34: The Intentional Art of Missing.

I don’t know why I’ve been given so many close friends.

Mathematically, the factors don’t add up to the experienced sum. I’m not an incredibly friendly person, quite the opposite, really. I tend to intimidate or shove a wedge of social ineptitude between myself and fresh personalities that wander over with an open, smiling face and outstretched palm.

Yet, somehow, people reached past Me to get to the Me who was capable of more than just pleasantries and occasional interaction; they dug until the unearthed a Me who could earnestly pour the affection and friendship deserved by them onto them.

How did this even happen? It’s because I learned to miss people.

Step back to boyhood; the concept is raw and molten, not hardened into an island of thought at this point. Three years old, five, or eight; I’m not entirely sure what the age was, but I do remember the life of an army brat and the moment that crystalized just how much I missed my perpetually exiled Dad. It could be training one month, or a wholesale disappearance with no distinct part of the map to put my finger on and know that he existed under my grimy nails.

I understand the reason why. Mission directives require a certain covert covering to ensure safety, and I know he never smuggled away any joy in knowing the cloud of uncertainty he left hanging over our heads every time that big green kit bag started filling up with desert camo. But even though it was only slightly more than a confused hormonal response rattling around the limbic system of my small head, it formed a foundation of realization over what life is with one of it’s major pieces lifted out.

My dad was really the only lesson given me in learning what it was to miss any person for my first decade and a half. Moving from the drab and unimaginative military housing in one state to a carbon copy in another left no room for another teacher on attachment and subsequent detachment. Its only the people that can leave big enough holes in a person to notice, not houses or streets or swimming pools down by the grocery store. We can always recover from leaving places, but I don’t think we’re supposed to ever really recover from parting ways with people.

High school graduation is the first mass tether-cutting that most people partake of in their lives, possibly the only one. Bonds of common interests: a love for literature, a friendship forged through something as similar as a mutually enjoyed movie; common enemies: athletic rivals, the teacher who is impossible to beat, the very essence of the uphill climb into higher and higher rungs of academia; common experiences: the overwashing of wonder on inked winters nights pierced through by stars, the synchronized heartbeats of an athletic team in practice of it’s art form, and that one time when you and your friends did that one thing and almost got caught.

And they all leave in May.

Either we kick and thrash and sink our claws into the exit sign as time pulls us out of the door, or we accept the holes shaped like our friends that were in their right place one day and moved to a state school in West Virginia the next.

College is much the same. New people overlay the holes that were left from high school, and they never really fit what was gone, but they become woven into our lives just as deeply, all the while with the raw feeling left from the last great exodus churning in the gut that sets a countdown timer to the day the stoles fly and diplomas pull the threads once again.

Slowly, the people you know will leave. It’s inevitable. Whether it's because of a job out of state or a relative that needs family closer by, or the somber moment when they are carried by those closest to them to be laid into the ground; everyone has to leave.

If I could, I would keep all of everyone I’ve ever cared about in one fused sphere made from every Good and Holy moment spent with people who I truly care about and who I know care about me. We would live every split-second of the rest of our lives in the height of our friendship and the adventure that is inherently stamped on a bond that solid. But what I only recently became fully cognizant of is that this futile fantasy is something that will never be achieved on this earth. Heaven. I was asking for Heaven unabashedly and in my own selfish terms. And I’ve only just now stumbled across the words that I needed to etch this thought into my mind:

Learn to Miss People.

Learn to be Missed by People.

Don’t jump to some candy-coated conclusion before I’ve fully explained these words, because neither of them is easy. In fact, both of them are extremely difficult and expend just about every last drop that lays in my social energy well when exercised. It’s a horrible, yet beautiful postcard from the eventual heaven promised us. It takes the barely scabbed over losses of those closest us (via moving away, loss of common ties, or even the confusing chasm that death tears open between friends and family) and rips the ugly mass of damaged flesh attempting to grow over the wound, exposing all of the rotten hurt and tender nerves that still aren’t ready to accept the separation we all experience. And then we pour salt in that festering cut.

I miss so many people for so many reasons. And it hurts to remember that there will never be a way to go back to the way it was in the simpler times of days past. But the real question that we all need to ask ourselves is “Why does this hurt?”

And the only answer I can come up with in response is: “Because it was good.”

It was good; the same words spoken by God over the Garden of Eden. This leads us to the final question: “Why was it good?” Because we touched a piece of Eden in the life of someone willing to share theirs with us, and we should pray fervently that we allowed the same gift to in return.

Learn to Miss the People.

Learn to be Missed by People.

The pain and longing we experience by separation from those we connected with on a deeper level can either ruin us or it can point us to the caring, boisterous, loving, hilarious, awe-filled, compassionate, adventurous, and overall wonderful parts of the person who used to walk beside us. Learn to Miss People because of how they painted their unique strokes on your life, made you better through simply existing near you, drew you closer to heavens doors, reminded you of Eden in a way that only that person could have.

It’s easy to guess the next part. Be Missed by People. Leave a room emptier than it was when you were truly alive inside of it. Leave holes in other people’s lives, not out of spite but simply because the act of you existing beside others made them better people, brought them closer to heaven’s doors, reminded them of Eden in only a way that you could have.

What a terrible life it would be if no one mattered enough to tear a hole in you when they left.

What a terrible friend you would be if you left those around you intact when you are gone.

Christ gives us the hope that, one day, we will all be able to sew each other back into our lives in the most perfect tapestry ever conceived. Every past wound left by a lost friend refilled and made Oh so much sweeter by the absence remedied.  Every wound you’ve ever torn by your leaving healed and restored to something higher and weightier and more complete than a trip down memory lane ever promised.

Learn to Miss People.

Learn to be Missed by People.

This life isn’t worth living any other way.

33: Poems from the Brothers.

Some of these are from my brother, some of them are from me. Try to guess which wrote which.

Steps


Outside the storm rages in late morning.
 Flakes to sheets, strikes in silence against frosty glass.
Stillness offers no rest to me, when it was all I had hoped for. Life's hunger heaves up beneath my back, insistent cushions pressing me out the door to bright white paths, so white as to blind the walker.
World-noise is lost in the closeness and expanse of white.

Covered ears hear my breath rushing; bare they hear the earth's howling whims,
At times a cold wave pressing me back to my bed, at others a firm arm lifting me in a swirling dance through straight street lines.

There is age and freshness in the air.
Many walkers guided through their steps; many shrouded cold with frost in death. Some it has carried to the clouds, some it has driven down to nothing.
For ages.


Each breath meets me for the first time.



Duality and Darkness


The shadow looks for his face in the mirror to ask

Who am i, what, and where from?
The sullen dusk behind street lights?
A child of the moons back, cast down?
Spirit if the hidden places underfoot? (There must be full of my brothers, or maybe one voluminous ancestor.
Who can tell?)

Have I seeped up through the skin of the earth, from the womb of all darkness, defined by the nights swell? Kin to demon and dirge, both wax in my steps, mine is the hand on the latch of Pandoras rusty hinge, flying forth nightmare, giving my cloak to the mysteries of midnight, benefactor of the bane.

Yet,

Why do my edged melt and drain away when the candle is hushed? I contain no longer myself. I do not devour the night, it is my lines that are swallowed up when the sun bids farewell. I am no longer one once the light of day dims.

Day defines me,
Details me,
Draws me,

With no light to know myself by, I and all my kin are hurled to our own dark dungeon, blended with demons and devils,
our own selves, not the least.

Who am I, what, where from?
A shadow am I, born of the light.





Walt's Waltz


The song begins
two
Three
Out of beat he takes her hand and waist, feet unsteady, rhythm hard to find through the thrumming in his ears.
two
Three.


He leads her in minor catastrophe; dress shoe scrapes and mumbled apologies the discordant harmony of their song
two
Three

He leads poorly.

Hope for both fades with the vibration of the last plucked string, and the song ends.

two

Three




Untitled


In clouds are cares and lonely worries stored. And grey in heavy countenance they hang. Above our heads, and in our heads the same. But sky and threat at distance still remain until forgotten burdens fall in rain

and
                                  woes

        sink
                               in
     
                                                             our

    bones,

                                              forgot

                            no

                                             more.





The Bravery of Ants


A million strong, a million more
Come streaming neath the kitchen door.
I stamp, I swing, hells fury bring,
But undeterred, a million more.

For glory and for breadcrumbs come
This endless tide against tiled shore
A cup, a crust, but their foodlust,
Unsatiated, a million more.

"Kill 'em now, and kill 'em quick!"
I scream, slapping shoe upon the floor
Yet I'm sugar, bread, and upon my head
As if from dust, a million more.

A lone warrior through my arm hair crawls
His aim to slay me with grit and gore
I watch his struggle up mountain me..
"Where is he going?"
"Does he think I have food on me?"
"Wait, do I have food on me?"
Quick check in the mirror.
"...nope. guess it's OWW!"
A giant palm ends his noble quest
A can of spray, a million more.



Try to guess who wrote which. Reply in comments or on Facebook. Winners get high fives*








*hand may or may not be licked prior to slapping five.

32: Courtship and Cadavers, Penguins and Peacocks.

As a disclaimer, I have negligible relationship experience. But today in my anatomy class, as we pulled back dissected muscle flaps from the back of a long dead corpse, still dripping formaldehyde from slowly rotting internal cavities, I mentally stumbled upon the perfect introduction that both disgusts and hooks the reader into wondering where this train of thought could possibly end up.

            So on to the first point.

            I probably have more relevant experience being a male as opposed to female, so I will address my gender first. When it comes to relationships, whether portrayed by media or simply acted out in a coffee shop or workplace, the emphasis that men tend to put forward is heavily set on being “Alpha”. This can range anywhere from having the requisite skills to fix the printer to being so completely dominant and knowledgeable as to delegate someone else to fix the printer. It can also manifest as happening to have the personal number of the worlds best printer fixer on speed dial and a personal jet idling in Vienna to fly that specialist directly to the frontage road outside the printer shop, or even  \to completely ignore the whole printer problem and don a slouch hat, go to an animal adoption agency, and then write a mandolin ballad about your new rescue chinchilla.

            All of these interpretations of the now vague term of “Alpha” hinge on confidence and imply that women will then flock to the most Alpha male based on the performance most recently displayed. I cite social media outlets in bulk, where there are countless males listing what they construe as the most impressive accomplishments, pictures, and whatever odds and ends we can cobble together to put bait on a hook with the intent of luring in females and then reeling them up to the surface of who we really are, largely to disappointment from the females perspective.

            Drawing an easy comparison would be to envision the average single modern male as these stupid things. 

Fun fact: Peacocks don’t stick around for the laying of the eggs, nor do they lend a claw to the raising of the young. Truth is, they have no interaction with the peahens (you learn something new every day) after the mating ritual is completed, even though the species can live up to 20 years.

It is essentially a dumbed down version of a dating reality show, except that the males gradually become outnumbered by their own illegitimate children (if animals could have a concept of legitimate offspring. Or legality… or courts…  Imagine sitting in on a peacock custody hearing… Probably for the best, I doubt peacocks could pay child support for 7ish offspring per mating season… plus a peacock will inseminate upwards of 5 peahens per mating season…….. carry the one…)

            Regardless of how many comical anthropomorphized situations that comparison brings up, it leads to the question of whether or not we as a species could actually follow suit. Theoretically, it could work. But similar to my theory that there may be a planet completely composed of Goldfish crackers (probability doesn’t prove me wrong), it breaks down in practicality.

 If hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and the average male were to scorn approximately 5 women every May through July (and we know the average male is capable of an exponentially higher number than that), then life as we know it would never have been able to advance till today. Even if we only began implementing this new society today, we would die off a species at the end of the next born generation due to complete reproductive embargo enacted by the female population as a near nuclear form of “Oh No he Di’ent.”

           

            Even outside of the parody, this society would collapse upon itself. Yet we as men continue to parade ourselves like we aren’t lackluster frauds who can barely figure out how to put pizza rolls in the oven instead of pursuing what really matters, or possibly finding something worth pursuing wholeheartedly.

            Speaking of hearts and organs and all that, I can’t seem to shake the image of sticking a gloved hand directly into a long dead and preserved human body. It just… it sticks with you. That heart used to be a person. Strange.

Some people might expect the women to be complete opposite from men. I would argue that they are actually quite similar, just with slight differences in approach and tactics. It is actually quite easy to simplify all of this discussion into “Everyone wants to be wanted” and leave it at that. Women, just like men, want to be noticed and flocked to. They want to have their pick of whoever they deem to be the Alpha-est of the Alphas that parade in front of them, awaiting their nod and smile with what might be described as desperation mixed with utmost confidence. I like to call it “Utpost Desifidence.” 

Funny enough, this behavior is also best modeled by a bird. These little weirdos.

It’s basically a female’s dream relationship as far as my severely misinformed male brain can extrapolate from the limited interactions that I’ve had with the female gender. The male will see a female that he simply cannot live without for another moment, so enthralled with her very presence is he that he must outpour his love for her in the most perfect gift he can contrive:

                                                       A rock.

Isn’t it a little strange that a bird with the brain sized only slightly larger than your average cat turd managed to beat humans to the idea of presenting rocks to their bride to be? Is it also strange to be typing this while my internet window in the background is displaying the google image search results for “average sized cat turd”? I can answer one of those with a fair bit of certainty.

But getting back to penguins, the male (after swooning) will run about like a madman trying to get the best pebble possible. The smoother the better, and satan himself better get out of the way if he’s sitting on a nice looking rock. Male penguins will steal from others, beat down other bachelors, waddle tirelessly on the shore for hours just to find a pebble that will prove his love for the female. And no matter how many heinous crimes against penguin society or how sore his webbed walkers get, he knows it will be worth it in the end.

Unless she rejects him.

The female penguin can give the shaft to a male suitor if she doesn’t like his rock, his body, his attitude, or just the fact that he only works part time at the cannery. She has complete control over the situation as long as she is an attractive enough candidate.

This is the crux of the matter and where the crossover between species becomes a little less fun. Women spend far more time than is warranted or necessary to make themselves look attractive to men, so that they can get a long line of suitors, so that they can pick and choose, so that they can have this control, so that they can be wanted. And this goes far beyond just physical appearance. Having the right walk, the cute laugh, the good music sense, the quirky personality that hinges just between neurotic and nerdy without touching the dark side too much, but just a little to stay interesting. Women want to feel worthy of pursuit.

And here is where we veer from the lighthearted and into the more serious section. Those who were riding the words just for fun or because they took a wrong turn on the Internet: this is your cue to leave. Those who stay, stay because you want to think, and think through the lens of the gospel.

Men (self included): What is the purpose of gathering trophies and accolades, bright feathers and shiny pebbles? If we look at the example that Christ set for us through his relationship with the church, we see that he took no time to do a dance to impress or gathered presents to woo. Ephesians 5:25 shows that he chased hard after the hearts of the body of believers because he knew that he and Only he could bring about the satisfaction that we crave in community. He pursued the church to draw them closer to the one true source of meaning and purpose, emulating him would mean that, as you pursue a woman, you are bringing her closer to the person of Christ. What is a more worthy reason to pursue than that?

Women (self not included, I think): We could think of women as the church to be pursued, but I would like to take it a step further. Emulate Christ in this as well. Be so filled with grace and love and peace that, to pursue you would be to pursue the likeness and character of Christ himself. “Seek the LORD and His strength; Seek His face continually.” (1 Chronicles 16:11) The very act of chasing after you should bring a man closer to both of your creator and Lord. What is more worthy of pursuit than that?

To both: Pursue the image of Christ, and become more like his reflection through the person you date and marry. Find the person who you can see the light of the divine in, and pursue that instead of the housing around it. Ultimately, the housing falls to pieces, and not in a pretty or poetic way. The muscles that used to denote prowess or Alpha status become wooden and shred into thin ribbons. The eyes and the perfect facial bones rot away with no life in them, ground into dust and softening into sludge. The brain that knew so much fizzles out and fails, leaving its sharp-as-a-whip wit and earthly wisdom to bake inside the softening skull.

Everything that we perceive as a person with our earthly eyes will perish and pass. And all that will be left is a mirror. Some will be dirty, some will be warped, and some will be shattered into a thousand pieces. And when Christ walks by, he will look into each of our mirrors, hoping to see the one person who has paid for our salvation. Those who pursued the image of Christ in each other, though not perfect by any stretch, will be the ones to reflect his face. Those are the ones who will get to reflect him for eternity.

Hah, So that’s where that train of thought led.

31: Morning Mist

In the advanced age of my middling twenties, I've come to find that most of what I have to say isn't profound or new, but simply a new or profound way of saying what everyone already knows. We all have an understanding of the natural and the miraculous that supersedes our ability to paint it in words. The real trick is to come close.

This is fairly unlinked to the following ditty, but the words felt like they needed to be written. So there they are, and here is this: a goofy little prose about waking up in a swamp.


Flow and flows around my toes

Soft paddles in early light

Flat-disk of pond

Ringed with reed and frond

I gently churn to Life.


Silk strings of wave i have, delicate, made

To my left as to my right

slowly, prow forth

Just east of north

I stream in watery flight.


Silver glint, I spy with my water-trained eye

And dip my green head beneath wet

Calm as could be

I have killed for me

A scaled breakfast, my table is set.


Then flapping strong wings and these paddly things

I push off from a runway of glass

disturbing the Peace

I go join the geese

And quack loudly, serenity's past.




And that's why i've never liked ducks.

30: On Endings and Beginnings.

Beginning a work. Working toward completion. Completing what one has started. Starting another. In our finite and temporal perspective of life, everything has a beginning, middle, and end. The constructor sets out to pave a road from one point to another. After a good time of labor, he finds himself under the hot sun with fresh tar and gravel underfoot and his eyes set towards the destination, miles and months away. And when that happy day comes where the last swath of pavement overlap with the lot of land that the contract stipulates, the need for a road suddenly is met and the road builder becomes suddenly obsolete for that project.

Is this not how it should be? Should the doctor constantly be working on a patient, with no foreseeable cessation of care other than the inevitable flat line? Either way, the doctor’s work is done when the patient no longer needs the physicians touch, either through healing or death. And the author does not continuously pen the same page if he wants payment at some point. He must finish inking that chapter, so as to move onto the chapter next. The chapter already penned has no more need of his eye and quill than the authors last meal needs eating again.

We should all strive to work ourselves out of job, and then to pick up another.

Like a teacher who learns a child of reading the alphabet must find a stopping point at which the change to grammar is necessary or a friend who has helped another in overcoming a fear of a particular thought or thing must find a new way to better their buddy, we cannot hold so fast to one specific job that we hold up progress of the person we aim to help. The constructor of roads must find a new road to pave, else he hamper traffic on the road just made by the constant laying down of fresh asphalt where there is none needed. The doctor cannot continue to stitch the same wound, but must move on to treat the next. The author will die of starvation if one pages work keeps him from ever getting on to the next. The parent must, at some point, allow the child to take its own steps without the hovering hands to hold.

But I never put it to anyone to finish one task in their life and then to begin to dig their own grave. We have not been made as single-task robots of an assembly line, relegated to the junk heap when worn out or when the company begins a new product. We are multifaceted, multitalented, multientangled creatures that reflect a creator of infinite creativity and restorative power. To think of ourselves as one-trick ponies to be turned out to pasture after one showing is to deny a true reflection of the creator that we strive to imitate. We should not relegate ourselves to the junk heap or the porch swing, unless we know that a good work to begin, work through, and complete is to be found in said heap or swing.

Turning from a work finished to a work unstarted is by no means an easy task. It can be a thing of emotional drains and a severing of former attachment to the task behind and a transplant of time, energy, and heart to the new pavement, parchment, patient, protégé, or pupil. But we must do it. This world is for the working of good and the thwarting of evil, not for the resting of barely used bones. Our true rest is reserved for when the work that our Creator finally finishes in us. When we are finally allowed the porch swing of perfect restoration to the relationship we were meant for when life is simply a sweaty and tear stained memory. Then we will hear “Well DONE. My good and faithful worker.”

Beginning a work. Working toward completion. Completing what one has started. Starting another now.

           

29: Follicle Folly

It has often been said, and oftener been true that: “There is a season for everything.” The constant flux and flow of the universe has always been surrounding the fact that nothing is truly static. As our eye observes, there are immutable laws of change governed by the constant march of time that break down the old and rebuild the new, only to mature the new into old, and break it down yet again. It is true for grass, for deer, for stars in the heavens, and for all things under heaven. So it is no great surprise to anyone that all of these forces that recycle and rebirth nature in such a fashion also affect beards.

Beards. They’ve become such a fashion statement these days. But while I could fill this entire entry with a comprehensive and most likely critical analysis of the beard and it’s place in our society, I’ve decided to take a much more sweeping look at a very simple facet of their existence; namely, their growth cycle. Let us compare the common beard with another similarly common attribute of life: (and more precisely, human life) “Growing Up”.

As a quick disclaimer, this topic was not slowly thought out over a steaming cup of tea in an overstuffed arm chair, surrounded by a mahogany-cradled study of leather bound books; rather, it was stumbled upon sleepily by a flannel swaddled 20-something male who was barely awake in the passenger seat of a Toyota Camry at 1:27 in the morning. I believe the lively discourse between passenger and driver began something like: “Dude….. Beards and babies are, like… the same.” Allow me to detail that thought. 

Basically

The same thing

Babies are born soft and without much protection, smooth and squishy and generally unsuited for any kind of hardship and lacking any sort of defense against the elements. They spend much of their first days adjusting to the relative cold of the outside world, and are provided aid in this endeavor in the way of soft cloths and wrappings, ultimately being cloaked in a similar way to the small chunk of “steak” is by the stifling layers of simulated food products that are used to make a taco bell steak burrito.

Likewise, the unbearded face is akin to the newborn. It has no protection from the elements, retaining a squishy softness heralding back to infancy. It must be given aid when fending off cold, and is therefore encircled by a sometimes soft wrapping of differing materials. Scarf, buff, balaclava, hood, collar, wrap, ascot, and numerous other names are given to clothing items that are intended to shield the unbearded face from the outside world. There is even a recent trend among the young and/or hormonally challenged to wear an artificial rendering of facial hair that is integrated into a hat, which effectively fools those greater than 10 meters from the wearer into thinking that the beard is organic, though any distance closer will bring about questions about the wearers place in society. At any rate, it is one of many options to grant the unbearded face the simulated warmth of facial growth.

98% of the users look like this.

The next phase of life and beard is the child stage. It is a stage of wonder and possibility, exploration and curiosity, a time when a child will begin to venture out into the world, and the beard will begin its cautious journey away from the surface of the face. In the vernacular, this period in a beards life is called “Stubble.” And it is as rough as any schoolboys calloused palms. It aspires to be grown some day, but it is firmly grounded in where and what it is now: a playful, ruddy sprout, strangely serious at times but always ready to play.

Stubble is surprisingly comfortable. It reassures the hand when it is rubbed over the chin. It whispers of future glory and greatness, promises ultimate protection from the coming cold. Looking not at the hardships ahead, but rather the end result much in the same way that a child dreams of becoming an astronaut or curing an incurable disease. The sheer potential of stubble is inspiring, but it has a dark corridor ahead of it if it is to pass through to full beardhood. This corridor is so dark and forbidding that many a man hoping to one day sport a furry face mask becomes discouraged in its shadow and resorts to the razor, the reset button. That dismal tunnel is called…

Puberty.

It's Junior High for your face. Again.

It’s just as daunting in a beard as it is in a boy. It is an ungainly time. Scraggly and uncoordinated, unwholesome to look at and unbearable to be looked at, this is the itchy, patchy, frustrating crucible in which a true beard is forged. Just as in junior high, the pubescent beardholder likely has a strong desire to shamble away from the light of society and huddle in the darkness where he can sit and scratch the wiry birds nest of scruff emanating from an acne covered chin.

Friends will mock you. Women will shun you (possibly more so if you are a female stuck in this stage; my heart goes out to you.) The pressure to pick up the razor is immense, weighted down by the comments of “Wow, you gonna actually keep that?” and “You’ll never get a job/girlfriend/house/respectable anything with that on your face.” Your primal pubescent senses will seek to shave the abomination from you, to burn it in the backyard, forget it was ever attempted.

Darkness. A long crawl forward through the black tunnel. Onlookers quietly hold their breath. Close friends and family cross their fingers, some for the shave, some for survival. And out of that tunnel, one of two things emerge: A bare face, beaten by it’s own endeavor. Finally taken down by a war of attrition. Discomfort, peer pressure, despair, job requirements and an HR intervention, all conspire together to tear the beard from its roots before it had the chance to shine.

But another emerges from the cave. His follicles are stronger for the war, and each strand now shines with a luster born out of adversity, a sheen honed by refusing to bow under the boot of social pangs. He stands at the mouth of the cave, full and manly beard flowing from his jaw like a flag of freedom. The stubble has finally become what it always dreamed it would be. And the elements have little hold on that face, and through all things, thick and thin, high and low, he will now stand firm and watch the beard lengthen, his wisdom grow.

Oh look, he grew a pipe.

This is the full fledged man in his prime. He carves his way through life like his comb through his face-locks. He will untangle the mysteries of life like they were unruly strands falling into line under his well-worn hands. He will most likely have lost his job and a few friends in the pursuit of the beard, so he will also probably have to find some replacements for those. Or maybe he has alienated to many friends in this process that he may have to just abandon a social life altogether. It’s also difficult to look professional with this raccoon living under his chin. Wow, the bills keep piling up. Is that a gray hair? Shoot, there’s a lot of them. I bet I could probably get away with living in a tent to save some money. Would Aunt Veronica spot 20 dollars? That guy over there is holding a sign and getting money, where’s a sharpie? When did it all turn white? At least his nephew thinks he has a cool beard.

And so we see the inexorable cycle of life continues in the beard just as it does in every other facet of the universe.

28: Trees and their ways.

I wrote this back in 2011 while watching the wind knock the bare branches of a tree together. I thought it was worth sharing.

--------------------------

I am a November Tree.

Barren and bleak I stand on the hill above the brittle grey grass

And the ravens perch on my limbs.

I am not a June Tree, whom children might find sport in climbing.

And my leaves are not green, nor make the sound of running water

Which young lovers often times listen to while sprawling by my roots.

I am not the August Tree, who gives fruits to the passerby

And then explodes in a magnificent display of orange and yellow.

I am none of these; my day yields no visitors.

Children are frightened by the shadow cast by my branches

Onto their wall when the moon shines through their window.

But do not misunderstand me. I am not dead.

The day will come when drops of green will form on my fresh boughs.

I am a November Tree.

And my life is far from fruitless.