Breathing Lessons

Breathe in...

out.

in...

out.


Even after all the travels of the last year, I still find it hard to breathe when leaving a patch of PERFECTLY GOOD LAND and taking to the skies.  I don't mind flying.  It's the take off and landings that really get me.

So I have to breathe.

In...

out.



Learning how to breathe on the ground, well that took a lot more than the few seconds it takes for takeoff to a new destination.  Each step used to be heavy, with my breath hard against my lungs.  The steps would go so slowly and each hill became an Everest, a monumental endeavor.  My chest would heave with the desire to fill, only to find shallow little breaths coming out.  That's how hiking, walking, even sitting in the car were.  Hard to find any balance when the air just won't help you.  The world  looked dark with no hope for any true depth.  A shallow monotone.  No adventure.  No life.

But most of that shallow breathing came from something beyond my physical shape.  It was born out of depression.  A symptom of my fears and insecurities.  The world around me then was teeming with others who were as tired and beaten as I was.  It's easy to stay in that world once you get there.  No real reason to get out.  Nothing to push you to greater things.  Even the "highest" moments are just little hills as I look back on them today.

I had to learn to breathe.  Along the path I met so many who were also wanting to find more.  To fly (maybe!).  They were men who shared the hardships I knew.  They were others who were learning to breathe at the same time.  I don't get the chance to talk to many of them now.  Sometimes you have to step out once you get the basics and find how to take in a 2 liter-sized gulp of Fresh Air by yourself and feel how it intoxicates your lungs.  How you can feel your body tingle from the freshness, the pure energy that is soaked up.

Some of those brothers are still learning to breathe.  Hell, I'm still working on it.  But I know that physically I can go climb a mountain and rise to the top and see the view - and know what it's taken to get there!

For all those still struggling to move on, I just ask you to get up.  Take that first step.  Go fill your lungs.  My mind often can't settle into deeper thoughts until I'm quiet - breathing - many times on a trail or a mountain.

"When on the mountains high….
I surrender, all I am
How I want to fly
Above the troubles
but I still stand
Because I’m just a man (who)
Believes

That all it takes is a man
Who will listen
And take a stand
And no matter who I am
I find the peace I need
And spread my wings…
And believe"

clc

Take a lesson from one who knows....

...gotta breathe!

Road Trippin'

14 days.  6 people.  1 small RV.

From Atlanta, Georgia to Los Angeles, California and everywhere in between.  Over the course of those two weeks I would see the Grand Canyon, Universal Studios, the Painted Desert, Carlsbad Cavern, Mexico and just about every major site in between (and many minor ones as well!).  

I grew up on these.  Trips around the country in the backseat of whatever vehicle we were taking.  We drove to Boston, to Washington, D.C., Florida, Alabama and of course California.

It's how I grew up and I find that I still love the thought of a road trip!  As an adult I've driven to Pennsylvania, New Orleans, the Carolinas, and recently to Michigan.

One summer I took a bus up through the midwest to Chicago and the surrounding area.  

So this summer I've found myself on another of these road trips.  The first one with my parents in over twenty years.  This time with my two teen-aged kids and my new wife!  We started in Seattle and drove down to Cannon Beach, Oregon.  I was apprehensive at first, but it was a good week with Fireworks, a Beach Wedding, Kite flying, and "Goonies"!

But I don't know if any trip will surpass the 'misadventures' of that trip out to California.  It was my Grandmother's last trip with us.  She'd pass the next year to cancer.  We slept all cramped up in this little Winnebago and crossed the horizon chasing the sites and the sun.  I couldn't truly appreciate all of it until now, years later - when I see my 15 year old son and 13 year old daughter in a car with myself or one of the grandparents traversing the countryside in search for something to see.

So I'm thankful for the time spent in a car, van, station wagon or RV!

...the lawn of the Kennedy Center - where I fell in love with music of the world!

...the Grand Canyon - where I still find myself looking towards in all my hiking!

...Boston - where I was allowed the freedom to roam through a city alone.

...and all the other places that helped shape parts of me.

So I guess it's not too soon to plan my next road trip.  Who knows where I'll end up!

Terms and Conditions

It's pretty clear.  It's a declaration, an oath, a vow.

Things that should never be taken lightly.  Purposes that are deeper than mere words or notions.

Rich Mullins has a song that seems to echo some of what I'm feeling this morning, sitting on the west coast in Cannon Beach, Oregon.  One day from signing on the dotted line...

"There's a loyalty that's deeper
Than mere sentiments
And a music higher than the songs
That I can sing
The stuff of Earth competes
For the allegiance
I owe only to the Giver
Of all good things

There's more that dances on the prairies
Than the wind
More that pulses in the ocean
Than the tide
There's a love that is fiercer
Than the love between friends
More gentle than a mother's
When her baby's at her side

So if I stand let me stand on the promise..."

I've been here before.  But this is uniquely different.  Where I've hidden my heart in the past - kept myself from truly opening up and growing with another person - I find myself incredibly vulnerable and wanting the stretch marks that come from allowing one person to come beside me and find solace in the union.

The terms...

"Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking,
It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

The conditions...

Forever - Always!

So I'll stand tomorrow.  Dressed up as this boy from Georgia can be.  Stand beside the person I've grown to not only love, but to cherish.  The words won't come close to what I find inside of me.  I just hope that they can somehow reflect all that I see ahead of us on this journey.

The Gift

I just finished reading "Into the Wild".  The book chronicles the short life of Chris "Alexander Supertramp" McCandless, a young man with a desire to leave civilization and live alone in the Alaskan wilderness.

It was a bitter sweet tome of a man's desire to find some missing piece, something that pulls at the heart and aches to breathe...  Something that I know my own heart has felt.   To walk away from the 'expectations' and 'rules' of our society and forge something blissfully unique and real.  Not just living off the land, but living in a spiritually heightened sense of being.

I find a taste of this when I hike out in the mountains or even just along the trails at Stone Mountain.

It was something that I thought I needed just a short time ago.  To walk away from Atlanta, from family and friends and to forge a new existence among the trees and hills.

And while there is still a need for that existence - - - - it's changed.  Maybe I'm growing up finally.  Maybe it's the two years that led up to a special night and a life-changing week that have turned my heart and my focus...  Instead of giving up on society as a whole, I find myself building bridges.  Starting new adventures and even seeing my life with someone.

The gift I want to give is me.  All I am.  First to my new wife (18 days to go).  Then to my kids - even the possibility of another little one.  And slowly letting my family back into my life.

I still need my time in the woods.  I'm thinking about writing a book.  Just my thoughts on life there versus the life we lead in the urban jungles.  Who knows!  But I do know that this life has been given as a gift and I will keep finding my time in the wild, but also taking each moment that I spend with Jenelle, my kids - those I care about as part of the experience.

McCandless' story ended alone.  I won't say more than that, look it up!  I want to share what I am - who I am with those who will listen.  Keep a conversation going with those that share my heart.  Keep breathing and giving!!

 

State of the Union

Spent the better part of last week roaming the Nation's Capital.  It had been years since I'd been there.  But not the first time I spent time alone in D.C.

I don't roam to be alone.  But it is a time when I feel the adventure of walking through somewhere new - to experience it without any guide - savor new surroundings.  I love those moments.  But I realized that there is a need to share this.  To find companionship that sometimes takes your hand and walks some of those miles with you.

So I walked through new parts of the city - camera at hand, thoughts toward all that brought me here.  This trip.  This time to roam - but not totally alone this time.

Dr. Seuss wrote a book (one of his last) called "Oh, the places you'll go!" and today I realize that I may not have gone to all the grand and glorious places in the world.  I may not have found the success that I often thought would come.  But I have been places.  Both in the world and in my spirit.  Places that have allowed me to roam free, yet also find someone to roam with.

----------

My eyes grew big at the sight of him.  We were walking through the night along the mall below the Washington Memorial.  There he sat.  A man who I feel had also roamed.  He wasn't a success story at first.  In fact, he was quite the failure as a politician.  But he had a passion and a drive that carried him from simple roots to being enshrined as one of our most beloved historical figures.  Lincoln sat looking at me through the darkened sky...

I will continue to roam and find new places.  I'm still finding where this path is taking me and I'm open to see all the wonders - even if it's just looking in the mirror and seeing a face that has shed some tears, but still continues to believe.  And it's nice to think of another's hand coming up and taking mine in theirs.  Just a super added perk to the journey.

To Touch Nature

I am not a tree-hugger.

In fact, I love the crackle and spark of wood catching fire at the end of a day in the woods.  The flames dancing and gyrating in some dance that only it knows the steps to.

But I digress.

My point is that I write this to get back to two things I truly love.  One, is taking my thoughts and putting them down in some type of organized fashion.  The second is getting back in touch with the wind, the stars, the mountains and the trees.

When I go on a hike - almost every hike - I find that I have to take just a moment to put my hand on a tree.  Feel the calloused bark that has weathered time and circumstance to still protect the sinew that runs underneath.  Take a green leaf in my hand and see the veins that take water throughout.  Feel the ridges that run it's green skin.

When I'm out there I'm alive.  Last night I went back to the top of Stone Mountain, the place I can get to the easiest to breathe.  Jenelle and I just did up and down, but it was still a few moments to realize that I'm just a small part of this world.  That I'm among many others who open their eyes fully in the presence of that large, granite structure.  Not a building made by man, but a physical eruption on the landscape that was crafted through the works of a higher being.

Never do I want to take for granted the ability to move one leg in front of the other and traverse the trail ahead.  I've spent times when I was injured and just plain miserable.  On Monday night I was reminded of the frailty of our bodies when I twisted my ankle at the beginning of a hike.  I didn't go down or put myself in the misery that I've felt at past times of injury, but I did slow (just a little) and felt each step with a little more awareness of the ground beneath and each uneven spot came with a slight wince and a focus on NOT DOING IT AGAIN!

I'm healthy.  For the first time in my life I feel that my body, my heart and my mind are in accord.  I'm not always as strong as I want to be, but I'm also never as weak as I thought I once was.  My heart, an issue last year right around this time, is stronger too.  It still has times when it beats just a little too fast, but I'm finding that sometimes that's just a reminder that I'm human and still going to have to push.  My mind is level.  A place I once thought was impossible to find.  I struggle at times, but who doesn't.

So I go out into the woods.  I seek the fresh air.  Hell, I even soak up the humidity that IS Summer in the South!

Just those moments to touch Nature help me commune with my spirit.  To reach inside and grab hold of something larger than I will ever be.  So if it's taking a walk, going on a bike ride, trekking through the North Georgia mountains, or even just going outside and seeing the color that is so present in all that grows around us - touch it... you might find that the breathe that you take will be fuller and open to whole new worlds of adventure.

WHITE KNIGHT

Sometimes our heroes fall.

And sometimes that white horse they ride isn't anything greater than an ASS!

We all fall - fail.  The greatest among us find themselves in places where they just can't stay upright in the saddle and they fall into the mud.  But I'm really talking about me.

I know who I am.  I know very well my short-comings and weak areas.  I struggle still with the balance that I've had etched into the skin of my arm.  That marking remains even when I fall on my face.

I'm not trying to dwell.  Just admit that my heart isn't always in tune with my head - or at least my heart.  My words come out sometimes and they sting.  They burn and char.  And in those moments I find the 'champion' that I want to be is nothing more than a scared child who still doesn't have a full understanding on how to do life.

So if the greatest of us have failed, what makes me any better?

Luke Skywalker
Ted (from How I Met Your Mother)
Doctor Who

Yes, they're fictional characters, but what about the REAL heores...

Abraham Lincoln
Mandela
St. Paul

I know I fell off the horse.  I felt the trembling and shakes that come from that realization.  I looked deep inside my heart and apologized.

I'm not trying to live up to a level that I'm not.  Just want to better express myself and no matter what - - - 
PICK MYSELF UP OUT OF THE MUD.

Then ride on!

Always!!