Seriously Something

2011-03-10T20:15:00.002-06:00

The thing about vomiting is that although it's unpleasant, embarrassing, awkward, and painful, it's over with pretty quick, and most times it does the job of either confirming sickness or getting rid of it.

So, what to do from here? I do know that my mind has dulled and rusted some over time from a lack of use. It would do me well to start reading again. Also, I've started working out again. I couldn't wait for folk to return from Europe. I have to quit stalling on everything just so I can enjoy a few more fleeting minutes of comfort. There is much to do, but I think these would be a good start. More can be added over time, but not much more until I've been well-grounded with these new habits.

A fool's lament

2011-03-09T17:01:00.002-06:00

I stopped writing because I made too much noise. I stopped because it was all about me, and nobody truly cares about that. Except, that's not really a fair assessment. I assume that nobody does. It's "safe" to assume that I belong in the lowest echelons of life. Except, it really isn't. I am just as responsible for my words and my actions. I hold just as much importance to some folk rather or not I think myself something great or something terrible. What I think of me is really not important to someone else. It's what they think that's important. Most people are indifferent, which is to be expected. Some think I'm actually a good guy. A few even term me nice things like "awesome" and "amazing."

I don't understand this. And yet I'm gripped with some kind of relentless love that dares not let go. I have so much of my time building walls to protect myself from other people, from pain and needless drama, only to have the love of others seep through and show me just what kind of foolish endeavor this massive fortress is.

And the thing is, it's not even most someone can love me. I purposely tried to get away from the love of others, and then wonder why I never feel anything. What an idiot! Now the slightest bit of love sends me into some kind of rapturous euphoria because I don't know what it is anymore. And I can't pull away, because it's reciprocal. I love them. I love them all. And yet, how can I do something that I don't understand? Questions! Questions everywhere! Still! I have been a fool to run, and now I cannot anymore. It bothers me to care about other people. Not that I've never done it before, but because it's alien for me to admit the truth of my feelings. I ran and tried to be away from as many people as I could. I ran from their love. And I ran from Love itself.

It's humiliating to despair and languish because I could not find God anymore, only for the sun to break through the clouds and bask me in warmth despite the freezing temperatures outside, as if God said, "I am here, you fool. And I love you."

A lot has been pouring through my mind these last couple of weeks. I spent several years trying to hide. In doing so, I let my mind rot. I've lost many of my mathematical skills. I lost a lot of my ability to reason. I read something I wrote back in 2002, trying to reason out something of my faith. It was halfway intelligent. Yet, I don't know that I could construct that argument anymore. I let my relationships falter. I don't have good relations with my family, though there's a lot of past tied to that. Despite my family's efforts, I remain something of a hermit. I've become like my father was. I was blind to many opportunities to begin and participate in relationships. I threw away relationships with perfectly good and amazing women because I could not bring myself to be responsible for my thoughts, feelings, and actions, placing undue pressure on them to be two people. I've worried the last ten years or so away. My health is faltering because I cannot be bothered with the work to take care of myself.

Oh, and spiritual life? I cannot count the times I've spat in God's face, rejected him, and openly disobeyed his commandments. I have been self-righteous in a great many things, but over the years, I have become every single last one of the things I deemed myself too holy to ever fall prey to. I have been an adulterer. I have given myself to false gods. I have been the legalistic fundamentalist who could not see his neighbors past his own nose. I have hated people. I have become apathetic. I have been too lazy to do anything for the church. I have...a lot of sins. So much that I think I should never, ever be forgiven.

And yet, for God to display his love for me in many ways, big and small...what a fool I have been. My life is more or less comfortable. I always have food to eat. I always have something to be entertained with at the end of the day. I was given a car, and yet if that breaks down, I can still call upon others for help when I need it. I have a job when many do not. I have been given so many friends. For someone who actively tried not to be with people, I somehow ended up with more friends than some extroverts have.

And, the most important thing, despite everything I've done to spite God and His Name, He forgave me! The friends I hang around with most, they see me in all kinds of emotional states and outbursts...and they still love me. I can only assume that they forgive me on some level in hopes that I will one day see myself through this shit and become a better person. God has forgiven me, even of those sins which I thought were too terrible to be unpardonable. What have I missed? What have I lost in all my foolishness?

The only thing I've lost was time. Everything else is still here. Some of it mostly new, even unused.

Dear God, what a fool I have been.

I write all this knowing that many of my closest friends are leaving the country. This will probably be pried from me eventually, but maybe in a last-ditch effort to hang on to old foolishness, I can hope that I never need reveal these thoughts to them. But, the whole point of writing this down is so that they would, because I feel that I need to become more honest with myself, and it has to be through others that I can do so. Otherwise, how will I grow? Again, I am a fool who lacks understanding.

Remembering the father

2010-06-20T14:18:00.002-05:00

One of my most favorite memories of Dad was back when I was about five, I think. I don't think Melissa was born just yet. Julie was out working (she wasn't Mom just yet, either), and it was nighttime, getting close to mine and Corry's bedtime. Dad brought us into the living room. Corry and I were in our pajamas, and Dad had us sitting next to him, one to each side, on the couch. He didn't want us sitting on his lap because he needed that space for his drawing pad. He asked us for a number. We gave him one. He wrote it on the drawing pad, then proceeded to draw on and around that number until it wasn't a number anymore, but something else, like a car or an animal. I kept trying to give numbers while he was busy drawing or just to cut Corry off (I was a jerk like that). Dad kept telling me to wait my turn and be patient; in fact, he was being very patient with us. (At this time, he had been under the disease for around ten years. The patience was a major feat. It would be another thirteen or so years before the disease would be discovered.) The only specific sketch I remembered was the number 100. Dad turned that into a little house.

When Dad was freed of the disease a few years back, he lost all his weight and temper and regained his sanity and wits. The result was that he was pretty much given a second, better life to live the rest of his days, but at the cost of knowing what his hands had wrought. There is intense joy in him, but also intense regret. I wanted to share this because not everything in my childhood was bad and terrible; in fact, there were a lot of good times, and those should also be remembered.

Dreams

2010-05-10T21:18:00.002-05:00

I have pretty vivid dreams. They almost always have some kind of plot (not necessarily coherent, but it's there). They're in color, usually involve people and/or locations I know, and they're almost always offbeat. I dream often, but I only remember very few of them.

I don't remember last night's dream, but I do remember holding a conversation with a guy like he was really standing next to me. It was one of those dreams that felt so much like the real world that it was difficult to tell the difference (I could even physically feel and smell things in the dream). I can't for the life of me remember what that dream was about, but it somehow brought to mind another dream I had months ago. That one I do remember.

The dream was set in Carlsbad, where I grew up. Most dreams exist in certain locations that bear little to some resemblance of the place it was supposed to be, but not this one. I was at the house I grew up in on Lake Street. The house was as I remember it (the back part was not there, so it took place long after the fire). The hill it was on, the houses around it, the fence that was put up after the fire, it was all there.

In this dream, for some reason the family was back in this house (we have not lived there since the very end of 1996). Julie, my first stepmother, was there, and she was running back and forth taking care of all kinds of things. In fact, there were a lot of people there running about making preparations. I even had to run off to run errands of my own (Carlsbad even looked like Carlsbad). I recognized some family members, but none of them really stood out, just Julie, who would ask me to do a few things and give some encouragement on what was ahead (she really do the latter on occasion), and my sister Michelle The day was relaxed, yet nervous. Tables were set up everywhere. Decorations were put up, pictures dotted everything. I was reminded that the ceremony was only a few hours away.

It was my wedding day.

I don't know how the time passed, really, but several hours suddenly became just two. It was getting to be evening. Most everything was set up and ready inside. Stuff have to be set up and prepared outside (the backyard was very big for being in the city). The bride stepped out in her wedding dress and walked up and down the driveway in the back yard, stopping to chat with the minister.

I have no idea who the bride was.

While I was watching whatever was on TV, the bride's mother, an older woman who couldn't stand for very long, came in to the kitchen and had a seat. I apparently hadn't seen her all day, so I walked in to say hi. She was sporting a flight jacket, one that her late husband wore back in some war he fought in long before I was born. I asked her about it because I never saw her wore it before. She began tell her husband's story, one she was very fond of.

But I never got to hear it. At that point, I somehow knew it was time to wake up, that that story was only meant for the man hearing it, the me in the dream.

I woke up from that with enough time to get up and get ready for work, but I stalled for a bit. Aside from the small quirks in the details, it was a dream that could very well have happened. It was a pleasant dream. It was a nice dream. It was just a dream. I sat there for several minutes unable to shake the haunting feeling the dream gave, or the subsequent discouragement. I was unable to grasp its full meaning. Somewhere along the way, I missed something very important.

Come to think of it, I remember now the dream I had last night, that the man I was talking to wanted to know where or how I was going to come up with what was missing, like it was some kind of debt that needed payment. It was something valuable, but it wasn't money. I just don't remember what it was that I was asked for.

Huh...

2010-04-22T22:33:00.003-05:00

Today, I picked up Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz. It is by no means a scholarly work, but y'know something? I'm not a scholar. I can live with that. I picked it up from the bookstore on campus, and after letting it sit there for several minutes within eyesight while doing a few things on the computer, I can't stand it. I have to pick it up and read it. Others have read it and said some very good things about it. But I'm at work, so I can't spend on my time on it, right?

Thirty minutes later, I realize I should not have picked this book up. I have too much work to do to keep reading like I really, really wanted to.

And what a piece. A story of stories that track one man's journey in finding God.

Almost immediately, it was impressed upon me how very little I did, how I silently seethed in jealousy at those who did get up and do something with their lives, and how utterly selfish of me all that was. I loathed being completely in the background, yet all I did was loathe. In so doing, I became what I despised.

It's interesting how people turn out to be the very things they hate.

I want a lot of things out of life. God willing, it's not too late to begin.

Te Deum

2010-04-13T23:26:00.003-05:00

In a couple of days, the combined choirs of WBU and LCU are performing Mark Haye's Te Deum. This is particularly exciting for me because it's the second time I get to perform in it. It seems, however, that the professors aren't really sure on their dates.

The Te Deum was originally to be performed in the spring of 2003. However, due to heart complications, it had to be put off a year. The professors were a little downhearted about it because it was a really exciting deal for them. They knew Mark Hayes in his younger days before he become a big name in contemporary Christian composition. I forget the story of how they came across him in recent times, but they did, and Mr. Hayes was commissioned to write this piece for Wayland.

The 2003-04 school years was a particularly busy year for choral folk. In October, the music department performed for one of the services at the BGCT, which was being hosted in Lubbock that year. In December, Wayland Singers, International Choir, and the Plainview High School Choir combined along with an area symphony (I forget if it was all from Lubbock or Plainview) to perform selections from Handel's Messiah. The weekend after that, we had the Christmas concert, which Wayland Singers was completely unprepared for. We spent so much time on the Messiah that we did not know our pieces at all. We marched up to the stage, prepared for the inevitable failure which awaited us, and performed everything we set out to do flawlessly when we had just fell flat on our faces fifteen minutes before. It was the most amazing thing.

The spring semester was less busy on the music side, but busier elsewhere. My folks recently finalized their divorce at that time. With a newly acquired Xbox, I spent a month and a half in heavy training for a Halo tournament in Philadelphia put on by Major League Gaming. We failed miserably, but we had some other good times on the trip. Becca returned to WBU because her husband at the time had gone off to war. I was ferried off to no less then three different restaurants for my birthday, all of them pretty expensive meals. I also got my first taste of handbells, which happened to be the last semester Dr. Stutes conducted it.

During all this, the choirs were busily rehearsing the newly minted Te Deum. Our copies were bound with black construction paper and held together with black plastic ring binding so we could easily turn the pages. The Singers didn't spend a whole lot of time on it, opting instead to polish the pieces in our repertoire, all of them being pieces composed by Mark Hayes. However, we were invited to rehearse the piece with International, which was probably better for us overall.

The premiere of this piece was a huge deal for the music department. On the week of the performance, Mark Hayes came to Wayland for a week and hosted a number of talks and workshops, especially for composers. As interesting as it all was, I either had class or work, so I couldn't very well participate in any of that. Was it important? Sure, but more so is getting a paycheck so I can continue to go to school. Alas. In any case, the concert was heavily advertised. Special posters were up all over campus and even made their way into the greater Plainview area. On the night of the performance, the house was packed. The Singers put on a good show. International turned around and wowed the crowd, as they usually do. Then they combined to perform the Te Deum.

It's intimidating, perhaps even seemingly impossible, to sing over an orchestra. It's also pretty intimidating to be conducted by the man who wrote your music. I mean, what if he doesn't like how you did it at all? It'd be a damned disappointment for all, that's for sure. It's also intimidating to be one of four basses, while the other seven choral sections had much better representation. But, it all worked out very well. I sang bass with Robert Black, John Ed Baker, and one other guy (I can't remember who). Alan Yarborough was the baritone solo; Sarah Wagoner was the soprano solo. It was amazing to sing in it. The audience loved it. It was an extremely high point for the music department.

A week later, after getting permission from Mr. Hayes, CDs of the performance were distributed. However, whoever burned them forgot to finalize any of the discs, so none of them could play until the burning job was completed. I think somebody figured it out and got everybody's discs fixed before the semester was over. I got it done on my own and had the CD ripped into my music collection by then. I don't know where that CD ran off to, but I still have the performance stashed away in my music collection and on my iPod.

Years have passed. I had to drop out of college and make a slow, eventual return to school through employment at Wayland. I've moved out of the dorms and lived out in the Plainview community. Being employed at Wayland has allowed me to do things like perform in Singers and in Singing Men, which I do for the love of it more so than for any credit that I don't ever need any more. Each year, I kept hoping that they would do the Te Deum again, because it wasn't just a big, cool piece, it was our piece, one that needed revisiting over time. So, imagine my surprise when I got the syllabus to Wayland Singers this last January with the statement that we would perform that very piece in our spring concert.

It's enough to make a man wax nostalgic.

Crutches

2010-04-12T20:16:00.004-05:00

It's a sad world we live in when one must pay others in order to experience any kind of pain, but that was the situation I found myself in a couple of weeks ago. After paying a tidy little sum of money, I was made to wait for several hours in nothing but a gown, put to sleep, and woken up a couple of hours later with my foot wrapped in bandages and in no small amount of pain. People call this barbaric practice "medicine."

And so it was that a biopsy went by without a hitch. I'm to find the results of that on Wednesday. At the same time, I can get these stinky bandages off, of which I was forbidden to remove without gaining their permission and explicit instructions on how to replace. Having to stay off of one measly foot has made life a little more difficult than I'd like. Normal, mundane things I took for granted, such as carrying objects and moving chairs, are suddenly more involved, sometimes even difficult. My exercise routine has been thrown off and may be for some time while my foot heals. Getting in and out of my car has become something of a small ceremony as I hobble and contort about while placing my instruments of locomotion in strategic locations for later retrieval and use.

The people, on the other hand, have generally been very nice. Almost too nice. It's unnerving getting unasked, small favors from quite a few folk. I assume nobody pays attention to what I do because I live in a shell and invite nobody in. It's how I live. It's how I've survived. If I really sit and think about it, it's also pretty arrogant and selfish. Who am I to judge others unworthy, without feeling, or without care, especially if I don't make the effort and time to learn of them and partake in their lives as they allow? Alas that I should have to learn these things in some kind of hard, painful manner.

A story doth brew, and has been for the last couple of years. The week ahead will be busy, but I've got plenty if road time to meditate on it. Now I kinda wish there was someone riding with me to the rehearsals and performances in Lubbock. Alas, it's a little late for that now.

A Monologue, If You Will

2010-04-10T14:50:00.002-05:00

Good afternoon.

It's been a while.

I pretty much gave up blogging last July after attempting to make a post each day every day for a year. It was too much to handle, so much so that I grew sick of writing, period. This was a bad decision, but what could I do? I was exhausted from writing and continually threw up crap that meant little, if anything. I needed a break, and I took it.

It was a little overextended. Writing has provided for me a huge (and often the only) outlet for everything I kept within. It's a poor substitute for another person, but being the overly shy, socially inept coward that I am, it was enough. Ironic considering this is put out in public for all to see. However, not all gets put down in writing. Much more lie away hidden (and really should go into a private journal, but I haven't made myself do that just yet).

But it remains that I had done very little writing since, and my heart grows weary and heavy with burdens both new and old. What can I say about the last several months? There have been joys and hardships. Relationships have been created and broken. Some folk have been freed, others bound. People have moved around, worked their talents, enjoyed the fruits of their labor, or perhaps wallowed in the pain of defeat. I watch as life around me unfolds. I watch and wonder, "How shall I participate? Which path do I take?" Hands reach out and pull me whichever way. Others, they have their plans. I have mine, but they get trampled on. After all, why should anybody bother with them if I still don't put much stock into them? Instead, I allowed myself to be ripped to pieces and tossed around wherever the wind decides to blow.

I'm sure that was all nice and confusing. What I mean is that I'm dissatisfied with a life where I sit passively and let come what may, and solely react to what's thrown at me. I have dreams, plans, but they will amount to nothing because I'm not good at anything. Of course I'm not. I won't put forth the effort to become good. So I dream big dreams and live in their imaginary splendor while living a completely passive life.

In that time, people have learned new languages, created works of art, organized and pulled off big events, made impacts in their communities, did something. I want to do something. Maybe I should. But what can I do? I'm not good at anything.

But I can write. I've written before, and I can do so again. And so, I pick up the pen once again. I've stories to share.