Catch the Moon

Little boy tries to catch the moon

Like fireflies in the night in the middle of June 

Reaches up to touch the stars

Isn’t dismayed by how far away they are

To him they’re not out of reach

Just stretches out and continues to believe...

It’s not too far

Little boy grows to be a teen

Afraid of nothing? Continues to dream

Skyscrapers were meant to be tackled in one mighty leap

Nothing was impossible, at least nothing he could see

Would take away his dreams

Then life began to take its hold

Young man struggling with a past he’d never told 

All those deep-rooted fantasies

Were just his safety as he hid his dreaded beast

That ate his heart

From a childhood he’d always kept in the dark

Where am I going?

How do I live?

Within this rot I’ve always know

While inside there’s still a kid,

Who wants to play.

Young man now in his thirties 

Married once, a failure

Doesn’t know anything but fear and daydreams 

Looks at life still like that child

Aware of his anger, his hurt, but still wants to run wild

Catching the moon

But the monster, the beast

Devours his soul until he just can’t breathe

And all the fortress walls come down

Life he knows, crumbled to the ground

Like LEGO castles torn apart, spread all around

Picking up pieces now part of his life

40, and it’s just how he’s survived

But he’s learned to walk, to climb mountains that let him breathe

Still doesn’t have an answer for taming the beast

But he’s found solace within the spirit that moves the trees...

44, Looking down at his new little child

He’s a few years older, thinks he’s found 

A place to rest his head, maybe some new dreams?

But (even now) life is never what it seems

Death and divorce and tears in a little boy’s voice

Take away a life full of deceit and clouded beliefs 

Looking fully into his past 

Taking the guidance to walk past it at last

The hurt comes again real and he can’t hide behind 

Star Wars, LEGOs or B-rate comedies

He starts to believe 

That the only one who can save himself is “me”

And he breathes

Takes to fighting the battles 

No one would ever want to see

No one would believe.

And no one ever stood beside to see

Just how toxic a world could really be

Tire of being alone 

But pretty damn used to

Taking it all, and picking up pieces 

He’s roamed

Maybe now he can find a home?

Cause leaving is hard

When it’s all you’ve ever known

But sometimes, you just gotta leave

Heart just has to go.

Old man still looks to the stars

And maybe one day soon

He’ll tie a lasso around the night and

Catch the moon?

06/27/19

clc

Taming the Monster

I didn’t create the monster. I just fed it.

“Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya.  You killed my father.  Prepare to die!”

            ~ from the Princess Bride

We find ourselves locked in by our grief, our pain, our hurts.  Some of us spend our entire lives chasing after some figure or image of what might give us the revenge over these demons.  But that chase often takes the insidious creature and feeds its appetites.  The monster grows, it multiplies and devours from the inside out.  This is the monster I helped breathe life into over many years and many trials.  Never realizing that one day I’d find healing. But at the cost of not understanding what it meant to live my life without the powerful magnetic force of the monster’s cravings.  Like learning to walk and talk in a different language, without the strains of shackles or inner prison bars.

I am Inigo.  And if you don’t know that reference I would suggest going and picking up a copy of William Goldman’s The Princess Bride or watch the classic film.  Amidst the quest for ‘true love’ is a secondary tale of one man’s journey to revenge the death and scars that have plagued him his entire life.  Only at the end to find that he didn’t know what to do without it.  Revenge can eat us alive and tear at the fabric of our character.  It can seethe into every pour and devour hope.  Kill love.  

I offer hope.  I’m not selling prosperity doctrine.  I’m not blinking my eyes down in Houston with some false promises of living beyond this world’s hurts and entanglements.  I’m learning.  Growing every day that I live with my monster.  And yes, I live with my monster.  Why would I want to take such a huge part of my life and have it ‘exorcised’ away?  It is me. You can’t have Chad without the dark. You can’t have me without the child that is still silly and full of life at times.  They both remain in me.  And finding peace with my story can only come from accepting me.  Loving me.  Scars, wicked hurts, hope and all!  I have a magnificent hope within me. It steadies me when I can’t understand God. Allows me to scream to him and also rest in him in the same breath.  I gave my pain over and in its place was given room to truly love.  To live unchained.

My monster now lives as a golden retriever puppy learning to walk beside me.  Even my pain has had to learn a different way.  Instead of a terrible force of destruction, it is now learning that I will not allow it to dominate my life.  But to carve it out and send it away would be like cutting off my right arm.  I know it’s there.  I know that I have to be careful of some places, triggers and even people who would let her off the leash and run off causing havoc.  But again, it’s not the same.  A puppy doesn’t act in vengeance or seeking to destroy.  It’s just learning the smells along the way and wanting to explore.  So this is how I embrace it.  I know me. I know me better than I’ve ever known myself.  But I’m not a totally different person.  I am a mix of the child, the man, the beast, the cleric.  And beside me walks the golden that I am training, allowing to be with me, but not run rampant.  

I need to step to the side for the moment and acknowledge one important thing.  I do NOT accept the Beast that created all of this in me. That person has their own reckoning. He must deal with his own demons. What he did was wrong.  And I hope that he finds solace in his own pile of shit. I will take my part.  Feeding the pain and fear.  And I will work on me, now living without its terrible influence. 

So I come to the point where I get to forge my own path.  Up mountains, through valleys.  I’ll sing and dance.  Laugh and cry.  I will take every opportunity and embrace each breath.  I know there are still hurdles to overcome.  I know there will be pain and hurts.  But I will stand through those moments and come out on the other side.  I’m not in the revenge business anymore.  I don’t need to avenge my spirit.  My daddy in heaven has already done that for me.  He’s allowed me to not check out, and honestly, I’ve tried.  Twice.  And it’s not the answer.  I am sitting here beside a little four-year-old boy.  He wouldn’t be here without my pain, my hope, my struggles.  He is beautiful and precious.  Alive!

And I am a blessed man because of all that brought me here.

Epilogue: Northwest

After alluding to things through Facebook posts, blogs and personal conversations, here’s the scoop. Most of you closest to me already know, but I’m packing my life and heading to Oregon.

Below I’ll go into some of the specifics that have shaped this, but the short is this. Late July I’m going to pack and head cross country to be closer to Little Man. His mom has taken a position at a small school outside Portland and I just can’t keep missing the important things in his life.

He needs a dad that’s there, and at least one parent who gets the impact that having two involved parents can have positively on his life. I’ve fought “the ice queen” in so many ways. And the fact is, I would never have been able to find a life of my own in Central Pennsylvania. But the Pacific Northwest?!?!? Different story altogether.

There are a thousand reasons to stay. But it only takes one reason to leave. And he’s worth it.

I sat yesterday at an outside restaurant along the banks of the Willamette river. Trying to scout out a major city in three days is impossible. How can you find a place to call home amongst all the many small hamlets and burbs? Taking a pause to meet with someone who knew the area, I looked up and saw a beautiful bald eagle soar majestically overhead. If that’s not a sign, I don’t know what is.

‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.’
~ Exodus 19:4

Oregon City. The historic end point of the fabled Oregon Trail. The end of a journey that literally marked uncharted landscapes of this country. It’s the first place that I’ve been out here that I could really sense the ability to breathe deep, to suck in oxygen and all the natural wonders around. I don’t have a resting place just yet, but I feel this will be home. At the end of one journey, a new one is about to begin.

Atlanta has been home my entire life. And those of you who live here are part of my life, just as much as all the streets named Peachtree, My Mountain (Stone Mountain), the wooded mountains of North Georgia, Decatur, the ‘Cobb County’ Braves, live music at Eddie’s and so much more. Nate, Adam. All the other a**holes that I’ll miss. Anyone who has touched a small part of my world. You are all so incredibly special. Friends (yes, you Facebook friends too), I want to soak in as many of you as I can before I leave.

Instead of bashing the abrupt decision made by a callous individual (my original title to this blog was ‘So this is how f*cked up it gets’), I’m choosing to embrace the fact that I’m finally getting the opportunity to be close to one of the most important people in my life at an incredibly impressionable age.

Goodbye Atlanta. It’s somewhat now ‘easier to leave’.

click below to listen to the original song by Thom Lyons
Easier to Leave

Rear View Mirror

Rear View Mirror

What happens when you really say goodbye?

It’s a whole lot deeper than all those tears in her eyes

When the sadness grows on for miles and miles

Do you remember the day that you last really smiled?

Tape that last box and load it on the truck

The measure of a life contained in carefully labeled stuff

Some of those memories you can pack safely way

But others linger through each state line you cross, each sign along the way

And you don’t get to pick, the road you travel down

Take each day the best you can, sometimes without making a sound

You pray

You pray

Never lost my faith even when I lost my sight

Headlights barely cut the fog on a humid summer night

Wheels keep turning, Atlanta seems like a dream

Or a place where heartache and happiness, aren’t always what they seem

And even those you thought would understand

Leave you with an emptiness, and they wonder why “I am who I am”

Rear view mirror always shows the way

But not where you’re going, just helps to resonate

How far you’ve traveled and how much you’ve already seen

Miles turn into days and days, and you learn what hope means...

If you really see.

06/05/19

clc

North x Northwest

How does the story end?

I’ve written so much about the past and the present. But what about the future?  Not dreams of the future, but a real, obtainable vision of the future.  This is it people.  But, how does it end?

Mathematically, you can look at a life in the following possible perspectice.  From birth to 20, Spring.  Your twenties to 40 or so, Summer.  Autumn hits around your mid-40s and Winter sets in at your sixth or seventh decade, the “golden years”.  I’ve weathered the first two seasons of my life.  I’m halfway done.  Lived it full, eventful and with some substance.  Lots of ups, maybe a few more downs.  Seen life born, death take.  But that’s the past.  What am I planning for my future?  That's actually a completely different blog, but as for location, location location, well, here it goes.  Started with two possibilities.  Neither one expected.  Neither one anything I would have imagined a month ago.

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.  Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.  The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn."

~ John Muir, The Mountains of California

And as I walked, the spirit in the wilderness came to me.  ‘Go! Go now. It’s time.’”

I have to go.

Where? Well that depends upon what end I want. It’s not an easy decision, but no matter, I need to move on.  To leave Atlanta. I need to leave this place so full of memories but also so full of hurts and sadness.  My two older kids are just about grown.  Little man far away.  And I find that I’m often sick and battle mental health and depression more here. I also find as I travel north I get well. I start to feel myself, feel my spirit and I don’t feel suffocated by the feelings that won’t let go, or the past that those around may not want me to let go of.  As I’ve shared this thought with a few others, I’ve been told what I “should do”.  But those are outside voices and though I am thankful for those who care, ultimately there are only two voices that matter. One I hear all too clearly as I’m here, amongst the mountains and in the meadows.  The other beats in my chest with every breath. ‘The mountains are calling’ (John Muir).  Just have to figure out which ones.

So, as most great stories end,  there comes a new beginning...

Inigo Montoya:

“Is very strange. I have been in the revenge business so long, now that it's over, I don't know what to do with the rest of my life.”

Westley:

“Have you ever considered piracy? You'd make a wonderful Dread Pirate Roberts.”

~ from The Princess Bride

Northwest, here I come.