Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes…

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty five thousand moments so dear
Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure? Measure a year?

In daylights,
In sunsets,
In midnights,
In cups of coffee,
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife
In five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure a year in a life?

~ Seasons of Love, from the musical “Rent”

How do I measure a year?

September 28, 2020 I moved back to Atlanta from a season of couch hopping, indecision, internal and outward strife and a longing to not be here anymore.  And that move to Little Five Points, a trendy, eccentric area that I’ve always been drawn to did little to quell that fight inside me.  Instead it may have been part of the elixir of strife that set the course for the next days.

One year ago.  Not the day of victory that I claim so boldly and proudly, but a day that I was desperate to stop.  I just didn’t know how yet. Not to stop the disease that claims so many of us or the mental anguish that I’d been continually battling my entire life.  To stop the ragged breath, the physical pain, the emotional hurt and the spiritual fight to know a God that I had openly questioned “why?” so many times in my life.

525,600 minutes ago…

It’s 6:15am.  The stars are still out surrounding a not quite full moon and the day hasn’t really begun.  Yet I’ve been up.  I had a battle to fight yesterday.  And it was a doozy.  I have a relationship that was broken from the start that I still maintain for the sake of my child.  A person who doesn’t care to understand anything but ‘facts’.  Not emotion or spirit, just the facts that a sick dad (me) did everything he could to protect his son from ME last year.  Not that I was ever willing or able to hurt him, in fact when I started my downward spiral I sought first and foremost to protect him the best way I knew how.  But I wasn’t present and I was hurting.  So now I have to show her, for his sake, that I’m ok.

This year was one that I didn’t think I’d see the completion of.  A journey that started in 2006 that has had severe peaks and valleys that led me to that 260 square foot carriage house apartment in Little 5.  One that included one more trip to get my head straight.  One more dive into the battles that I fought with myself.  One more drink.  One more drug.  One more trial lost to the pain…

I write this not as the victorious crusader returning from conquering, but as the man who stands.  On two worn and weathered feet.

And breathes.

Here’s the hard.  I didn’t want to breathe last year.  I was suffocating on self and misery and just wanted it all to stop.  And there’s the revelation.  Life doesn’t stop.  We all have pain.  If you don’t have some sort of pain I truly question your journey.  I’m not saying that you have to wear your pain like the hypocritic religious leaders of some past age, but damn it, if you’ve never faced a demon or two then have you ever had to move through something with reliance on a power greater than yourself?  It’s how you face it.  Christ came and was tested.  Not just by the ‘church’ of his day and not just by the power of satan himself.  He was tested by those closest to him.  It’s how you suit up, show up and walk through theses moments.

And last year I FAILED at it.

It took one more deep, dark slide before the moment of clarity came.  As I was describing that moment the best I could last night to a new friend, I said it ‘became calm’ - maybe a simple man’s version of the calm on the sea as Christ calmed the storm.  The silence beyond the tears as this man on the cross died.  The room that I sat in stopped spinning.  Stopped shaking with my insecurities and doubt and I was asked, very, very clearly…

“Chad, what do you want?”

I chose the one thing I had ran from my ENTIRE adult life.  The one thing that I had always believed was a lie.  That was unobtainable.  

“I want to live…”

But not the life I had been barely clinging onto since the sins of my attacker became known.  I wanted to truly live. 

I just didn’t know how.

Today is one year since I came ‘home’ to Atlanta from being a wandering gypsy (I still have a gypsy soul - look it up, it’s a thing!).  And it took another bout with “Me” before that moment of calm struck.  I wasn’t ready for what was coming.  Who is ever ready for your life to be turned upside down.  But what kind of life had I known up to this point?  Pain.  Disbelief.  Loss.  The only thing I was sure of is that He wouldn’t let go of me.  That He still wanted more for me than I wanted of myself.

I’m sitting here breathing.  Tears falling.  Yesterday was the first hard cry in a long while.  I forget how cleansing the spiritual reset of crying out to a God that I believe is truly there is.  I have a feeling there will be more tears in the next days.  I’m hurting over my son.  Just the battle to see him and show up, that I wasn’t always the best dad a year ago - hell, I wasn’t there for him a year ago; let’s be honest here.

525,600 minutes…

How do YOU measure a year in the life?

Tell me your thoughts.

~ Peace

The Burtle.

to sit under a starlit night

“I don’t know anything with certainty, but seeing the stars makes me dream.”

~ Vincent Van Gogh 

“…we found ourselves thinking, when enchanted by a starlit night, “Who then, made all this?” There was a feeling of awe and wonder”

~ anonymous 

I sometimes sit.

And just dream.

I find myself drawn to the night. To the stars in the sky, to the moon, to the noises and the tapestry of shadows pierced here and there with the last vestiges of daylight.

And I dream.

I don’t think of the childhood dreams I had of riches or fantasy lands with dragons and knights and searching quests into the unknown (or of my high school dream to BE BonJovi). My dreams are simple. They resonate within the heart of a man who has seen all of that. I’ve fought my dragons. Slain many, still hold a few at bay . I lived most of my life torn between fantasy and reality. The world I wanted shadowed by the depths of hurt that I knew too well.

And as I sat recently under the guise of a starlit night, I found a breath. And I dreamed.

Am I going to tell you my dream? No. That’s for me. But what I do know is that we have to stop. We have to take a moment and just sit on a simple bench, look around us and see…

The world is filled with darkness, with hurt; disagreements over politics and religion and the price of processed cheese. And if that is all you see, then I ask you to pause. Here in Georgia the rains are about to stop. In the next couple of days the stars will shine, the moon will rise and our hearts can be lifted from the hardships of the day. And we can dream.

A simple life. Our children to laugh and love deeply. The tasks we do each day to be filled with joy and a sense of accomplishment. The moments that we share be filled with heartfelt laughter and deeper meaning.

So as I sit looking for the next cloudless eve, even now I ponder - wondering what the day will unfold. How rich my life has become just by standing on my own two feet, working with my two hands, and living my dream.

Because dreams change. And sometimes we find what we want in the middle of sitting…

Under a starlit night.

~ Peace

The Burtle

The Romance of the Game

While scores of thousands head on Saturdays and Sundays to celebrate and root on in brilliant colors and vibrant tapestries their teams to victory, the brutal stretch through summer into autumn and the Series is often left in the background.  The old ‘national pastime’, oft deemed a relic and relegated to third or fourth tier in the world of fast, immediate gratification purposefully marches on.

I sat the other afternoon and watched just a few short innings of a Little League baseball game. One team adorned with matching jerseys, pants and cleats; the other more a ragtag bunch of mismatched T-shirts straight from the images of the Bad News Bears or the Sand Lot.

I told a friend that this was romance.  One boy facing another.  Pitcher to batter.  A Gentleman’s duel of sorts.  In those brief seconds nothing in the world mattered except for facing whatever is being thrown their way.  Simplistic and yet defined, it’s also scary as hell.  No, it’s not a 98 mph fastball thrown towards your knees in an attempt to get you to swing. But it is standing up to the plate, saying a ‘nod to God’, and preparing yourself for whatever comes.

And the outcome; sometimes we strike out.  Sometimes we stand and realize that we’re outmatched. But we do it with dignity. Well, sometimes it’s not so much dignity when we’re swinging -  swinging - swinging and the umpire yells ‘he’s out!’  Other times we pause, realizing that there’s nothing we need to do but just stand. Ball 1.  Ball 2.  We become mindful. We watch and we take in the moment.  Ball 3.  Now we decide. Maybe it’s okay to swing, but only if it feels, looks right. Ball 4.  Patience sometimes wins out. We take our base.

And other times we make contact. We get to hear the crack of hickory and leather. Now we move forward, quickly leaving our stance and running with all we have towards the next destination. The next step.

Each time we step up we never know what the outcome is going to be. But we prepare for that. We don’t know when we’re going to stand in awe and watch as we’ve hit the perfect pitch, over the heads of the infield. Going, going, going.  Gone!

And sometimes the ball gets just enough contact to send the players in the field into a beehive nest of activity; all with the common goal of defending not just their turf, but their pride.

It is a beautiful sport. A beautiful game. A game played by boys, young men and old.  My grandfather played softball into his late 70s. And he was good at it. He also taught me how to watch a game without the sound - relishing in the moments of romance.  Something I’ve never thought of until I sat with him. To watch the game; it’s passion and revelry and the chase for some meaning.

I stand today, facing the morning.  And I know that I have the opportunity to breathe, to be patient…

and to swing when the pitch is right.

for Richie

~ Peace

The Burtle