You think she's got the answers,  but she's just another riddle

You don't want her life,  and she's not going to fit into your ticky-tacky box

You can't cage her

You can't tame her

You can't take her from her life of flight

Midnights and lost plights

You can't love her

Or rise above her

You must pluck her from spell of you

Wizardry and voodoo

You don't want her,  you want the idea of her

You don't want to play,  you just want to say you've won

You think she's got the answers,  but she's just another riddle

You don't want her life,  and she's not going to fit into your ticky-tacky box

We kept it in the basement.

We kept it in the basement because we didn’t know if the others would see the value in putting it on display.  Would they run away? Would they try to slay? We embrace our melancholy, we feel the beauty within, we even dandle it.  For we felt the coup de foudre when we met it, but they didn’t understand. They treat it like the bile spewed from a long drawn out battle with the flu.  They only see its unpleasantness, and refuse to acknowledge how it’s there in the first place to help the system run efficiently. They don’t like seeing when something affects this delicate balance and the symptoms come out.  And then they blame the symptoms! So we kept it in the basement to protect these people from their own insecurities. We kept it in the basement to keep the peace. We thought we would be happy visiting it in our basement where they couldn’t see and judge and raise their pitchforks at the perceived danger.  But after time, we discovered how we were wrong. We saw how what we once enjoyed became a shameful act for us. We saw how we stopped wanting to go into the basement for our time with it. We saw how we stopped enjoying it and started treating it with the same contempt as the others.

And so we stopped.

Summerize

Summerize for the summer size of the summer time in your life

Pack the boots and the gloves and the scarves knit with love

rediscover your skin

warm within

clothes are thin

for the win!  

Put away the dark curtains and drape lacy pellucid flowing veils that allow for the breeze to flow through with ease

bringing odors that please

from the lilac and lavender trees

Put up the hammock

notorious for nap attacks

under skies peppered with fluffy clouds to give you warmth as well as retreat from the sun.

Load up the kayak with fish gear and tent sacks

and float down the river to a secluded beach

out of reach of the world and its worries and woe  

Dig your toe in the sand

take the quiet at hand

Build a fire with the wire of steel wool and sparks  

Leave no marks

but stay

for another day

Let the current lead the way

but drop anchor where you may

It’s all up to you to do what is true and stop feeling blue

Everything is always new

Enjoy the summer fun

Leap and frolic in the sun

Let out a joyful skirl with a whirl and a twirl  

For the thrill of the fill of the will will not last

Summer slips away fast

Days get colder

nights get bolder

we get older

as we shoulder our dark thoughts and feelings

leaving us realing

to survive another beating from the mother who is fleeting

leaving us under the snow

Dreams

I sometimes have the strangest dreams! From the tragedies of train wrecks and collapsing bridges to strange scenes of a Native American chief in full headdress on a horse on a cliff, typing on a laptop, to the everyday adventures of going to work. There really is no common thread among them. Sometimes they inspire me to write a movie script starring a detective on the chase of a notorious criminal, only to find out they are the same person (no wonder why they could never catch them). Other times they feel like a metaphor for navigating my own mind as I follow the winding hallways of the ancient hotel, guided by a small child who gently encourages me to open the creepy little door hidden behind the grandfather clock.

I do love my dreams. As you can see, they are a great show of my creativity, and if I make the time to write them down, they would emerge into fantastic tales. I wish I had the luxury to convey all of them into the works of art they all aspire to be. But for the now, I keep remembering them. Knowing that the ones that stay with me over time are the ones that are truly meant to go somewhere. When they break into my daily life, reminding me of their existence, is when I need to drop everything and start the story.

If you could see...

If you could see the person you become when you've had too much to drink

(and you don't think that you have).  

If you could see that hanging out with you is no longer fun and relaxing.

If you could see how you exhibit so many traits that you normally complain about in other people.

If you could see how you cease to be an intelligent man and instead you become no more appealing
than any other guy with a permanent butt print on a bar stool.  

If you could see how you have trouble standing up...
walking across the room...
pouring yourself another drink...

If you could see that you have no idea when to stop.  That deciding to have a drink means that
you've decided to get fall-down drunk.  

There is no in between.  

If you could see how I go from feeling like a partner to feeling like a parent.  

If you could see how I worry that you'll knock something over, or hurt yourself.

If you could see all the damage that you're doing to your body.  

If you could see that I care about you so much that it hurts me to watch you fall down this path.  

If you could see the excuses I've made for you, including the ones I've made to myself.  

If you could see the years of self esteem building that I have gone through to finally realize that
I'm not obligated to sit there and watch you do this to yourself.

If you could see how much courage I need to muster up in order to tell you "no."  

If you could see how many times I waited until morning to talk to you about this,  
then decided against it because I didn't want to make another unpleasant day.

If you could see that I didn't want to stop watching the show with you tonight, but you are no longer you right now, and I don't enjoy being around this person, so when you come back we can watch the rest.

If you could see all these things, then maybe you'd start to drink more responsibly and less Wisconsinably.  

And maybe you'd stop thinking of me as "hateful."