My passions

As a writer it is often hard to admit what I cannot write about.  There is actually quite a bit.  When you build fiction, you build characters and stories.  You have this internal removal system where what you write is you but not you at the same time.  It’s a glorious thing to tell the secrets of the people who live in your head.  It’s not so easy to tell the secrets of the one who dreams them up.

I think as writers we use these characters as avatars to live loudly when we need to live quietly.  To boldly explore places we may fear to tread.  To tell our true desires, our fears and silent hopes and dreams.  Writers often out live their far share of life.  After all we are usually living at the very least 3 to 4 different lives every second every hour of every day.  They have names that are our characters and while Chris may not be having a great day Fiona is making out with the man of her dreams.  Charlie just got whisked out of the country and Claire just got even with her crappy ex.

I often love what I write about.  I write about love, what is there not to love. But the things I’m truly passionate about get caught in my throat and my pen.  Some days they overwhelm.  I love education.  I know it’s weird. Some people love fish or chocolate.  But I love education like dudes love football.  It makes me cry, weep, it stills my heart and takes away my breath.  Its hard to place that kind of intense emotion into words. 

I was going to lunch the other day and it just hit me so hard, like it does sometimes.  I was thinking about my current job and how its all about money and nonsense and then I thought about the day when I would be a teacher.  Watching someone learn from my efforts and my eyes welled with tears, my chest filled with this strong tight emotion.  I could barely breathe, I lost my strength, my senses left me.  There was no me, just the cause just teaching just learning. In that moment I understood what they mean when they say you have a calling for something.  I fought it as people do, but it cannot be fought.  It is like denying breathing, eating, sleeping, love.  The only person that is truly harmed is me.

I have a wide variety of talents.  Many will tell you I’m an amazing singer.  Some will say I’m a good writer.  Others will tell you of my grace, my friendship, my ability to love. You’ll find all manner of artistic pursuits in my arsenal. I love looms and weaving, wet clay and ceramics, watercolors, sports, stage performances and all else that places the human spirit in its best or worst light.  It’s the drama of life but it all gravitates to one overall goal.  Learning.  It is everything we are and everything we do. We learn we adapt we adjust we move forward.  

All that we have is due to education.  And all that we can be will be at the hands of education.  I see no finer purpose or pursuit in this world and it moves me beyond words to think that maybe one day someone, or many will be able to trace a definitive moment in their lives to my involvement, my support, my teaching, my undying faith in them.  A commitment to education is a commitment to something beyond right and wrong.  It is a commitment to understanding what we as humans are capable of.  My dedication to education is a dedication to humanity and the amazing things we are can accomplish when we are led by will and faith.

And Then I Know Passion

Fire

It breaks over my body like a rising day.  The warmth of, the burn of, the living flame of what words have yet to truly capture.  I’ve heard it in a song in that bar that uncatachable untraceable bar of tones of melody of harmony blend in such sweet cloying sanctity.  It sounds like hope that burns in fear, breathes in smoke as it reduces all else to ash. 

I sit I pine and I want and I wonder.  The only thing as sweet as having what you most desire, no even sweeter still, is that moment before it comes to be.  In wanting in pining we live we thrive.  In needing in seeing in craving we are what was always intended.

Water

It consumes my space like water in a dream.  Flowing freely into every crack, every crevice every single space reshaping itself to fill all of me, changing my core rebuilding my texture. What was once some is now all, what was once in parts is now just me. Flood is the word that comes to mind, flood it does, pour till it overflows saturating all around me, rivers running, raging and roaring, rapids freeing caging enjoying.

I am only kept by what I allow to keep me.  I am only captive by the vessel I choose to inhabit. My walls I discover as I flow past them.  My boundaries I invade by running right over them.

Wind

It blows through me like a frost bitten wind. Its light and lithe, a whisper and a storm. It cradles me in intent, passive in its care. It tears at my foundation swirling in cacophony. Unseen power pulling relentless at the seams. It whips it wields it shakes it steals. Swooping diving wrapping and writhing it clears the space in its own time to understand the calm that centers how it strives.

I flow on the current of the will that is eternal. Through the push and the pull of unseen lure. My limbs move as if on their own violation. I fight the tug but none would be undone. Either light as a breeze on a tepid spring day or with the rage of the storm cresting for play. Temper my will my pause my pain, continue to build the strength and feed my flame.

Earth

It buries me in grains harvested from the depths of my being. The long planting season roosted many nights ago.  The moon tended the soul, the sun foresaw the dawn.  In grit it pushes to reach new heights.  In rock it solidifies the sediment of eons of understanding shaping and molding firm foundation for all that pushes. Planting a growing, reaping and sowing, from this place rise.

Elements

The earth as my canvas, water my brush, wind be my motions, and fire my paint. I’ll paint you a passion that you have never seen.  It will shake your foundation, twist your space, overflow your dreams and smote your fate.

Happy Memorial Day

I know not a thing of war.

Not the smell the taste or the weight of it

I know not a thing about the pain and crime of it

I know not of the suffering inherent and given

Of living to serve and knowing what must be

Of following the dictations of those in power

Understanding that while their decisions may not be just

The people you fight for deserve this freedom

I know not of long lonely nights

Of cold unjust grace and the repetition of death

Of holding close your heart in the face of desolation

I know not of the loss of peace and quiet

Nothing of the lack of my own bed

Of knowing nothing put the outlying comfort of a foreign land

I know not a thing of family far and wide

Of each day being a gift and blessing as your eyes open

Of each night a thought to what could be

Being a humanitarian and a war bringer

A peacekeeper and a scion of death

I know nothing of such life altering decisions

I know nothing of coming home a changed person

Of leaving a post with a mix of joy and trepidation

Of preparing to meet those who condemn you

Of preparing to meet those who revere you

Of knowing the price you had to pay

So spoiled others can have life their way

I know nothing,

Not a thing

Can’t even imagine

The immensity of war

And humbly thank those who have made this so

It is a bittersweet holiday because it admits fallacies to the human condition that we may never truly ever get past.  It is a wonderful thing to think that this world can attain a true and plentiful peace that serves the needs of all and treats all equally.  The truth is that the world is too diverse in some ways for such unity.  And until we as human beings can learn to respect instead of condemn diversity there will always be a need for war.  What needs to change is not the desire to be just but the matters that we are just about and the methods by which we wage war.

In the meantime I will be grateful that everyday there are countless men and women who are willing to be the ambassadors to humanity using their own lives as a bargaining chips to show us the fallacy of our need for war and what compassion is.  Throughout history war has destroyed and those left behind have had to rebuild.  I take solace in the idea that there is nothing that our country destroys that we do not attempt to rebuild.