Buoyed

I often wonder about moments and times in our life when we become ready for, well, whatever it is that stands in front of us. Big decisions, personal challenges, life paths... I've watched in the lives of my family, my friends, and as many of you know, myself. I've never been apologetic about the major decisions I've made in my life. They have made me who I've become, and they've all helped mold me into the person whose fingers tap away. I've had moments where the initial sensation of regret creeps into my mind, but with a little bit of time and reflection I come to understand the role of these decisions in my life.

There have been moments (more than I can count, really) when I can't see beyond the tunnel as life pushes me into a place where I can't turn down the opportunity that sits in front of me. I'm sitting in my seaside apartment in a small summer holiday area outlying a peninsular Chinese city as May rolls into June, which explains enough in itself. Not so long ago, I was wrestling with all the misery lingering from losing the one I committed to nearly five years ago. And I can't deny that there aren't still days when I mourn that loss... but I don't regret my decision to leave or to come here. In fact, I couldn't (and still don't) acknowledge that there was another reasonable decision to be made. If I would've tried to wait any longer, I would've given away every remaining piece of me. And I sit here today as the spring clouds roll in over the coastal shores knowing that I've made it through the tunnel.

I'm finding myself reflective because of a man I'm lucky to have as a friend. We were speaking online tonight from across a continent as he makes his way through Europe for a trip with some of his amigos. Over this past year, he's been a phenomenal source of solace and good advice for me. He went through a hard breakup a few years ago and made it out with a new perspective, and passed on what he learned in every way he could to help keep me grounded and positive. And after speaking to him earlier and getting an email from him, I realized that his perspective has changed more in the last year than I could ever imagine. For a long time, he avoided the steps he's now taking... maybe because of fear, or uncertainty, or another phenomenon that made him balk. And the more I think about it, it just seemed like it wasn't his time. And now it is. And I don't think I've ever been so happy for anyone in my life. 

There were a couple of years after high school and after we'd both moved away from home that I wasn't sure that our friendship could weather the years and distance and changing lives. We had started to become extremely different and the conversations that came so naturally in our closer days seemed to be a lot more forced. Our common experiences were slowly fading. Now, though, even though we're leading radically different lives, we're still close. And through him and especially through his decision tonight, I finding my own hopes and wishes becoming real, and it's buoying me in ways I can't even explain. 

The decision he made today will hopefully be one that he'll live to tell his great-grandchildren about. Hell, I'll tell mine if he doesn't. Good on ya, SP. Making memories that'll last a lifetime.

T

A part

I hear words and melody and I think to myself
I want to be a part of the song I hear playing
While I'm looking at all you've created
In this world-non-world
Of perfect images

I see flashes captured and the instances boxed
And I want to be the eyes that stare out
From behind the framed glass
On your wall
Only so as to connect with all those
Passing glances from other's eyes
That seek meaning
In still moments

Maybe you'll find that I'm the sign

That you pass by on the roads ahead
When you're looking for somewhere to turn
Toward a place you can curl up in
And find the calm you seek

Could it be that you may
Let my breath be the breath that causes your skin
To shiver in the summer night's heat
As sweat beads on your neck
And slowly disappears into the linen
On which you breathe and sleep and dream

One day, it may be possible
You'll find my words
Are your words
And your love
Is our love

Maybe one day we'll speak
I'll meet you
Maybe one day

TM

Sharing some songs stuck in my head

For the first time since living in China, the rain is pattering at my window and has been all day. The smell of the water sneaks in my door, seeps through the walls and makes me think about all those quiet, soggy, book-filled days of walking through the coastal streets that I'm excited to get back to... makes me recall all the words I've abandoned through the years, like the rain is a graveyard for discarded thoughts and resentment. Something about the rain takes it all away... maybe the old metaphors and cliches of life made new and the world being refreshed. Whatever the case, I love the comfort I'm in, turning away offers of umbrellas so I can feel the drops on my pate and my brow in the short distance to my apartment. My hometown can keep the snow, but let me have the rain.

I got my mitts on a whole pile of Dave Matthews songs lately, and a few have been inside my mind for days. Others are new tastes that I unexpectedly stumbled upon or songs that I don't think I'll ever get out of my head because of their power/beauty. Click on the titles and enjoy...

Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds - Eh Hee

Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds - Down by the River 

Rusted Root - Send me on My Way

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals - Nothing but the Water Part 1

Carol Woods and Timothy T. Mitchum - Let it Be (from the Across the Universe soundtrack)

T

Friday night nonsense

I'm daydreaming, escaping these walls of mine
Mind slipping to silent dreams
Of hands clutching coffee cups under cover of a car's roof
Beside coastal waters as waves crash overhead.
We quietly clasp each other's hands, keeping close and warm,
Listening to the world speak in windswept whispers
And water-flooded shouts where we can feel alone
Yet endlessly and eternally not alone.

I'm recklessly romantic in these mindful rendezvous'
As I ignore fact and embrace these fanciful fictions
Found inside my brain.

TM

Recent, unfinished thoughts

I've always lived inside the philosophy that life (and love) needs to be electric... charged like static sparks between fingers or live wires whipping erratically between telephone poles after being snapped in a storm... unpredictable and alive. I have reflected on my dating habits prior to marriage and know that none of the girls I dated seemed to last more than a few months. They had the fire and the initial spark, but something began to fade after a few months. There was one instance when the electricity didn't fade, but it was snuffed out. 

When I think about moving on in my life, I think about the pursuit of this high I used to know... the charge of passion and electricity that I used to feel... how good and alive it felt, and how I needed it like cocaine. Every ounce of me pursued it, and even when it led me to the self-destructive I still longed for it and craved it and hated it for escaping my grasp. It wasn't simply physical, but something more all-encompassing. It was the pursuit and the pursued, and it eluded me.

********

It's another morning in paradise
Not sure if I'm going to to leave my bed
All this sun streaming in the window
It's doing nothing to change my mind

All I know these days is that these days it's only
The darkness of an empty apartment
Waking up to an empty mailbox
And to the vacant pillow beside my head

Stretch those arms out my way
I'll only wait for a little while
I can't quite reach your fingers
My breath can only last so long

In my mind are memories of crisp, spring nights
Where the night is clear and the stars are out
I'm falling asleep to candle light
With the faint hum of jazz in my ears

Now the laughter I hear is outside the window
Twenty floors down where love lives now
This laughter lives in frameless pictures
That have left the walls of my life behind.

*******

Another bout of restless introspection
Is following me to bed
As if it conspires to create
My newly insomniatic head.

Blue lights buzzing,
Memory fuzzing
Over all the details
That weren't worth remembering

*******

I'm a million words swimming in a stormy head
Not certain of up or down
Or if there's anything particularly interesting 
Any which way or long way 'round

I sometimes like to kid myself 
I'm an anomaly like the rest of the world
I'm an intriguing glance across a room
As everything tightly wound becomes unfurled

I'm overused rhyme schemes
In overused thought streams
I'm a mystery

I'm baffling and inspiring
But more maddening
Than anything
You cast glances, they're loving
While I remain 

TM

Early morning sensory stimulus and a million beginnings

The smell of smoked duck neck is penetrating the air in our English office. The Chinese ESL teachers love this as a morning snack, and I have to admit that I can't bring myself to try it at 9:00am. It doesn't quite go with my sweet muesli/fruit/yogurt/coffee breakfasts or my freshly brushed, pepperminty teeth.

Lately I've been starting a number of different posts, full of lofty poetic ambition and life-fulfilling insight. Only to get a stanza or two into the writing before abandoning the effort in an inability to connect with what I want to say or how I'm feeling. I keep feeling like I can't find any stable ground right now, and every time I settle into some sort of emotional mind-state, something arises to rip that sturdy platform from under me. At school, I'm having my classes changed and rearranged on a daily basis. I'm struggling to sort out exactly what to teach the kids as they have so little time remaining in the semester/year, and I keep trying to figure out what the priorities need to be in order to maximize the effectiveness of my classes. This hasn't exactly been a fruitful venture.

Then, after getting a preliminary teaching schedule for next year from my friends at the high school, I find out that it's turned into the undesirable dog's breakfast of classes... more or less a mix of stuff that no one wants to teach. Now I'm hoping for this state of change to keep going, as the classes have almost zero appeal.

I'm also still reeling from all the anger and frustration felt with the recent splitting up of stuff and the signing of paperwork as K and I attempt to finalize everything. Maybe we'll never be able to forgive each other or get past the recent bitter exchanges, but I just really want that. I'm still also seeking some final closure and feel like I want the chance to really talk about everything, but it seems
impossible right now. And maybe it will remain that way. I don't know. All I know is that I don't want to feel like 9 years are going up in a smoky fire of resentment. But it seems impossible to bridge the gap at this point. I've never been patient when I feel the need to fix/resolve things, and the anxiety relating to making an attempt to just bury our metaphorical hatchet... but it seems like we're both guarding the weapon with our lives, as if by maintaining our grip on the hostility, we're maintaining some sort of dignity. But all it has been doing is destroying that very thing.

The past few weeks haven't been unpleasant... they've just been unsettled. While on vacation last week, I spent some quality time with a few books and I thought a lot about the fact that I'd love to dedicate more time to that. And maybe about going back to school in the not-so-distant future. Who knows. I also keep thinking about starting over again with new people in my life, new women in my life... I've tried to avoid the thoughts but they keep creeping into my mind. Maybe because I just keep thinking about the fact that I haven't really been able to share my life with anyone recently, from vacations to personal triumphs to the regular, daily struggles. And I
can't really burden people over and over with such expectations, especially when they have their own lives to lead.

That's probably the most obvious and real thing I've noticed since K and I separated... all the people in my life that I used to be so close to are now so involved in their lives and communities that I feel like a satellite now. This is due to, in large part, to my own decisions. But it gets a little lonely because of such decisions.

T

Cusps

I've escaped my slightly prison-like accommodations in Daheishi for the week and am enjoying the warm, overcast humidity of Xi'an in central China. It's the May Day holiday week, and I'm off school until Sunday. Currently, I'm sitting in my hostel, watching the local kittens jump and play at my feet as I think about where I'm going to get my next cup of coffee.

My first few days here haven't been particularly exciting... I've been taking it easy and definitely slept in this morning in order to recapture some of the sleep debt that I've built up over previous weeks. Even my first night here, I tossed and turned and reacted to all the noise in the nearby courtyard and only managed to get about 4 or 5 hours of rest. But, with the purchase of ear plugs yesterday (which came with a delightful Winnie-The-Pooh eye mask to keep that pesky light out), I was able to assume a more zombie-like state last night in my small dorm. It also helped that there was only one other person in my room and he's extremely quiet.

So much is awaiting me in coming weeks... there's only another 7 weeks of teaching once I get back to Dalian, and then (hopefully) a 10 day trip to Yunnan before my stressful/busy/fun-filled summer in Canada, then another year of teaching and adventure in China. I'm on the verge of finishing my first year away from Canada while also being close to becoming a legally-single man again. So many things to think about... finding apartments, sorting out who I can see and when I can see them when I return, trying to figure out how I'm going to see everyone, try to find some civil ground between K and I.... just so many things.

The prospect is pretty daunting. Realistically I've been going solo for more than a year now (been away from Kelowna for nearly 2 years), but there's something particularly final about the signing of the paperwork and making it legal. It's been a pretty miserable past few weeks, dealing with embittered emails and a combined inability to understand each other and to let sleeping dogs lie. I think both of us are just frustrated and maybe we're both refusing to see the other's perspective. I don't actually know where the root problem lies, but I'm pretty sure that is stems from the unresolved feelings from the beginning of the separation. But now that we're really going our separate ways, is there any reason to sort it out? I want to say there is, but the realist in me is suspicious.

For now, though, I'm off to make something of my day...

T