the snow keeps me sharp...

i will attempt to overwhelm you (or maybe just regular-whelm you) today with two, yes two posts, after not having written in as many months.

i must tell you of something new for me, that rouses a child like excitement that is nothing less than refreshing. it snowed. a pretty good one for old nash. first, i've never lived in the snow. second, supposedly, it never sticks. well, a couple inches fell on thurs night and it's still here this morning, glistening and crackling under foot, when one ventures out into it, leaving the warmth of layers, couches, and pressed hot black medicine (coffee).

my love and i took a walk in the falling down the other night as it dusted all around us. both God and man made things were made as one under that soft white, and how unlike anything else and quite amazing it is to see the trees and grass and ground with their white shadows, their snowy outlines. it places a romanticism in the thin chilled air as everything made beautiful.

i think perhaps the contrast between inside and outside becomes more drastic. i peak out the window and see a world beyond that to step into takes thought and preparation. i am protected from it all and this is my home. perhaps the cozy connotations of home become more readily felt when the frozen out-of-doors lays kept at bay.

when prepared, both in mind and in dress, the snow and cold is a wonderful thing!

over the thanxgiving time, i awoke one morning and like a strong wind i was compelled to write. i'd like to share that with you now. and secondly, i'm reminded of an older poem that i wrote that today's snowy day just demands that i include.

i endeavor to write to you more while my mind, far from the frozen world, is warm and alive with words and dreams.

----------------------------
'daybreaking'

the daybreak sun
pushes down
tirelessly
through fog and
the fragile early hour frost,
breaking apart shadows
and the sediment
of yesterday's worries.

the night may capture
all of the previous day
holding our thoughts
like the stiff green/white grass,
but the still and cold
that holds it all in silence
effortlessly bleeds into
that morning peace--
quiet reverie of newness.

all will thaw
and is made whole and new
at the first glows
stretching far from the horizon.

when these panes of glass
hold not back that daybreak sun
from my face,
my eyes behold a clarity
so sharp
and my mind rests in that
healing morning silence.


----------------------------
'sd snow'

the snow fell
or so the pictures told.
it fell for you
deep into my spring months.
the weather’s promise
of the cold
became old tradition
for you and your Midwest.

hugging branches
and porch banisters,
sleeping in stream beds,
the white erases the past
in icy breaths.

though I sit hearthed and homed
a thousand miles away
from your familiar
snow clouded skies,
the draft from under the door
brings crystalline water memories
and a chill to my neck.

as I put the water
on to boil,
I peak out the window shade
to my own cool evening sky,
snowed pictures in hand.

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

snippits...signposts...and ostensible musings...

-- "i saw a tree in my travels today, half ablaze in yellow and orange leaves, fiery rustling in the biting cool breeze, and half barren, naked, still. winter chill is upon us and the autumn winds and the hues they bring are leaving." --

i wrote that on the ninth of november, a far cry and time from today's winter day. how funny. while driving i saw this tree, normal to any other on any other day, but that day it spoke to me. clearly. the changing of season, the change following the chapters in our lives. my time here has been brimming with much change, naturally. and perhaps one of the hard aspects of life and local change is the retention of all the good that has come before.

i, as we all do, get very much wrapped in all this important and unimportant here, with my job, with my love, and with this new whirling future. then, in waves, little bits, memories mostly, flood back with all their smells, sounds, and tactile veracity, and i am taken sad for parts of days. my mind, in the silence of my focused woodworking, has much time to pass to and fro through time, and traverse the states, timezones, mountains and miles to visit all those i hold in love. one memory or carefully wrapped bunch of memories that i return to often is that of my time on the indian reservations. a few weeks ago, though i cannot recall when, i jotted this in a failed attempt to blog. at the time, i believe i tried to tack these two fragments together, in hopes of appeasing the guilt that eats at my for not writing. but, now, i have properly eulogized those false starts of creative thought but giving them at least a small frame in which to persist.

-- "i'm missing the rez. there is no eloquent way to put it, though i sit here and stare at the keys, trying to paint that longing in some softer way, just to ease it a little. i miss that something that is ephemeral as my telling you of it." --

i suppose that the most interesting thing is not the words or sentiments that either contain, but perhaps their lasting worth comes from their comparison and contrast to today's day. and all the things that i'm feeling now. little sign posts to consider in looking back.

life is settling into a veritable rhythm, and this passage of time does not tarnish the past, but rather affords me time to take each thought and polish it's exterior to the glow of loving memory...

still breathing...

life is very seldom what it seems at first glance. we never end up at the end of the path we think we are walking down.

to make it, just to survive sometimes, we must call upon our future selves, draw up the spirit of the mature, mighty oak already alive and well within us to carry us along in the thin times that stretch us and threaten to break us limb from limb. but there is provision out there, laid up in waiting for us, ready to cradle us in layers of soft peace.

yet i find myself trying to suck in the air, instead of relenting, and allowing the free flowing breath to rush into me. i fretfully try and hold all the little shards of the present between my fingers, hoping to put the pieces together into my jig-sawed future. but, oh, the buoyancy and flight that we have when we 'breathe past' the hills and valleys.

tomorrow is here, and the present is one thought behind you. hindsight gives that crystal vision that we needed today. we crave it, that blessed perspective that equalizes. but for such a future minded people (or at least we hope to be), we fall prey to the so essentially and desperately human problem of being stuck in our present.

i'm not saying leave no thought for today. but it's rolling and frothing, wavelike, desiring to carry us forward or to suck us down into the tumult beneath the waters.

i'm, one day at a time, one step closer to finding my breathing pattern, and i'm just trying not to drown...

oh, waning moon, you leave me wanting...,

i always wait with such innocent anticipation for that full moon. and it always seems to take forever to fill that last little bit in. and then, if you don't catch it right....if you don't see it in it's full beauty, it slips effortlessly away. that golden moment passes and leaves you with days and weeks of familiar anticipation.

the lunar cycle of these events in my recently life have been occurring with great radiance. but here i am on the waning side, and the waiting is torturous.

oh how the moon, that harvest moon, that peaked over the mesa horizon in Hopiland, was full and shown for what seemed like night after night. the fullness and ecstasy of that surreal time with RedFeather, hung in the air those same nights. but that time and now that memory is feeling like that last slipping silver sliver.

then the expectation and all that came along with the move. now here i am in Nash, the roads becoming familiar, and here i am in my own apartment writing, bereft of typical furnishings, yet content. the warm feeling of this new home contrasts with a constant, yet waning, feeling of displacement.

my anticipation, (which i believe is a sane and necessary human trait but must be tempered with a simultaneous present-focused revelry in what you already possess), now turns me to thoughts of a job, a career. hard to find. harder in these times.

on a side note, i'm enjoying the cooler weather, and rather looking forward to sweaters, and scarves and that winter melancholy that is soothed with another warm body, hot coffee, and a burning fireplace.

just need to catch a break, i think. and i'm feeling right on the verge of that. i can see the moon is almost full again, and the waiting is almost over...

definition and dreams

trying hard not to equate job stability with the sense of place or home. but it's hard not to. hard to find great places who just aren't ready or able to hire. hard to find places anxious to hire but not quite right for me. hard to feel like one of the cattle, out on the much-too-small-range, hustling for my piece.

don't want to miss the opportunities. but don't want to jump just at the first prospect just because i'm hungry. want, most of all, to find the right job. the place that is going to give my heart peace, my hands challenging work. can't give up, though it's all i want to do after a hard day like today.

i am at a place of faith, if i've ever seen one. i need to trust that i'm gonna be okay, but do the necessary leg work. need to trust that the right thing is gonna come along, but i can't wait for it.

some moments of the day, i want to better my station and move up and outward to places unknown. sometimes i just want to be a simple carpenter who knows who he is and cherishes life in the same way he appreciates a fine piece of wood.

this crossroads, this junction, is so much more than just a marker in my life. i am choosing how to define myself, and the weight of such things is pressing.

i am thankful for the little i do know and i do have:

for her.
for my health.
for my dreams.

i suppose that is enough for now...

pacing my life...

(the new band in my ears: Fleet Foxes....check 'em out...)


do we consider pace as an important aspect of our lives?

it seems as if the world has picked up to a break-neck speed and shows no sign of slowing. and i feel as if i'm working very hard to slow down my little slice of this world. what's more, a slower pace of life has almost become synonymous to some with a backwards and archaic modus operandi. the coasts of this great land speed ahead without considering what can be learned from anything less then light-speed. so here i am. in the midst of slower paced part of the country. trying to find my place.

i had two interviews today that couldn't have been more different. one with a woodworker that cared about detail and excellence, who saw his integrity as connected and reflective of his craftsmanship. moving only as fast as the work dictates, making sure that work is second to faith and family. quality above productivity.

the second was with a marketing firm, where if you weren't bettering business no matter what the cost and producing no matter the time it took, you were dead weight and not worth the breath it took to tell you. my head was spinning with the lightning-fast thoughts and retorts that it took to respond to the interviewers machine-gun questioning. pitting me blatantly against the others at that cattle call.

since Ford or the industrial revolution we have lauded productivity and the speed therein more than the skill of the working man, on which all of it was built. we streamline ourselves, to make more time for everything else. but if we lose our souls, our skills, our basic human understanding, what do we have left to spend our time on?

i'm scared that i'm in a squeeze. that the hunger and the need for money to make my little world keep turning, will inevitably force me to a place where i can't make the slow pace life work.

I want the freedom to provide for my future family without having to give up the pace of life that keeps me close to the earth, that keeps me close to people, and close to the things that really matter in the end.

new day, new life, new land, new post...

i have landed. folded up the sail. tucked in the wings. put down the map and compass.

here i will stay, nest, and build a new life.

nashville, my terra incognita.

had a little bit of a lapse in strength and mental stability as the wave of newness washed over me. (all the ocean i'm gonna get now, is in metaphor...) i'm okay now, as this pulsing pulsing back and forth has brought me to a point of peace. sweet. and then bittersweet. back and forth, rocking me in my little boat. every hour, everyday i feel better, i'm getting my sea (life) legs. i'm finding my place. this is now my home.

i'm on the cusp of so much, and i can feel it. i'm at a bakery, to poor to buy bread, pretending that coffee is a meal, stealing internet. i'm about to take possession of my first apartment. one that is all mine (at least until april, when carly and i get married...). yet, i have nothing to furnish it with but camping supplies. it's a wonder that i can survive anywhere else but in the woods. i am not immediately suited for this city living...but i'm coming into it.

we were just in kentucky, enjoying the wedding of her sister. (a preview of things to come...) but now we have reached that place and time that has been anticipated for so long. even from the beginning, this point is where our future sight had been set. and now we are here. and the vision must now refocus. to all that is to come from here on out.

my spirit already aches for the open road and the wilds of open space. but i wonder if it's not to be trusted this time. perhaps it's not that old familiar wanderlust, but fear instead. fear of newness. fear of change. fear of failing.

so i'll do the harder thing and stay put and fight. for every inch and every interview. to make friends and a life. to find home here now, instead of in the ever elusive unknown.

i was told yesterday that we have only what God gives us and only in his timing. and i'm trying hard to live that.

stay with me on this journey...i need those close to me now more than ever...

wonderful silence

so. the post you've all been waiting for.

SHE'S HERE!

quite the ongoing surreal experience. that only seems to be getting better, day after amazing-norcal-sunshine-day. yes. the love of my life arrived on the afternoon of wednesday. the last two days have been wonderful, and the excitement shows no sign of stopping (given the adventures we are about to depart on).

i remember driving to the airport to get her. i was sitting in traffic. it was strangely silent, even if only in my head. i was worrying if i was going to make it. when i really began to realize what was happening. i was about to step through a door, and nothing was ever going to be the same. but these are the doors we live for. metaphysical signposts that show us that we are in fact growing, moving forward to new and better places. there was that calm before it all. that realization.

and then, there she was, standing in the airport, laden with much luggage, existing between two lives, waiting for me to scoop her up and show her what this new home was like. that long-distance newness, (that feeling of missing someone, and being without them, only to after all that time, have them standing before you...), was beautifully sharp. but i was glad, though it's novelty felt good, to know that it was the last time i would experience those feelings in that way.

it was good. there is a time and season for everything after all. and let me tell you, that season is done done done. onto the newness of seeing each other every day. hmmm, that's good.

so, we drove back to Novato, brought her home to her little studio apartment that she can call all her own, and settled into, what felt like, the rest of our lives. she laughed at me when i told her this, and said that every day could be considered the 'rest of our lives'. i told her it was special that day. she smiled cause she knew what i meant. we sat in silence. wonderful silence.

we went out to Lagunitas last night to share a meal with and spend the evening with Galen, my spirit-connected-friend from long ago. his house in those beautiful redwoods has finally been finished. the creek, washing by, babbled with it's appreciation. nestled, quite literally, between the trees, we enjoyed good food, good wine (from a sweet jug!), a hot stove fire, and soft, heart-resonating music played so effortlessly by Galen. there was a silence out there, as my eyes became so heavy. i was being lulled. the serenity cut deep and calmed us all. there was no other world, there was only the musical silence captured between those four beautiful walls.

we are packing today, for the travels that we soon depart on. but right now, i'm trying hard to hold onto all that silence. take it with me, tuck it my shirt pocket, and let it carry me from one God-given-day to the next.

map obsessed

maps. a wonderful resource. cartography, a ancient profession. both art and science. printed on paper. read and often poured over. yet, books, they are not.

they became increasingly necessary, only now to lose their value in these modern times. after our mayflowered forefathers wistfully (yet intentionally) were blown across the pond, the discovery of a new world, gave way to a great need for maps, of both high and low quality.

as the virgin grandure of america was explored, an interesting thing happened. men, mountain men, bold and nearly hewn from the very earth itself, came to be as important, if not more than the maps that showed where they had been. guides they became. they studied the world around them, not just following the written instructions of others, when it came time to move forward.

where have our modern guides gone?

i sat at the breakfast table this morning looking for an article or something to read. (it just seems right to have food, coffee, and something to read while passing those precious few morning minutes). there were no papers or magazines. but just beyond my coffee cup, alone on the vast empty table, was a map. a map of my little home town. i spread it open, and let the little roads wind around on the table. i let the parks and green spaces unfold and whisper promises of hikes and adventures. i laid it out, and began to traverse my familiar piece of the world in my mind.

how funny i must have looked, intently pouring over this map, detailed though it was, of a relatively inconsequential place in this big world. yet, there i was, lost and enraptured.

i have a confession. i'm kind of a map junkie. i love them. and not because i always want to know exactly where i am. but rather, to see the roads and the possibilities they represent. (i've even been known to, while driving those long stretches, to crack open that atlas and just wonder).

having a map is also an opportunity to look back and see where i've been. looking back. moving hundreds of miles an hour as i trace my finger across the lines. oh the places i can go, the things i can see in memory, as fingertips press the pages.

but i'm realizing something. all those maps are no good without the map in my head to go with it. at the end of the day, they are just papers with lines on them. the wide countryside, the beauty, the roads, are only meaningful in us.

the forests need no maps to tell them where they are. they only need us, in their midst. so, at the end of the day, all the maps and atlases in the world are nothing, if we do not learn from where we have been or have the foresight to see where we are going. if, after a bit, we cannot do away with the maps, we do not even deserve to have them.

i see more and more clearly where i have been, both on the road and through the years. i am looking to where i am going. and let me tell you, it's definitely uncharted territory. but, i'm finding that if i put down all the maps i've been given, and breathe deep the brisk air, i actually do know which way to go.

so, if you find my compass and maps, don't worry, we're finding our own way...

168 miles an hour

i am nearing these awaited days. her coming and our leaving.

it's funny. the cycle of things. i find myself, again, anticipating the day in which i will take to the open road. leave the day to day worries behind.

it's like a spring. coiling round and round. from one view, life seems cyclical. round and round we go. from another, we see the upward movement we make. where we have come from and where we are going. round and round, up and up. ever progressing. ever circling.

there were so many days last summer, that i hated the road. the silent, singular wandering. i longed for the stability that i have found in her. i still do.

but, i see that old wanderlust differently than i once did. that the love of the pavement, the swiftly passing trees, and all the little things that seem like they only can exist 'on the road'. i find myself longing to feel it all again. but not in the same way as before. but with her this time.

almost as if having her in the car, as we traverse the roads i have come to know and love, will seal them up behind me. sew up the fabric of that old man i used to be. draw the line in the sand, the rolling countryside, between once was and what is present and future. i want to trace that line one last time, just as i did before.

how do we measure things. how can you place a price or a value on open air. or matchless time spent with the love of my life. people ask me how i can afford to travel, to volunteer, to turn my cell phone off.

how can we afford to do anything. by focusing, while we do the work of our hands, on all those things that will redeem the time, and cannot be paid for any other way.

i figured it out the other day. every hour that i work right now, i can travel 168 miles in my car with my lady at my side. every hour that i work now, i can buy a piece of the future that i want.

there is a strange and wonderful lull that sweeps over me even now as i write. for in a week she will be here. and our time of being apart will come to a silent end. we will come and we will go. but we will do it all together.

everything is about to never be the same. everything is about to be better than i've ever expected.