Watching the Moon

Earlier tonight I went to a friend's party to wind down for the weekend. As the rest of the group was winding up, talking or shouting over each other, I found myself wandering into the yard looking for some quiet and staring into the sky. As I stared at the moon, I was thinking of all the people who drifted in and out of my life. So many souls who were the stepping stones over the hectic river that has been my life. The girl in Southern California who stuck up for me when I was bullied as a kid or the goofy guy in North Texas who turned out to know more about the meaning of friendship than anyone else I've ever known. Or the troubled redhead who crashed on my couch when she had nowhere else to go... Where did those people end up? Are they happy? And most importantly, do they look at the night sky when things are a little too hectic and wonder in their peaceful moments where that Bryan guy ended up?

The Zen of Jazz

I read somewhere that the one thing that makes a great Jazz artist is the ability to create one's own world in music. With its own rules, measurements and rhythms.

For years I've been a Blues man. Blues offers endless room for improvisation but it has a comparatively strict set of rules. For example, when two Blues musicians jam together, one usually plays to the others tune. Almost like a polite deferral to the others musical "brushstroke". But rarely do you see a total digression from the original song.

As I've begun to listen to more Jazz I've noticed that when Jazz artist play together neither gives way to the others style of playing. They always seem to find whole new path through the musical territory. What was a standard piece of music becomes a journey and as often as not, totally surprises everyone involved.

The more I think about that pattern, the more I find the life application agreeable. It serves as a microcosm of interpersonal relationships. Do you politely defer to the rhythms of the people in your life? If so, that's OK. Compromise is an admirable and necessary skill in life. But consider the possibilities when you decide to blaze a completely new trail with someone...

The Koan of The Friends

A long time ago in China there were two friends, one who played the harp skillfully and one who listened skillfully.

When the one played or sang about a mountain, the other would say: "I can see the mountain before us."

When the other played about water, the listener would exclaim: "Here is the running stream!"

But the listener fell sick and died. The first friend cut the strings of his harp and never played again. Since that time the cutting of harp strings has always been a sign of intimate friendship.

A letter for my Mother (heavily edited)

In the few months since my epic re-location to the deep south I've managed to find work, find a roof over my head, scramble around the state like an ant on meth, and shake up the lives of the part of my family I had disregarded for so long. One could see these as noteworthy accomplishments or as nothing more than what is expected of one in a new place. However, the one thing I have not managed to do through periodic conversations is to impress upon you what I've been feeling here. Time seems so limited with a phone on your ear and I can never think through my words sufficiently to avoid worrying you or making it seem as if life is destitute in my new surroundings. You've always told me that you knew I was a survivor and that deeply grained instinct has served me well. But as the people around me are more interested in what's on TV than what troubles each others hearts, I have managed to find more time in my own head than I like to admit.

My job takes me on a nearly six hundred mile tour of rural Louisiana and some days my windshield is like an old drive-in movie screen where I get to view my thoughts. Other days it's the porthole of a sleek little ship showing me the passing waves of farmland, bayou, forest, and logging roads. And yet other days it's a briefly opened window into the lives of other drivers. Some days I see the same people which I had passed (or had passed me) the week before but they never recognize me. It only takes a short time to begin to feel like a ghost as I drift through the back woods.

For some time I expected the people here to be demonstrably different than back home. The people of the city so often have looks of self importance or dazed indifference to their surroundings. But mostly you see fear and distrust in the eyes of someone you meet on the streets of Denver. But after a few months here I haven't seen as much difference as I'd hoped. As I travel the roads from border to border I see so much anxiety and aggression. People who are hardwired on their daily existence with little thought to spare on anything else. And God help anyone who gets in their way as they scratch the bare necesities out of the earth or turn it out with a wrench. Gone are the leagues of white collar cubicle types who spend their days answering phones and developing brutal cases of carpal tunnel. More often than not any man you see between Monroe and Mansura has a melange of synthetic lubricants covering his clothes. Men and women alike bear the scars of manual labor on their hands and only those who subside on the taxpayers dollar know the meaning of manicure.

My eyes have sifted over more acreage in the last 3 months than in the twenty years previous and in all of that space I have yet to see a place where a person can walk for more than a few hours before trespassing on someone else's home acre. But the bright side is that there are a few places that remind me of the mountains even if only a little. Mile by mile I see more flowers in the field and more green in the trees. The animals which seem to have been hiding since I arrived are starting to appear more frequently and in greater numbers. Sometimes, as I drive, I get a glimpse of huge lakes full of cypress and reeds and hope soon to be able to explore those areas. Rivers run here and there offering the promise of unseen places and new adventure provided only that you have a boat.

Much of what I love of nature is here in unending supply. However, much is also lacking and the balance is precarious. When I look up I don't see the vast depth of a sky full of stars to remind me that I'm under God's eye. The breeze doesn't come to me bearing the scent of distant meadows. I never hear the wind thunder through valleys in the distance while standing in still air. There isn't the relief of a brisk chill at night to balance the heat of the day. I can't hear the call of the falcon or the inquisitive growl of a bear on another peak. I have no sense of communion with the land I live on and the uncontrollable joy which I felt at the coming of past spring seasons is absent here though spring is most definitely sprung.

What I still carry on my travels through the land of bayou, swamp, and mist is the hope of a more successful life, the anticipation of new friends, the goal of eventually returning to my beloved peaks and the intention of returning to the family I've always needed even when I was more needed somewhere else. In all things remember that no matter where God lays my path, it is the right path even when it takes me through places that are hard to tread and beyond that all path eventually lead home.

Your loving Son,

Bryan

A Birthday with Three Sisters

High in the mountains of Colorado near the town of Evergreen is a popular Open Space Park where the locals hike, bike and walk their purebred dogs in the saddle between four rock formations. Given enough motivation and some basic supplies you can find yourself far from the boundaries of the park with miles between you and the next inhabited area. This is precisely where I found myself three hours before my birthday in the summer of 2007.

I had, on a matter of principal, decided to avoid my family on my birthday and was wandering aimlessly about three miles from the nearest supported trail. In the late evening I shook myself from my thoughts and found that I had long passed the opportune time to set up a safe camp. In lou of a more common sense approach I settled for a large campfire and an old wool blanket in an open meadow. As the deeper watches of the night fell over me I stared through the flames and felt sorry for myself for growing older (chuckle) and being alone. Late in the night or early in the morning (I don't know which) I heard the silence break in a warbling howl which reminded me of a weeping child. Not yet afraid but definitely cautious I rose from the fire and stepped a short distance away so that my eyes could adjust to the dark. As the flames faded from my eyes I found that I was surrounded by a herd of Elk which had wandered into the meadow on their way to parts unknown. How I had not heard them I'll never know, but there they were picking their way carefully through the field and taking no notice of a lonely camper in their midst. As I watched their slow progress my senses adjusted to my surroundings I began to notice the rustle of wildlife from the treeline and the dull roar of a stiff breeze through a distant valley. Finally I looked up and was stunned at the depth of the the sky above me. No description, no metaphor no emotional outburst can sum it up when you feel that you can see to the very corners of the universe from your tiny perch in the world.

As I returned to the warm circle of my fire and settled in for the night I decided that no matter what my feelings were to the contrary, I wasn't alone there among the stars and wildlife of the mountains, I wasn't alone as I went about my business in the city, and I certainly wasn't alone with my family in such close proximity.

As a side note to the story I decided that morning to spend that birthday with the family (as I always do) but I continued that day with a better perspective brought to me courtesy of a herd or elk near Three Sisters Park.

Homesickness and the Second Moon

As I trudge through my second month in the Deep South I find the opportunities to enjoy the fragrant smoke of my pipe becoming less frequent. The only happiness I've had recently was the offhand wish for a good Valentines day from a friend who does not now nor will ever know what she means to me. At the same time my mind keeps wandering back to the Rocky Mountains. Though I was not born in the peaks of the Great Divide I still consider them my most fundamental home. The foothills outside of Denver were the place where I found my first social niche, my first love, my first trade, and the natural solitude which I learned to love and depend on in hard times.

The vast contrast between here and there continues to be the worst kind of culture shock for me. In several conversations I've mentioned the more drastic differences to a friend and driven her to the point of distraction over what she perceives as habitat snobbery. SO in the interest of better Zen I'm going to focus on some memories of my home and see if I can impart the poetry of those little moments which, when experienced, seemed to mean so little...

The Zen of Throat Cutting (Repost)

Tonight as I feel my face and smoke my pipe I'm counting the new injuries on my ugly mug. There are six right now and every one of them came from the keen edge of my straight razor. Understandably not many (smart) men attempt to test their skill at the traditional method of hair removal these days. So, feeling that I am indeed a smart man, I'll have to review my reasons for doing so. Especially in light of the freshly plowed furrows on my face. However, as with all things I tend to see a deeper meaning in the blood letting.

I woke up late this morning (as I do most days when my work no longer excites me) and decided that, despite the late hour, I had time for a shave. I should have quit after the first nick. After three I was too far along to quit. Sure that I had not honed the blade properly, I gave my steel a thorough stropping after which I promptly nicked myself again... and again. So off I stormed to work and fell into a bitter complaint session with one of my co-workers. He pointed out (with a bemused look) that if he were as high strung as I looked at the moment, it would take an act of God to get an open blade near his face. Needless to say I denied being wound up and went on to stampede through my day.

This evening I began to think that maybe my good buddy the Shop Guy had a point. I got to thinking a little about something I had written on the first incarnation of my MySpace blog. It was about how I could always tell when my life was falling apart by the state of my pipe smoke (yet another long drawn out theory which I may re-post here). That led me to the further conclusion that I've filled my life with little procedures which I can't perform unless I'm on an even keel. This includes the long process of stropping, mugging, and drawing a sharp piece of steel across my face. Or the time consuming act of winding and setting an antique pocket watch. Or even the fill, tamp, puff, tamp, light, tamp, puff pattern of smoking my pipe. All these things make it impossible to be in a hurry. At one time I made these choices in a concerted effort to slow myself down and keep from stressing out while showing a healthy respect for tradition and style. While these little rituals accomplish this quite well under ordinary circumstances, they also serve as a fool-proof gauge of my mental state... which I have found out to the detriment of my face, my wallet, and my badly burnt tongue (at different times).

SO where can we apply this in our new philosophy... in what niche can we place this rather mundane story? Today we will call this a lesson in trimming the excess. My advice today is this; If you add ritual, drama and complexity where none is needed. If you over engineer your emotional walls, over analyze your relationships, or wear one mask over another... well just be prepared to deal with the scars (both physical and emotional) of a needlessly complex existence.

Watch out for those nicks,
-B-

Intro to my Zen

To date, I have scrawled my thoughts across the pages of Myspace, Facebook and 360 with no particular structure. As I change social networking sites I find that I loose some decent material when those accounts die. So I'm going to try to centralize some of those post here and build a structure for future post. I only do this because there are a few people who have shown some interest in my ideas... and some who I hope will in the future.

I found myself talking to someone today and we discussed the usefulness of posting this kind of thing. after a while I found myself explaining that I had written just such tripe and had stopped because I didn't think that someone who really knew the important things in life could find Zen in his pocket watch, or gauge his mental state by his morning shave, or see meaning in the wisp of smoke streaming fro his pipe. She responded simply that she liked it. SO if it gives me something to do in the long watches of the night... then who am I to refuse.

I'm calling this back corner of the web "The Zen of Throat Cutting" (a tip of the hat to straight razors which are also call cutthroat razors) and it's going to be my continuing attempt to add weighty meaning to the small things in life for anyone who, like me, lacks the big things enjoyed by so much of the world. The following couple of post will be repost of old material just to get me started...
-B-