Category: Personal

I had already been at the office for two hours when my buddy Matt sent me this “Death Metal Rooster” video via email. The subject heading read “WAKE UP!!!”

I watched it with the volume muted, to keep up the appearance that I was working on the monthly accounting report. Eventually I did get to working on the report, and the day passed in an uneventful haze. A coworker gave me a ride home, which added about forty-five minutes of precious me-time to my evening. Once home, I decided to finally tackle the job of dismantling my condenser mic to figure out why it was no longer working properly. I was ready to give up more than once, but persisted in taking the mic apart then putting it back together, a process which miraculously resulted in the mic working once more like a charm. Relieved and self-satisfied, I headed off to bed, albeit a bit later than I would have liked.

As often happens, I popped awake at about 2am feeling restless and stiff. I fell into a meditative trance while loosening up my muscles with gentle, subtle micro-movements. After about twenty minutes of this, it happened. Again. A sense of clarity dawned on me so intensely that the last several months of waking life seemed like a coma by comparison. All the life issues I’ve been struggling with felt either completely resolved or else utterly unproblematic. I knew without a doubt what I needed to be doing with my life, how to refocus and realize my full potential and destiny. Part of this crystal clear life plan involved re-immersing myself in my study of Somatics and Integral Psychology, so I ran downstairs to look up a few books online. Flipping open my laptop I noticed a new email. It was from my father-in-law. He had written the obituary for his father, who has just passed away at the age of 94. I knew his father and felt a profound admiration for the man. When I married his granddaughter he gave me the honor of wearing and owning the wedding band he had worn on his finger throughout his more than fifty-year marriage to his wife, who had passed away a few years prior. Reading about the man’s long, full life made me feel even more intensely awake and committed to living my life full-throttle. I could hardly go back to bed at this point, so I picked up my guitar and began to strum a few chords. Within about thirty seconds a song idea came to me that promised to be my best ever creation. I quickly recorded the basic idea then jumped back in bed. It was about 3am by this time. Only an hour had passed, an hour I would normally spend dreaming and drooling.

This was not the first time I’ve caught a glimpse of crystal clear consciousness and I hope it won’t be the last. I knew it would fade. I knew the alarm clock would ring with cruel precision at 6am. I knew I’d have to drag myself through the day in a relative fog, and I knew that by the time I got home I’d barely have the presence of mind left to tap out a hasty blog post about the whole thing.

For whatever reason, I felt the need to post something on Twitter last night before I surrendered to unconsciousness:

I just woke up, as if from a coma of 10 years. Suddenly, everything is possible. Books, albums, written in my head. 3am. Back to sleep?

135 characters — five to spare… Life!

Gotta love Vermont in the Fall.

My wife and I rendezvoused with her family at her Dad’s cabin in East Burke, a little town known for skiing and its world-class trail system for mountain-biking. We were only there for a couple of days, but it was an awesome time. I hit the bike trails for the first time and was ejected from my vehicle only a few times and without incident. Now I know what a black diamond means when posted on a trail sign.

I don’t think I’ve exerted myself so much since high school. I was beyond ready to throw in the towel several times, my legs bursting with lactic acid from hip to toe, but my 61 year-old father-in-law kept riding—and with a smile on his face—so I couldn’t let on I was so exhausted. Before the trip I jokingly asked him if he’d packed a defibrillator. It never occurred to me that I’d be the one needing it.

I can still taste that crisp, clean mountain air. Here are a few photos: East Burke, VT – October 2009.

My wife and I had a plan when we returned from Mexico last year. We’d move from Lexington, KY to Carrboro, NC. She would write her doctoral dissertation. I would get a job in the addictions field, finish the 200 (out of 6000) work hours I needed to become a licensed counselor, then get a solid job with good benefits to support us until my wife’s Ph.D. was completed.

I should’ve learned from the previous year in Mexico not to expect life to go according to plan. There, I had planned to play soccer every day and get into the best physical shape of my life. Instead, I blew out my knee two minutes into the first scrimmage, and spent much of the year trying to get back to walking without a limp.

So we moved from Lexington to Carrboro. Then my wife was offered a teaching job in Lexington, which was too good an opportunity to pass up. Then she won a dissertation-writing fellowship (another great opportunity) that required Kentucky residence. I’ve been going it alone here in Carrboro for most of the year. The job market has been slim pickins, and my best chance at a solid job in the addiction field was a post at the university counseling center. After a several-months-long courtship and multiple interviews, the position was cancelled due to lack of funds. So here I am a year later, still working as an office temp with no benefits.

A coworker snapped this photo of me on Thursday, to use as part of a staff meeting slideshow. This is how I’ve spent my days for the past twelve months — clicking a mouse and answering the phone.

Looking closely at the photo it strikes me — as it has again and again, through all the ups and downs — that I’m right where I need to be. Maybe it’s pure rationalization, or maybe I’m just making the most out of the situation. What else can anyone do?

I’ve enjoyed an almost stress-free work environment for the past year. This after years working in a psychiatric hospital, breaking up fist fights and dodging pieces of broken furniture being hurled at me. I’m even getting paid more — significantly more — for clicking that mouse than I have for any past mental health job. I’ve rejoined forces with my buddies from the old rock band and enjoyed performing again after a six year layoff. My knee is almost fully rehabilitated.

Life is good, although nothing has gone according to plan. Life isn’t always good. Sometimes it sucks. And sometimes it’s weird. And while through it all I’ve been feeling like I’m right where I need to be, I don’t believe in any of that fatalistic, law of attraction, “Secret” nonsense. I’m going to work my ass off to make the shit happen that I want to happen this coming year.

I suppose I’m just at peace with life for the time being. Simple as that. It’s nice, really nice, and I wouldn’t mind staying this way for a while. Sounds like a plan.

I was walking to the mailbox yesterday evening, lost in a daydream I’d been wandering through for hours. I looked up at the sky and daydreamed about how cool it would be if I looked up at the sky and had a true moment of awakening, a flash of clarity about my place in the universe. I reached into the mailbox and pulled out a coupon flier and a bill for my cell phone. I walked by the recycling bins, dropped off the coupon flier, and shuffled back to my apartment.

I’m not sure why I’m bothering to relate such a dull moment, except that it captures the spirit of my existence over the past few days. This morning I watched the Today Show while I sipped my coffee. I kept thinking “This show is just awful” —yet I continued to watch. When I turned the TV off, I did experience a tiny spark of clarity. I had been entranced, caught up in a web of illusion. Suddenly, with the push of a button, I was in another place, rising from my couch, rushing out the door to catch the bus before slipping into another daydream.

I’ve been bothered lately by the news reports of red-faced, pea-brained yahoos squawking nonsense at town hall meetings, parroting what they hear on Fox News, and now toting guns to presidential events. Of course, these people think they’re in the right, and it’s people like me who are really nuts. Just like it seems crazy to Americans how Iraqis and Afghanis blow themselves up every day, yet we may seem like a bunch of dangerous lunatics from their perspective.

We’re all lost in our daydreams. Almost all of the time, we’re caught up in some web of illusion. Worst of all, some of us are well aware of this, and even know precisely what to do to snap out of it—yet choose not to most days.

What can I tell you? I’ve spent most of my life daydreaming. I’ve rescued women from being raped, fought off knife-wielding criminals, performed on the Tonight Show, told off my boss, been interviewed by Rolling Stone magazine – all in the past week, on my way home from work.

Now maybe, from someone else’s perspective, I was just riding the bus, in silence, with a far off look in my eyes. Maybe. But I doubt anyone was paying attention.