Migration

Mal and I have spent the past two days together. Simply in the car. The first driving to Canyon City to run errands, today on a whim because no one, not a single person was here at Sweet. We took a bypass back route from Crested Butte, Gunnison 230 or something of the like, through the mountains, cascading pines and aspen. We stopped the car at one point, just past a turnoff slightly down the mountain with campfire rings to our left. She turned off the car. The echo of silence brought a buzzing to my ears. I hung my head out the window, looked up to try and spot the swarms of bugs overhead that she pointed out. The toothpicks of white aspen trunks, a wilderness of fantasy beauty like I haven’t seen in a long time. She called the silence absolute. It was true.

We saw “The Ruggeds”. An amazing spit of mountain in the distance. Close to the formations in Utah that I’ve seen in the past. Fingers pointed to the sky. Something majestic, something eerie. We named things. She named things – the wildflowers mostly. So many yellows and reds and purples on steep slopes pointing up towards blues better than most ocean waters. It was magic. My heart again, wishes to swell and explode with what I saw today.

I sit outside, after a day you wish would only close with perfection that would match. There is a moment when I am truly happy.

We arrived at Crested Butte – a small mountain town that exclaimates just over a hill on HW 50. Packed full of bustle and painted color on wood siding. Like that eclectic kitchen that trendy 20 somethings dream of. There’s a trifold of buildings, perfectly angled along the perspective of the highway, a school, middle school no doubt, with playing fields. Three young men form a square, one tosses a Frisbee to an older man with white hair who misses, bends down like an old man to retrieve it. Marcia says be careful who you call old around here. It’s a safety cliché I’ve heard a few times. She’s young. Amazingly, amazingly young.

We sit across from each other at dinner. A Chinese place with empty cafeteria fridge carts, usually seen in dorms to house salad bars. The waitress is sitting behind the sushi bar with salmon still in its warehouse package, watching TV in a language native to her own. We say we’re sitting outside, on my request – something I made a pact to do today. Have an opinion, make direction. After she brings the settings outside, we decide its too windy and carry everything back inside to a nook just off the entrance.I say I'm too fickle about atmosphere. Marcia then tells her to turn down the TV. She hopes without too much demand. She fears they might spit in her food. We haven’t ordered yet.

She wears her sunglasses at the table. I’m sitting on the side where all the light is pouring in through the pane lacking the colored glass on the top half to block the intensive glare. She asks later if its bothering me – her sunglasses. I say no. And its not. I just took notice is all.

I say I might have to go in everywhere to avoid dancing outside the stores. There’s a girl in the shop, short, brown belt on blue pants, t-shirt tucked in. She’s talking to the shop owner, so it appears. There’s a dialogue between her and the girl working behind the counter, the one that tells another woman browsing that she likes her shirt, it’s very “faded” in color. It is. I smile at the fact that this is why people live in Crested Butte.
Where in the east are you from? Says the girl with the belt.
Virginia.
They go on, narrowing down large geographic to small, based on navigational points. They come to some agreement, a common settle without real understanding. The girl with the belt explains that she came here for a class and never left. A wilderness EMT class. Shop owner selling her photos on the wall asks, “What do you do with that?”
I ask Marcia if she’s seen the Trilobite fossils. I know she’s listening.

The Thai place I talked to Kate about is indeed not closed. It may still not be that great, but its not closed. It’s just past that stretch of Salida road I know, then you merge off the right, heading toward Monarch Pass, the quiet ski town with cleverly designed ad signs. I ask Marcia why I brought the subject up, I honestly couldn’t remember.

John Denver wrote “Leaving on a Jet Plane”. We listened to it on the final stretch to Sweetwater. He also wrote that song about West Virginia (country roads take me home/to a place I belong) which I never really thought about being one place. Marcia said to call her out on being an old sap after listening to a few songs of Three Dog Night…(the world is black, the world is white) after she got on her soapbox. There’s no melody in music today, she said. I agreed, wondering in my head if there’s really any stock in age when making such an argument. But I wondered about melody. I wondered about melody. I wonder what we tap our feet to these days and wonder what foot we choose to tap to.

Over Seas

There's an Aussie on the premises.

The majority of our bang gang has started working at camp. It is titilating to see Sarah, a first time counselor as well as first time camper alive with its excitement. Yes, I got the note on the legal pad about sports and games. Here are the keys to the pontoon boat. Checks come on the 15th and the 30th of each month.

It's pretty sweet. It is. I'm not sure why those creeping demons of american engineering keep screaming in my peace. You will not be taken seriously. This cannot be a profession. Where's the money. The importance. The flaming suit and the tv interviews. Brynna said she would change the world. She understands we all say that. But she understands and is fully comfortable with the fact that her means of doing so come by "finger painting with retarded kids and making them happy".

looking it over

I'm supposed to write about what i've done each day. Thankfully, i've had a few less than i did last night, so perhaps details will abound and convoluted pieces of think will put their feet up for an hour or two.

There's a dog next to me. Candace's dogface, Diliah Dee. She's chocolate colored, with a few white spots in between her shoulders. Two black nails on her left paw, three on her right. I think her ears are clipped...like cat ears. Big amber eyes, and a pit snout, where all the hair is rubbed away to show brown freckles around her nose. Wide set jaw like Luke Wilson. She reminds me of a pig, but i can't say why. She rode with Kent and I out to Opie's Kitchen on little grassy lake where we climb. Her back legs on the blue blanket in the back seat, her face on the console in between us. She's quiet. Kent says that the more human behind the eyes, the smarter they are. I think that also goes to say a little something about some people i know.

We climbed a little. Told Kent that there are less trials of error when you're more of a cocky asshole. I traversed the far rock we found when we first came out there in two trials. Maybe being cocky presents you with the challenge of having to put your ass where your mouth is.

Green abounds since the last time I was out there. The forest floor is covered with heart shaped leaves, some organically shaped puzzle pieces, the compass plant that apparently sends its leaf points out in direction towards the four navigational points. I argued that North was indeed not the direction that Kent suggested earlier. I often stand against his opinions just for the sake of it. I don't argue, i just disagree without reasoning. Mostly because i have no clue of things so concrete.

We ate hefty sammiches at the base of the Rocky ledges waterfall across the road. Everything bread, LTOP (lettuce tomato onion) chicken, turkey, veggie cream cheese and a careful blend of ranch dressing and mustard so that the tartness of the mustard didn't take it all to itself. Diliah rolled around in something decaying and drank the stagnant water by our feet.


We walked the trail. Rocky ledges is, from what Kent tells me, the most sought out trail in Southern Illinois, due in large part to its dense and diverse wildflower population. I learned about a CCC project that started in the 30s which explained the dense softwood pine growth along the trail. We argued whether these regions were once underwater. Again, no sound reasoning. I just thought that once this was true.

Brian and Kathleen were having a surprise baby shower for Kathleen's second kid. When i arrived, people were sniffing at brown masses inside numbered diapers. Different brands of melted chocolate bars filled the bouquet. Guess what baby ate, get a prize. I don't know these people, barely know Kathleen and Brian, so its awkward standing there listening to B&K trying to guess each others answers to random questions (when did you find out K was preggers, where did you last have lunch together, what percent of the time does B clean the house) while their friends made bets on how many they would correctly match. Everyone undershot. Me, 14/20. I won.

It's nice to be around them hippie trendy young adults with kids. Keeping it real and not chasing tail or throwing up off the porch. I know nothing is different, we just take on different appendices...babies, houses, jobs, cars. We talk about how much they charged us for the garbage can at Bed Bath and Beyond or what wall color we just put up last month. But hell. Better that than a slurred blurb or the stammer of "fuckin..." interjected between every other word as we search for the next. I'm ready to get up early and get to bed the same. I dunno about babies, but I'm ready to pretend that adult thing. In moderation. You know what I mean.

As of now, I found some Boards of Canada, thought of Jodo. Ate some edomome drank some water. Tried to change my default password on my wireless because ACE1335 is stealing it, i swear. thought about going out for tomato juice. thought about what next.

well there's that. we have that.

a wise woman told me i should keep a schedule. she told me a lot of things over the years, the same years that i've managed to keep thoughts secret and aloud on a page where everyone can read if they wish. he wondered what it meant that they could.

i forget without reminder that things were once easy. easier. why? because there were less thoughts. not so much of big life and big bills and big dreams we chase down paths we're brought up to realize as paths. i forget with learning, there comes a change of contrust. construct. i meant.

life presents itself in an metric shit ton of generic terms. i'm supposed to learn lessons, don't know when i'm learning them, what i'm supposed to make of them and forgive me jesus, never know when the day comes when action proclaims that i've learned from enough to pronounce something better to the alternative. so. what are we so worried about.

i remembered the outside today. i simply put some kids in a canoe or two. why do i struggle to defend the space it takes for a person to say hello, my name is. thank you for this.

hey, i'll do my best. it's good to be back.

i told you id be here

cliche. lets examine what were afraid of repeating.

a phrase or opinion that is overused and betrays a lack of original thought.

have we gotten to that?
have we put ourselves so far beyond into the potential of what could
that we can no longer derive our own words to express the things
that we have spoken again and again that the fact
that we say in repetious fashion derived by the outstanding mind

that we cannot continue

my mind is in a state
that i can't be me in any place.

Making Shit is Easy

It is. It just takes time.

Here i am again anonymous world! Here i am with nothing much to say except

making shit is easy and i can't keep up with all the things in the world that make me dance. Wowzers.

like this, whole thing, all right there, just one little site with a whole lotta brilliance and work behind it.

Wooster Collective.com

Damon Ginandes
Red Hook, Brooklyn

anyway, i was going to write a letter. that's what i was doing originally. Originally, we were all doing something.




Happiness isn't something you go out hunting for, it's not something you end up finding. It's uncovering what's already there.

the nomad to the vagrant, and a lover's real estate

we long to live, to travel, to seek the new and obscure
we tend to do it, humbly, without pride in standoff, but pride in the aptitude
of courage as a fearful lion; those demons in which we do not know
are much more promising than those we already succumb to.

theft from this place challenges the mortal pockets from which it came
bottles empty, rooms vacant, streaming sounds from instruments without strings
drain drink suck away from dues never repaid
even in gratitude, great things great thinkers spent forever to explain
the wise sit still while the facts are laid out with

A+B=C.

i remember still driving in a silver and blue GMC Safari
through a small town, lined with quaint restaurants, craving to make sense of cute boys.
i remember thinking about my sister in college as i write her down into pages of a notebook that never get filled. it was warm i imagine. things were green. to have her on my mind meant that we were somewhere in Iowa, or Georgia, or a place i have no idea where.
But i feel, there.

I remember still a restaurant, dark, narrow, with high ceilings. The walls painted a shade of blue like the blurred vision of a starry night. I remember a table in the front corner, a lip of the tri-walled space spilling out onto the more warmly lighted entrance. I ate soup in a sourdough breadbowl for the first time. The place, wherever it was was different than that van.

I remember stewed tomatoes in a cellar at williamsburg, after we saw people dressed in costume, living the life of lives spent and dad saying that he didn't much care for stewed tomatoes. I love stewed tomatoes.

if we lose our memory, do we lose our minds?

57% of your saturated fat intake
based on a % daily value
of pride.

happy anniversary, darling

When people talk, listen completely. Dont be thinking what you're going to say next.
Most people never listen.
Nor do they observe.
You should be able to go into a room and when you come out
know everything that you saw there and not only that.
If that room gave you any feeling, you should know exactly what it was
that gave you that feeling.
Try that for practice.
When you're in town stand outside the theater
and see how the people differ in the way
they get out of taxis and motor cars.

There are a thousand ways to practice
getting in to somebody else's head for a change.

what i could have said

if you'd slow down a minute to let me finish.

If Akatiff seems impatient, its because he's obsessed with results.
As a kid growing up, he once worked 13 straight hours to build an oscilloscope
even though he didn't care what an oscilloscope did.

but that takes time.

the extra button

sewn into my shirt tag
could give me the second chance
to show a change could be had

how to lose how to win
could get lost in passing words
and the sirens of a nearby ambulance

a bicycle tire under a benz
used in making polite requests
stones the healer of a nearby trend
and insults the dealer when affections commend

five days in hell
five days of consumption
brain badgering witnesses
of some kind of corruption

the thoughts of a child
grow up in depression
only when the distinction
gets the best of decisions.

you better believe
as much as you speak
when the responsibility
is worth the upkeep

it starts with F

The only passion we been havin
Is the smoke we’ve been passin
Between two lips in a kiss undefined
But baby I don’t want another hit of your green shit
I’d ask for your heart but I can’t find mine

Go ahead and tell a woman she’s crazy
Emotional, irrational, coy and catty
But gentlemen it’s universal knowledge to me that
Intellectual hedonism breeds temporary insanity

At the end of this catharsis
I’ll break didactic ceramics
Like the natural plates
And the shifting of tectonics
Levees will bust, floods will rush in
Bridges will crumble at the feat of the question

Is your fortitude bigger than a façade of fornication
When a girl is bumpin ugly with a spiritual masturbation
Will you consider your retardants against the flames I spit
Will you gather the ashes of whats called commitment
To postulate more than the sex of a double X
And to believe in the brilliant spirit of a phoenix.

is that you? i thought this was supposed to be in confidence

where the spark beings.

(tribute to Kohei Mihara, sounds vs. words, pictures vs. images, and the culture gap. I wanna say Milton, but see, its all to the point of attempt)

would they look at me and think of when it will end. The drama, the cinema. The picture played out in anticipation.
No one meets anyone at the terminal. No one meets anyone with a coy stance, the one with a greeting worth the irritation that gives prelude to the runner up feeling to the word.

For clarity.

coy |koi|
(esp. of a woman)
making a pretense of shyness or modesty that is intended to be alluring but is often regarded as irritating.
(she treated him to a coy smile of invitation) ital.

O WORDS. O MY WORD.
i question sometimes.
why try to fit in a mans world when the world, let it be viewed as "owned" by men, struggle to define our actions, movements, intentions. O so many subjectivities! Does it not mean we wish to process the world by the same words? Like love, so to use such an unoperative word, define itself by only the one/two souls who wish to worship it.
Who needs a higher education in romantic literature when those that have expressed so many times ago are still expressing again and again.

Is that you? I thought this was supposed to be in confession.

write babies, write. Who else to hold to such an enduring term than those that take every moment as a a a a A A A A A A
RE-CREATION.
a rebirth. power and love to those nameless faces that have paved my way, but honey, did you get lost just the same?

over/under
what the fuck is whelm.
do we whelm the self or does the self whelm us.

what a preposterous philo-quasinum.
o i could shit a brick on words.
see, everyone understands that dont they.

good luck to you my intelects. good luck to you.
a world to impress, so the world to digress.
good luck to you with
hello.
goodbye.

we're so much cooler if we're multi-liguistic.

lets define, from once again, my mac push button F8, (what the (conpir))theorists) of apple think about

BEING SMART
INFORMAL having or showing a quick-witted intelligence.

i am excluding information to fit my own interpretation. thus, the media.
does objective journalism exist? a question i rub my eyes to and reach for something....my fridge.

i chill my whiskey.
i chill. sometimes.

i can only give something far more than objective. i give it my own.

i want to write my professors and tell them sionara...
ive meet someone that brings me to this place again

what can i say
i like recreational chemicals.

a vent? a moment. the night was meant to be mine, but honey monogomy was never my thing. plan my day around where i get my next fix and spend the rest thinking about where the world gets its next dollar.
discipline, like most things, comes in depleatable resources.
how do i explain to the ones ive lived up to that ive died short of the potential ive consumed.

Esteemers

fun is fleeting, this is the come down.

biochemicalhorrormonalyselfdefeatingintellectualbreakshit warfare is
rustling the trees outside my window.

here they come, here they go.
who are you
today
to me.

marks on my calendar, voids beneath skin
beyond comprehension.
are we really ok without being in the know.

my smile is gone, mischievous was never enough.

i need to sit and meditate. reiterate some positive phrasing.
ill get done what i needed to today
and retreat upon the creeping in of tomorrow.

does the pressure peruse you?

is the feeling true.

is it exciting because we recogonize that it should be.
is it intense because we want it that way.
is it lovely because thats just what we're looking for.

we're all circular constructs. there are no square pegs. we fit into one another.
where is the black and white world.

am i bored thus lonely. am i bored thus depressed. does boredom rule a world that doesn't sit still, only to feed our heads.
embrace your boredom.
listen to its unresponse.

you are not responsible for my unorthodox complex with being responsible for others emotions.
but it pains me greatly to feel your hurt.

it only puzzles me to feel my own.

sometimes i think

alcohol is healthy for me.

i should write more. It's 3:15am i just got off work. There's a tall blonde next to me, after hours company.

moon is bitten off from the full once again. its hazy and cold.
friends bubble to the surface and pop without asking them to do so. The air dissipates, they lose the form that outlined who they were and perhaps who they'll be again.
But i can't breathe easy with the exhalation they expel.

hot air, cold swears, what's a hooligan.
write me a letter, ill write you a verse. Read it again
but never outloud.

where is my sister. i miss my sister.

dont ask me for advice unless you're not listening.
ask yourself if you can make it through the time it takes.
think of cookies and your nose and the fog you create

against the windows, against doors.
ill count down the floors of the skyrise above to see if the light is still soaking into the back of your blue shade.
how exposed are you?

if you know then you're not.

superheroes and televisor shows me
that ill coast away on charisma until.
until what.
the great (man) theory stands alone.
married with 12 children a mate and a home. but ill feel the best ive been in weeks when someone pays
special attention to me.
turn a cheek to how obvious and ugly the world is.
shrug your shoulders, pat a back, take their money and turn them away.

love, for what its worth.

sometimes without trying hard i can feel my body dying.
it doesnt stop me from keeping on what im doing to let it.
challenge authoity, strip away the rules.
ill think you're wrong when you're not sure you're right.

why do we think we have responsibility over others. towards others?
do we really care.

comfortable is boring. it causes anxiety.
o look, a sprial solution.

what's your number?
how many have you had?
that have broken you?

Against windows cold or seething. I see no light.
But now i know you're awake.

how to feel

comes to a point where you feel nothing
until you feel the originial redone, remixed reconceived in someone (someone)
retorted, reported, automosphere.

when you find the words they're gone.

how many times we feed to the general
i
i i
iiiii
i me he she be
i need he she

focus on the dj
whenwords are hard to come to
looking for this
out self acclaim
speak me to thee
a necessity

but how long can i hold this smoke
between my teeth
to free the place
between my finger tips

take a drag to notice the nonsense
in generations
not long enogh to exhale something
that makes a difference
ill reach for something to make up for
something more
and those words......
well those are words.

im sorry for the lack of aire
between what your looking for
and my me saying im sorry.

the watchmen say.

megan i love you

Goethe's final words, "More light!"

Ever since we crawled out of that primordial slime, that's been our unifying cry
more light.
sunlight, torchlight, candlelight, neon, incandescent. Light to banish the darkness from our caves, to illuminate our roads, the insides of our refridgerators. Big floods for the night games at Soldiers Field. Little tiny flashlights for those books we read under the covers when we're supposed to be asleep.
Light is more than watts, and footcandles. Light is metaphor.

Thy word is a lamp under my feet.
rage, RAGE against the dying of the light!
Lead kindly light, amid the encircling gloom. Lead thou me on.
The light is dark and i am far from home. Lead thou me on.
Arise, shine for that light has come.

Light is knowledge. Light is life. Light is light.

plant food

we made up your mind for you last night
so you can decide that you'll be alright
its no small trick to beat beat
the pessimistic motherfucker sleeping inside your head
do you believe in you?
cuz no one else can do that for you
are you ready yet? are you ready yet?
you dont wanna hear it you dont wanna hear it.

i think i did ok

In October of 2003, I made a decision to pursue an alternative attitude towards education when I met a man named Steve Goril. He was standing behind a table in front of our student center at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and when I stopped at the beckoning of my curiosity, he handed me a beautifully photographed catalog. The cover was stamped with N O L S, National Outdoor Leadership School, and its contents prophetically displayed the path that would lay down the next five years of my young adult life.

A family friend and avid outdoorsman, Mark Rowland, said to me in an e-mail, “You will realize, perhaps only to the fullest extent when you return to the norm, the realness of it all. The experience is raw and like nothing else.” Period.

I traveled 12,000 miles to Broome, Australia where I stripped away and strapped on the bare essentials. I spent the next 68 days learning to travel by canoe and foot with a group of eleven strangers from all over the United Sates, whom, for various reasons, chose to submerge themselves in one of the most awesome and unforgiving environments in the entire world.

Mark was right. I realized it then and I continued to realize it when I quit taking classes at Miami. He was right when I began picking up applications to outdoor education camps. He was right when I applied to Southern Illinois University and I felt right, for the first time in my college career, when I stepped into my future as specialist in Outdoor Recreation.

There is a lot for me to yet to learn about this field, but with the confidence and pride that I gained from my experience with NOLS, I feel I can begin to set some short and long-term goals for myself.

In time, I wish to become a backcountry expedition leader with a focus in psychological therapy. I believe that by removing people from their everyday environment and harnessing the basic necessities of human life, people can look more intently into themselves and truly discover positive and powerful things that they often fail to see. I believe that by teaching leadership and self-sustainability while interacting closely with a group, people gain confidence and trust themselves to open up to the world around them. The ecology of the natural setting is in many ways a wonderful and creative tool for communicating the importance of each individual in a team.

In order to harness this dream as a reality, I need exactly what I gained from NOLS: experience. I am an emotionally intelligent person with a fair amount of experience dealing with psychological obstructions. I am flexible, honest, open minded and patient. When judging my own personality, I feel I could do a tremendous job in this field. What I need to strengthen, however, are my outdoor skills. I received the caviar of outdoor education with NOLS, but practice, as always, makes perfect. I am determined to gain as much experience in the field through internships or personally planned expeditions with peers. I believe that integrating myself with a smaller scale organization that programs towards children with behavioral disorders would be a good challenge to see how even my strengths are tested. I need to gain a real perspective on the population I wish to work with to ensure myself that the direction I want to take with outdoor recreation will be far more than just a walk in the park.

spread the word

Spike Lee "When the Levees Broke" aired on HBO tonight, the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

I can't even watch the whole thing. I took the time off from working on my self-evaluation/professional direction assignment. I'm having a hard time getting back to thinking seriously about my degree in Leisure Services.