a recent picture of you and 15 interesting facts about yourself

Most recent picture of me, standing on the edge of a cliff next to highway 1, somewhere between L.A. and San Francisco.

I don't like starting with this one, but its the first one on the list, so I must...

1. I enjoy maps and black and white photography on my walls
2. I’ve lived in the following states (in this order): Kansas, Oklahoma, Indiana, Alaska, Georgia, South Dakota and New York (and currently back in Georgia)
3. My favorite season of the year is fall... I mean c'mon. Crisp weather, football, my birthday, some good holidays, and football. How could any other season compete?
4. My favorite/lucky numbers are 4 and 11.
5. I have a cat named Fitz. I like him.
6. If C.S. Lewis wrote something down, I want to read it.
7. I once jumped off a balcony and landed on a couch, all while sleep-walking. There are other stories of sleep-walking adventures, but jumping off the balcony wins.
8. Top two concerts I've been to... Radiohead at Lakewood in the pit, and MuteMath at the Tabernacle (DVD comes out soon)
9. I've never seen the Star Wars movies, but I'm working on a plan to make that happen soon.
10. I have a small record collection, a decent library, and, in a box somewhere, I have a pretty good collection of basketball cards from the early-mid nineties.
11. I once claimed to be able to pack any amount of luggage into the trunk of a car, and if you think I can't, you're wrong.
12. I played music with one of my top-5 favorite musicians.
13. If I'm trying to fall asleep in a quiet room with a ticking clock, I have to take the clock out of the room or the batteries out of the clock.
14. The easiest class ever I've ever taken... we would meet once a week, watch a movie, talk about it, and then write up a page about the movie. This is the one class I failed throughout my entire academic career.
15. I am incapable of keeping a pair of sunglasses for more than a month without losing them or breaking them... unless of course I don't like the sunglasses, in which case I don't have any issue holding onto them for years. I buy cheap sunglasses.

Insomnia Blame Game

A while back I took a trip to Colorado with my friends from college, the Fullers, who are awesome and definitely on the “favorite” list. I want to say a lot of good things about Colorado. I like it. The flight home included some delays, and like a good company, Airtran decided to make it up to us by giving us a voucher for a free plane ticket. Thanks Airtran.

So months go by and the voucher fades to the back of my mind, and then I get a call from my friend Jamie Fuller, who asks, “Did you use that voucher yet?” So we started planning, and the result was a trip to California to visit our friends the Kinds (also on my “favorites” list).

The trip included many adventures, many fantastic meals, many early mornings playing tennis, and a near-perfect trip up the coast to from L.A. to San Francisco…

Near-perfect… driving up the 1 was stunning. The views were unlike any I had ever seen. Who would’ve thought over 12 hours of roadtripping would be as enjoyable as it was? And the time in San Francisco was great. Despite the cloudy day, we had a great time riding our rented bikes all over the city and struggling when it was time to go up the steep hills. But during the drive up, one of our many stops along the road was centered around a spontaneous hike out towards the cliffs, and had I known that I was about to hike into poison ivy, I would’ve, at the very least, replaced my flip-flops with shows… maybe even replaced my shorts with long pants… or maybe I would’ve chosen not to take the walk due to the knowledge of my extreme allergy to poison ivy. But all of those options were not considered because the poison ivy wasn’t noticed. And because I was oblivious to the poison ivy, there was no reason to was my feet off right away, so I soaked it all in. Anyway, it was bad. It was uncomfortable to say the least. And not being comfortable for more than a week made it hard to sleep for more than a week. But I’m doing better now, its just after a couple weeks of staying up later and later every night (because I wouldn’t fall asleep until I was beyond tired), my sleep schedule has been way off.

And so now I’m better, but I’ve become a night owl, and I don’t like it. Anyway, it’s an excuse to catch up with some writing. And so I’ll be starting up something which I’m stealing from my friend Sammi, who stole it from my friend Mandy. So for 30 days I'll be writing a lot of stuff that few will find interesting. Whatever...

day 01- a recent picture of you and 15 interesting facts about yourself
day 02- the meaning behind your tumblr name
day 03- a picture of you and your friends
day 04- a habit that you wish you didn’t have
day 05- a picture of somewhere you’ve been to
day 06- favorite super hero and why
day 07- a picture of someone/something that has the biggest impact on you
day 08- short term goals for this month and why
day 09- something you’re proud of in the past few days
day 10- songs you listen to when you are happy, sad, bored, hyped, mad
day 11- another picture of you and your friends
day 12- how you found out about tumblr and why you made one
day 13- a letter to someone who has hurt you recently
day 14- a picture of you and your family
day 15- put your ipod on shuffle: first 10 songs that play
day 16- another picture of yourself
day 17- someone you would want to switch lives with for one day and why
day 18- plans/dreams/goals you have
day 19- nicknames you have; why do you have them
day 20- someone you see yourself marrying/being with in the future
day 21- a picture of something that makes you happy
day 22- what makes you different from everyone else
day 23- something you crave for a lot
day 24- a letter to your parents
day 25- what i would find in your bag
day 26- what you think about your friends
day 27- why are you doing this 30 day challenge
day 28- a picture of you last year and now, how have you changed since then?
day 29- in this past month, what have you learned
day 30- who are you?

I'm not sure how long Blogger waits to delete an account due to inactivity, but apparently a year and a half is not the designated time. It was only a couple weeks ago that I stumbled upon a friend’s blog and the realization came into my head… “You have a blog.” So I guess I’m re-opening the vault of my mind to see what comes out.
What might help is the fact that sometime during the last year a got a working computer, so that can’t hurt. What definitely might help is my current bout with insomnia, a term which I am, admittedly, using without a strict adherence to the true definition. It isn’t an issue of getting enough sleep, its only the frustration of a morning person who has turned (overnight) into an extreme night owl. I don’t like it. I don’t know what to do with myself. It is time for sleeping, so I should be sleeping, but I can’t get to sleep.
Which brings me to my first topic to write about in awhile.
I know who to blame… I went to California recently.

...to my first love.

I'm starting to understand the day to day struggle of finding your identity in a place it isn't. I'm starting to understand the feeling of emptiness that you can't get away from, that follows you around, that makes it a necessity that you schedule everything out because if there is any slot of time not assigned, you run back to your emptiness. I'm getting a little glimpse of all that. I'm sure it doesn't help others that are going through similar feelings, but at least I'm not as ignorant now. I know in my head that time will heal my heart and I'll begin to rediscover myself eventually, but my heart still longs for comfort.

My dad used to tell me that I should be a doctor. I'm not sure what he saw that lead him to that idea, but what comes to my mind is how queazy I feel when I'm around people in pain. My Granddad has had some health issues over the last few years, mostly with his feet. He was told he would never walk again, but with a little assistance from some very supportive boots, he gets around pretty well these days. Still, whenever I see him stand up and start to move around, I feel pain, I feel the pressure on my feet, I feel an emptiness in my gut because I know all his progress could be gone with one off step. There's no way I could surround myself with so much pain every day. I feel a need to say the right thing and do everything exactly right so that healing takes place immediately. And then I find myself needing healing, and I realize--although I've realized it again and again throughout my life, I have a very fresh realization--that sometimes it's not as easy as someone saying the right thing to you. Something is broken, and talking to it and treating it right does not repair what's wrong.

Forgive me for being cliche, but it doesn't require a high degree of spirituality or an advanced knowledge of philosophy to realize we live in a fallen, broken world. We are surrounded by pain all the time, and based on experience, most people would have to conclude that covering up is about the best we can do with healing. Sure, your body will fight against a fever and your cuts will seal, but there is a brokenness about our lives that reaches beyond our bones. That is where healing finds its greatest resistance. When we have a headache, we might take a pill; when we scrape a knee, we might disinfect and bandage the wound; but what is the remedy for a broken heart? What bandage can we put on a mind that is believing the lies that it's being fed?

There is something about emotional and spiritual brokenness that makes it so much more stubborn. If it were up to us, our hearts and minds would be healed, but sometimes there is something that interferes with our natural healing processes. Something gets in the way. We speak of miracles in our family when we talk about my Granddad being able to walk. His feet were breaking down faster than his body could repair them, and although it took surgeries and therapy, something as simple as walking has become a miracle. And yet, despite many injuries to bones and joints in my feet, it seems very normal that my body healed itself and the fact that I am walking doesn't impress anyone. It is the fact that my Granddad's healing seemed to defy nature's timing that we see a miracle. We speak of miracles when a person recovers from cancer when they are told they only have weeks to live, but when surgeries remove tumors and chemotherapy destroys cancerous cells, recovery is seen as successful treatment of the disease. And so it seems to me that the only difference between a miracle and normal recuperation is that a miracle possesses one of two properties: a miracle happens without the normal restraints of time, or a miracles bypasses some variable that was making healing especially difficult or impossible.

Maybe we all need some miracles in our lives... What if we could remove the hidden variable that keeps us trapped in our emotional brokenness? What if we could overcome the filter in our mind that twists our thoughts? What if we could stop believing the lie that keeps us running back to our emptiness? It would be a miracle, and I hope, for your sake and for mine, that miracles are still possible.

Vacation Reaction

The northeastern region of the United States possesses, on one hand, a myth, created by culture and entertainment, which boasts of unparalleled energy and excitement, and on the other, a stigma of detachment and loneliness, unfortunately, also unparalleled. Having visited the area on several occasions, I have experienced and felt the accompanying emotions of these two extremes.

It becomes easy to focus on the vastness and speed of living that we pass by the very people that have been specifically and carefully chosen to clutter up our path. And like clutter, it may seem easier to sweep it all under the rug and pretend it's not there, which certainly has become the norm, but here and there I begin to think that there might be something to be found in the careful process of addressing our clutter...

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealing with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal."
C.S. Lewis
The Weight of Glory

Excuse...

It's very strange that of all the times in life not to be actively writing, these last few months have been void of it all. My usual habit of writing much and only posting minimally is not even the case. It's strange. I have so much to say. I think the barrier between what is traveling around my mind over and over and a piece of paper or a blog post is the delicacy of the topic.

On a few isolated occasions I've thrown caution to the wind and let myself go, but not in a public setting like the world wide web. So I'll dance around the topic without diving in too deep:

I'm happy about life right now. Not everybody is feeling that right now, and I just now realized that it's nice to be where I am... and it's nice to know it before it's time to start another climb. Life is not made to be bland and forgettable. It's good to live a life that's been blessed with extravagant and bold seasonings. Sometimes it's more dramatic and stressful than it is sweet, and that's a blessing. And to have your sweet-tooth satisfied is also a blessing. And that's where I am right now...

I've got this cute little lady that let's me take her out to eat when our free time happens to be at the same time. She says thank you when I pay for her meal. She likes foods that I don't even understand. Tofu. Strange vegetables. Organic hybrid plants. I try a bite and discover that my intuitions regarding foods I wont like are mostly accurate. But I like that she likes different things. I order foods that I know about. Pasta with chicken. Anything from the breakfast menu. Basics. Good food that I've heard of. I'm not very adventurous when it comes to food.

She adds flavor to my life. I am thankful for that. She is a blessing. She is beautiful. I wish I told her that more often.

...

There are times in life when I can't find purpose or a foothold or a break... and there are times when I'm constantly aware of the warmth of God's presence... and that in both I am secure in His hands.

thoughts that have nothing to do with Christmas, it just happens to be Christmas as I'm writing them down...

How often am I simply avoiding pain? How often do I stand still and adapt to the present pain in order to avoid fresh pain?

At any particular moment in time, when I very well should be involved in the present, I am either living in the past or living in the future. I find that the present offers little compared to my past, or my optimism of the future. This is a somewhat recent development for me. It certainly has never been a habit, not one with any consistency. And I never recall looking forward to this present that I am currently experiencing. And I should also add, with a good amount of confidence, that I don't expect I'll ever have any longings to return to this present. I am not here. You may see me and communicate with me, but I am not really there. I am a shadow, but a shadow with desire for a well-lived life.

I suppose this is one of those "in-between" points of life. I'm looking back and looking ahead, but not really at home in the present. I could vaguely describe what preceded this present, but I can't come up with an adequate title to do justice to the previous stage of life. However, at least I have concrete memories to reflect on. And so I'm left with a question that I can't answer... "What am I looking forward to?"

This transition phase of life... what will it lead to? In between mountain tops, I am living the valley experience, yet without any motivation to start another climb. I need something. I need site of the next peak.

I keep telling myself to simply keep moving. Don't stop, don't stall, keep moving. What is the goal?

"Will you come with me to the mountains? It will hurt at first, until your feet are hardened. Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows. But will you come?" (C.S. Lewis - The Great Divorce)

i'm not a real writer

i miss reading good books. i have amazing books waiting for me on the shelves in my room, but i'm just moving through them so slowly. when i have a demanding schedule, reading is my escape. but work is slow and i get to have too many lazy days, so i end up getting myself out of rhythm. the reading muscle is the same as the writing muscle, and it's pretty weak right now.

once upon a time i had it in my mind that i could, possible should, be a writer. like a real writer. i would have a little cottage somewhere with a back deck that looked out over a lake, and i'd sit at a desk and type on an antique typewriter. i dont know, maybe i would teach and then spend the summers writing books at the lakehouse. then again, seeing as how my last post was in february -- which doesn't completely reflect the amount of time i've spent spelling out words and sentences and paragraphs and complete thoughts, but should certainly tell you something about my ability to complete something worth publishing (although i don't tell people about my blog and therefore have 3 readers, i mean my mother doesn't even know i have one of these things, i still feel the need for my posts to have some level of quality) -- i would say i have a problem with this idea of being an actual writer.

and here's the problem. i've always hit the same wall when i sit down to write. it's not a matter of starting something, but of finishing. i went to a writer's conference a while back and jumped from workshop to workshop, and the one bit of information that i will never need to consult my notes about is the idea that a storyteller must tell his story before diving into anything else. and so every effort to express myself haults because i have no ending to my story. i could make it work in college because college guys are allowed to write music with three chords and vague lyrics. there was no need to conclude, you just go back in for one more chorus.

i digress.

perhaps someday i'll see myself as having moved through some kind of ending and into another phase of life. maybe that wont ever really be clear to me. if it is, maybe i'll have something i can finish. i'd like to have a story worth writing down, not for others, but just to unclog my mind. i get these little hints of ideas that i just can't develop because i always end up back in my own un-ending story.

i'm sick of gray. i don't think the lakehouse and the typewriter are the goals, i think i'm just ready for something more.