"Yes, you do know."

"Huh?"

"You do know."

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"You have others."

"Yes, I do have others." I admitted. "That reminds me, my wife, my companion, one of my others, told me to tell you 'hello.' So, well, 'hello' from my wife."

"Thank you. You love her?"

"Yes, more than I thought possible."

"And there are others?" the voice continued, after a slight pause.

"Yes, I have two children. Two boys. I love them very much too. Do you have a family, loved ones? Do you know love?"

"Yes, I know love. Yes, I have others."

Then it came to me. A thought. In my slow, infantile and feeble, human brain, I had a thought. "Why are you here?"

The voice answered quickly, "To commune with my loved ones, and to be."

"To be?" I questioned. It was to open ended for my tastes. To vague. "Do you have a purpose? A meaning to your life? Are you even alive?"

"I told you my purpose."

"Yes, to commune with your loved ones. Who are they? Who are your loved ones?"

"You are one. I have many."

Vague. Again. But it made me think. This was a representation, a literary device in my mind for how I was experiencing a small piece of nature in a larger unnatural area. Why did it hit me like this here? Why was I hearing it now? Was it because the juxtaposition of the sound of the water and the sound of the freeway and busy road in the distance pointed it out with more clarity? I was a part of nature, and this was the first piece with any character that I'd seen between my hotel and the training center. Me. It was there to commune with me. It was here for me, in a way, and I was here for it, in the same way. We were a part of each other, we were related by a bond that was deeper than blood.

It was the next to the last day of my training, and I was walking to the class in the cool of the morning. Lost in my own thoughts, tired, and mind clouded with the information from the class, I almost walked over the bridge without even noticing the brook. Then, quite abruptly, I stopped and looked over the railing, down into the lush garden that I had espied on the first day.

"I am still here." I heard in my minds ear.

"I know. I was just surprised at how quickly the impression of you faded from thought, faded from my mind. Why is that?" I questioned.

"Speed. Your kind move too fast. Make too much noise. You don't stop as often as you once did."

"This is true. We have built so much, learned so much, and are still learning, but we're leaving you behind aren't we?"

"No. We're still here, and always will be. You are slowly coming back. Slowly remembering the important things."

"You know, what I'm learning in my class is diametrically opposed to the very thought of you. It doesn't even mean anything to you. Do you know why I do it? Why I learn things that I'm not interested in, that I don't even enjoy"

"No."

"So I can help you. In some small way, I hope to help you."

"Do I need help?"

"No, you need us to remember you. To commune with you, to be with you more often, to respect you." I paused. "Do you hear that?"

"What?"

"That thrumming in the distance that sounds like the low pitched buzzing of a billion bees?"

"Yes."

"That's a freeway. On that freeway hundreds of thousands of people drive back and forth, to and fro, to jobs, houses, apartments, wherever the need to go. They listen to music, they roll the windows up, anything to shut out the noise that they are themselves creating. We have become afraid of silence, and you are silent, most of the time. We fear your loved ones, the ones on four legs that stray into our housing developments, even though they have just as much right to be there, as we do."

"How will what you're learning help people to stop and listen?"

"What I do pays well." I said, simply.

"Pay?"

"Never mind. What I mean is, it will allow me a little bit of freedom teach my own loved ones how to commune with you, to be with you and respect you. It will lower the amount of power and petrochemicals we have to take from you. Technology is a double edged sword, you see. It can hurt as much as help. I'll do my best to help, in whatever way I can. Do you understand?"

"No."

I paused. Worked up, I suddenly thought that the sound of that last "no" sounded more distant than usual.

"I'm sorry. That's not the kind of talk you wanted is it?"

Silence.

Of course. Silence.

I had some time, so I walked around to the end of the bridge, and scrambled down to the waters edge. I sat down and listened.

Labels: listen

"How long have you been here?" I decided to start the conversation this afternoon. I wanted some questions answered. I hoped they would be answers that I could understand.

"A long time." Was the simple answer.

I decided to ask a question that demanded a longer answer. "You told me that it looked different before. I assume you were talking about yourself? This place. What did it look like."

"It looked different."

Ok, that didn't work. So I countered with "In what way?"

"Those things weren't here." the voice said. I instinctively looked over at the buildings of the bushiness park.

"How long have the been here?" I asked.

"Not long."

"Was there anything here before?"

"Just the trees, and the others."

"Others?" I asked. Now we were getting somewhere.

"Yes, others like you, only, different."

"Ah, Native Americans."

"Americans?"

"Never mind. It really doesn't' t mean anything anyway." It was then that I decided to take another approach to this conversation. "Do you have any questions for me?"

"Yes. What are you doing here?"

"Ah, well, I'm taking a class over in the building over there about virtualizing hardware. It will help us to consolidate hardware by putting more servers on less hardware."

Silence.

"That's not what you were asking, was it?"

Silence.

"What am I doing here? Here, on the earth? Here in Seattle?"

"Here." it said, without any impatience, or malice. Throughout our entire conversation, the voice remained calm and comforting, like a warm breeze on a cool day.

"I suppose, I'm living life. I'm growing. I'm not sure what you mean."

"What are you doing here?" This was the first time the voice had showed any emphasis.

"You know, I have another concern." I began. "If I decide to write this conversation down, my readers will likely think that I'm stealing yet another idea, from yet another writer. People might think that I'm stealing Daniel Quinn's idea of using a "talking" Ape to learn lessons about society and life. I don't want them to think that, because Daniel Quinn started out good, and ended up drowning in his own thesis. Did you ever talk to Daniel Quinn?"

"Yes."

"He didn't understand did he?"

"No."

"I didn't think so. But you were asking, why am I here."

"Yes."

"The absolute truth is, I don't know."

Labels: listen

At lunch, I went back outside to the little bridge. The sun was high, and the air cool and moist. I could just smell the sea salt in the air, that's what smelled so good to me.

"Hello." the same voice said.

"Oh, hello." I replied. I'd been doing some thinking since I'd talked to the, whatever it was, out there earlier. "Listen, I really enjoyed talking to you earlier, but I'm afraid if I keep talking to you that I'll feel compelled to write about our conversations, and I'm not sure I want to."

"Why?" it said.

"Well, although I know that you are just a cleaver, yet somewhat contrived literary device for explaining how I'm experiencing this small piece of nature nestled inside a larger not-so-natural city, I think the others might think I'm just copying one of my friends." I admitted.

"Who?"

"You mean, who am I copying, or who will think I'm copying another person's idea?"

"Yes."

"Ok, for a babbling brook, you don't talk much do you?" I snickered, and went on, "I think that they'll just think I'm taking someone else's idea and using it, you know? I'm afraid they'll think I'm less of a writer, and can't come up with any new ideas, which in truth, is probably right."

"What else?"

"Well, I'm afraid that they'll think I'm just copying my friend Scott, when he writes about his conversations with a garden gnome named Chuck, in his back yard. His conversations are always similar to this, in meaning and tenor."

"But I'm not "Chuck."

"No. You're not." I said. "You seem different. I'm not exactly sure how, but you do. Still, you seem related."

"We are."

"How?" I questioned. "How are you related?"

"The same way you and your friend Scott are related."

"Scott and I aren't related."

"Aren't you?"

"Well," I started "he and I share some common history, it's true. Share some common experiences as well. But we aren't related by blood."

"Blood?"

"Family."

"Family?"

"I'd explain it to you, but it's too complicated." I sighed. Looking at my watch, I said, "I have to go inside."

"Why?"

"It's time."

"Time?"

"Oh.. never mind. You don't really experience time do you."

Silence.

"No, probably not in the same sense that I do. Before I go in, will you let me see what you look like?"

"You've already seen me."

"All I see is the water, the moss covered rocks, the fern, the ivy, and the trees rising above."

"All of that is me."

"Oh." I said. "My mother wouldn't approve of me writing about this. It's all too animistic now."

"Animistic?"

"Later," I said. "Still, you're right. I'm not sure how a literary device can be animistic. We'll talk more later. Ok?"

"Yes. We will."

Labels: listen

It was a cool morning in Seattle today. It smelled nice. The trees were green, the sky sunny and clear. But there was a problem. Noise. It wasn't quiet. For the entire five minute walk from my hotel to the training center, the dominant sound was the freeway and side roads. Cars, moving too and fro, creating an ever present humming like an enormous swarm of killer bees. It was dissonant. I wasn't used to it.

Yesterday, as we descended into SeaTac, Mt. Rainier overwhelming the sky with it's enormity, I had to remind myself that this was a city. A big city. I haven't been in a big city for any length of time since we moved to Laredo, TX in 2002, and Spokane, WA in 2003. I've become used to quiet. Small. Quaint. But I know big cities. I've been to big cities. They don't scare me, but they take a mindset, a change of attitude, an adaptation, if you will. I prepared myself for this as the wheels of our cramped jet hit the pavement.

As I walked to the training center, I tried to imagine what it would sound like if their weren't any cars. It was hard to do, since all I could hear was road noise. But then, as I crossed a little bridge from the parking lot of the training center, to the main building, I heard something else competing with the road noise. Something natural. Something primal and old. I stopped. What was this sound? I turned and looked down. Below the bridge was a brook. A small and babbling brook, almost hidden under ivy and fern. Flowing over moss covered rocks with clear, clean water, it wound it's way from under the drive way above, under the walkway bridge that I stood on, and dissapeared under into the underbrush beyond. I could still hear the freeway. It was still screaming in all it's modern volume. But down below me, here was a place of beauty, peace, and quiet.

Having been early, I stood and looked at it for a bit, leaning on the wooden railing. The sound of the water over the stones created a sort of music that strove against the roaring of the roads and the freeway in the distance, in it's own peaceful but persistent way. Then, I heard something else.

"It used to look different, you know."

I was startled. I looked around, and saw nobody.

"Hello?" I offered.

"The brook. It used to look different." The quiet voice said. The voice was neither male nor female, loud or soft. It just was, right in my ears. Not exactly knowing what to do, I replied timidly.

"What do you mean?"

"Before."

"When?"

"Before now."

The voice didn't seem to have any reference points in time to offer, so I offered some.

"Do you mean, before they built the buildings around it?"

"Yes. That was before now."

I wasn't sure what to say next, but noticed on my watch that it was about time for my training class to start.

"Listen..." I said.

"I always do."

"Sorry?"

"I always listen."

"Oh. Listen, I have to go into that building over there, for a class." I said softly. "Will you still be here at noon?"

"I've always been here."

"Well, uh, ok. I'll be back in just a bit then." I said as I turned away, but then I thought of something else, "Oh, by the way, do you have a friend named 'Chuck'?"

"Named?"

"Uh..well, never mind."

Labels: listen

I don't blog on weekends. I'm also taking tomorrow off. Next Monday I'm flying to Kirkland, WA. for training on VM Ware. Posting here will be a bit sparse for a while, I'm afraid. Not that it's particularly active anyway, I'm just giving you a heads up, you understand.

Scott talked about storms in North Texas today. I remember the storms. I remember that office I worked in with Scott. It was really cool. I remember when I moved all the furniture away from the floor to ceiling window that ran at least twenty-five feet from end to end. I was on the fifth floor. Since it was Texas, I could see quite a distance northward over the cityscape. I could watch the storms roll in from quite a long way away. The giant clouds bursting into gargantuan mushroom tops, the dark grey undersides that threatened rain. The black and roiling wall clouds with their alarming flatness. The homeless guy urinating behind the dumpster. All of it. I could see it all.

It was a strange time also. Scott was in charge. I remember the day he took charge also. I helped him move into his new office, giant window and cherrywood furniture and all. We were all standing there, just finishing up moving books, shelves, pictures of Susan and the kids, chess sets and so on, when he laughed.

[paraphrased from memory]

"What?" I said.

"What are we doing?" he said

"What do you mean?" I replied.

"I mean, we're just kids! What are we doing running a business? It's just weird! We have no business doing this!" he said through laughter.

"Oh, yeah. That is kinda strange isn't it. We can't do this, can we? Shouldn't there be an adult somewhere supervising us? Have we become the adults?"

There we were. There he was. Younger than me, someone I'd grown up with all my life, sang with, traveled with, played with toys in the Church nursery with, camped out with, been irresponsible with, broken into the church with...all the stuff of youth...and he was running a business? No, this couldn't be right.

But it was.

We just laughed and went on about our day....

The gutter is where I've been. Down and out. Cars drive by through the drizzle as I lean against this brick wall, drinking. I smell. My beard is itchy. It's cold and dark all around me, I've lost all hope for the future. Take another drink, the darkness sings to me, calls me, draws me into it's bosom and warms my veins.

This is how I feel sometimes, how I hear, and how I listen. It's what I see in the music.

Every muscle aching, each movement a strain. The rain pelts against my face and runs into my eyes as I try to grasp the next hand hold, the next level, the next step. Thunder screams in my ears, the wind is trying to rip me from this rock. I am fighting. The storm sings to me, in an angry and intense voice it threatens me.

This is how I feel sometimes, how I hear, and how I listen. It's what I see in the music.

I'm standing on the top of a mountain, hair blowing in the rising wind, arms wide. I'm breathing in, deeply, the thin mountain air that is crisp and clear around me. In the distance, the sun is setting, lowering toward the horizon. It sings to me, I listen. I take in the warmth, and feel loved. I am compelled to love back.

Radio Free Toadman -

Today's entry is from a group that I'm currently re-discovering. The Flower Kings. The song is the last track on their album Adam and Eve, called The Blade of Cain. It has that "last track on the album" feeling, like other's I've posted for this regular feature, and draws most of it's musical themes from the first track on the album. It sort of bookends the album and rounds everything up into a nice package, with no lyrics. I seem to be drawn to beginnings, and endings, for whatever reason.

Today's file is in .flac format. I hope you are able to download and listen to this file. If you use WinAmp (which I highly recommend), you should be able to without any problems.

And, as always, if you like the song, buy the album! Get it at their website HERE, or at Amazon, HERE.

artist - album - song
The Flower Kings - Adam and Eve - The Blade of Cain

I found myself yesterday in downtown Spokane, for reasons that are unrelated to this thought, around the lunch hour. Being a bit hungry I stopped at a little place, that looked like all the other places of it's type, for something with which to fill my empty, yet deceptively rotund, belly.

When I walked into this little place, I was admittedly taken aback. What's this? Stone tile? A high vaulted and oh so hip exposed duct work ceiling? Sleek art-deco-like lighting hanging by thin wires? Tract lighting even? It was almost too much.

Sitting down, I was able to look around and asses the clientele.

*/squirt/bite

There were young and old alike here. Places like this draw the business lunch crowd, it seems. Men in ties and coats, or business casual. Women looking like they may have just come from a yuppie fashion show, and older women with pearls. There were also police in the restaurant on this day. They looked shined up and new, like plastic figurines of power.

*/squirt/bite

I wondered what made all these people come here. Here, of all places. Was it the upscale atmosphere? Was it the subtle light jazz being piped into the vaulted ceiling? Was it the wood accents and cool lighting? Or did they come for the sauce, like I did. I always come to this place for the sauce. I like the Jamoca shake also. But the sauce is really what I'm after here. Were they after the sauce too?

*/squirt/bite

As I finished my meal, I started to feel like I had been to some fancy place. I started feeling special, like I had treated myself in a yuppie utopia of sandwiches and stone tile among my peers. But running through my mind, all the while I drove away and looked back at that giant cowboy hat sign, was that like so many other things in this world, no amount of high ceilings, yuppie lighting, and expensive stone tile, is going to change the fact that I had just eaten at Arby's.

What's the fanciest fast food place in your neck of the woods?

Life spent,
a precious moment,
in the wink of an eye
we live and we die

A convergence has occurred. A combination of separate and unrelated events that all hit on a central theme; mortality.

Of all the books I recently purchased on the cheap, described in the last post, I decided, for whatever reason, to pick up Tuesdays With Morrie. I didn't think much of this at the time, and didn't really expect much from the book. Surprisingly enough, the comments section of the post below drifted to the topic of death, and dying.

I remember the day our oldest son was born, I was stricken suddenly with my own mortality. At 29, I finally realized that, lying here in my arms, newly born and breathing air for the very first time, was someone who would likely stand over my grave and mourn my passing. This was a profound moment for me, for whatever reason.

At first, I was frightened. I was admittedly a little freaked out...to put it mildly. I was going to die. Old people die. Not 29 year olds...right?

Since then I've come to have a peace about both old age, and death itself. Much like Morrie, I think. Morrie, the diseased sociology professor who is the subject of the book I decided to pick up, decided to have a "living funeral." Why? Because he was aghast at what a waste funerals were. "All those nice words, and he wasn't even there to hear them!"

At almost 36 years old, I am now feeling older than I ever have. I never thought that at this age, I would be on as many medications as I am. A few of them, I will be on until the day I pass on. But still, I have a certain peace about death. I'm trying to live my life like I'm not coming back tomorrow. I try to keep things practical, try to live life as full as I can, and try to leave something for others to remember me by. I'm not always successful, but I'm trying. My mortality is living with me now, as a constant reminder, a constant companion trying to get me to live the way I'll want to be remembered.

What about you. Are you at peace with the end?

Every street I've walked down, everyone I've talked to
I'm afraid I love them all but for different reasons
Every grand old building from a time of visions
Every single song, every syncopation
It must be something that makes me feel right at home

I love books. I have many and caress them often...but really only when they need to be dusted. Someday, I'll find the time to read many of the books I own.

Yesterday, I increased the number of books I own considerably. You see, there was a "friends of the (college I work at) library" sale. I walked away with a box of books. Contained within this box, are the following books:

- Social Limits to Growth - Hirsch
- Johnathan Livingston Seagul - Bach
- The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill - Visions of Glory (biography) - Manchester
- Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right - Franken
- For Whom the Bell Tolls - Hemingway
- Aeneid - Virgil
- The Divine Comedy - Dante
- Wealth of Nations - Smith
- Plays of Moliere

collections
French and English Philosophers:
- Descartes
- Voltaire
- Rousseau
- Hobbes

Philosophy (others):
- Machiavelli
- More
- Luther

Lastly, I got a seven volume turn of the century (published in 1900) set called:
Stories by English Authors

I spent very little on all these books, and it felt great!

Have I mentioned that I love books? I think the books I got today will enjoy the company of the 1753 translation of Homer's Odyssey by Alexander Pope, don't you think?

I think that if I lived in 1753, I'd definitely be a "bookfeller."

Addendum:
On Saturday, we also went to the Spokane Public Library...to THEIR sale. I picked up the following:
- Crime and Punishment - Dostoyevsky
- A book with three stories in it by Marcel Proust
- Tuesdays with Morrie - Albom

We also got a bunch of books for the kids, and Toadgirl picked up a Tasha Tudor garden book, and some other stuff as well.

Lay back, relax, close your eyes, let the music wash over you and fill your body. Let it surround you with sound, warm and comforting.

Let it go, the anger, the tension, the agitation, the nervousness, the stress. Feel it leave, until all that's left is you, only you. Wiped clean and ready for the new day. As white and comfortable as crisp clean cotton sheets.

These snippets are from an actual conversation....

"I've got to get the brakes fixed on my car."

"How do you know it's the brakes that are causing the problem?"

"Because the steering wheel wobbles when I hit the brakes."

"So...how are you sure it's the brakes?"

"Like I said...because the steering wheel wobbles when I hit the brakes."

"That's like saying the light stays on in the refidgerator because it's on when you open the door!"

"Oh.. I see..."

I wanna see a flying saucer
I wanna see a flying saucer
I wanna see it land in front of my car
Fly in formation over my backyard
Or carry me off to the nearest star
I want to see a flying saucer
I want to see a flying saucer, yeah.

My life is not boring. It is routine, but not boring. I have a loving wife and great and energetic kids. But sometimes you just want to see something new, you know? It's great to see the new green taking over the yard, and the bulbs slowly waking up after their long winter rest, but where are the gnomes? The fairies and pixies? Why don't the unicorns visit anymore? Is there anything left that cannot be explained? Of course there is...

...it's just hard to see sometimes.

lyrics: Flying Saucer - Brave Combo