Another...

Death… a word of finality a word, of the highest divinity. I have written many times of such events, some sad, some heroic, but all righteous, or as righteous as my beliefs will justify. Last Sunday a friend of mine died, suddenly, yet not so unexpectedly. Most days the death of a friend will remind me of my own mortality, of my own choices that I have made in relation to my occupation and life.

Not this time, this particular friend did not travel to foreign lands to do his countries bidding, he truly owned his own soul, and he would bear no cross for others. He was an artist and an admirer of life. He strived daily to show the world its own true colors trough various mediums. From repainting the industrial brick walls of the Chicago inner city to his prints of his city in reflection, that now hang in galleries across the country. Always outwardly he tried to make the world see its own beauty, and improve it, to leave the world more beautiful than he and others had found it. Always outward he faced hiding the ugliness that he found in his own internal struggle.
He fought longer and harder than I ever have. From my personal battles to those in uniform, together were nothing in comparison to the wars that he waged, in both difficulty and duration. This Sunday he finally lost his fight, years of battle, where ground is lost and gained in feet and yards. A difficult reminder of my own days, charging trenches next to him, and fighting against the same daemons.

It is amazing the same survivors guilt that I felt when returning from oversees I have felt with much more intensity with his death. A week ago today my friend killed himself in an act of desperation, the final white flag and surrender to an enemy that would take no prisoners. Such shame, such shame, for him, for me, his family and mostly for his fiancée that must finally learn that he could never truly love her no matter how much he wanted to, he was still trying to maintain his love of himself. Such shame. So much shame that I have trouble talking about his death, that my coworkers and current friends would despise him for his loss, and curse his name. They will call him weak; say that he was undeserving of this life. They will judge from a position that they should not be able to. The ministers will cry pity for a soul they cannot save, and condemn him to worlds of fire and torture. They will ridicule his decision, they will laugh at his final actions and claim good riddance and congratulate him on a job well done in his final act. They will say he was undeserving of this life.

Those people never faced his daemons; they never fought the same battles that he did. They will say that if he didn’t want to live then let him go. They will degrade his existence to something far less than human. Ironic that the strong automatically assume they are deserving and they may critic and enforce our worlds standards of perfections; and yet, have such little compassion for those that have too much love, and feel too deeply.

Those people never met my friend, never stood beside him and saw the world in the colors and designs has he did. None were there when he reached out to their gods for sanction and salvations, none of those people saw the greatness he was and the greatness he was going to become. Many a days I spent traveling with him. Numerous adventures that we shared, great fortunes were made and lost in minutes of our time together. I remember to this day me looking at him in the face and telling him that where I was going he could not come with me. That I had won my battles and I was off to see the world. I told him that I would come back, that he would never fight alone, that his existence was significant enough to the world. Well I never came back. I sailed the islands with a new found freedom and then raced off to fight for others…

an ocean venture

A simple question in the middle of a simple conversation reminded me of the ocean and the idea of different perspectives. I was explaining a trip I had taken, where I sailed solo from Masonborrow for 18 hours straight into the ocean. Nearly seventy miles later I was forced to turn around so that I would make it home in time to return to work on Monday. Why? Who does that? Those are the standard questions asked when talking about this weekend. Well I had an answer; I needed a new perspective, and let me tell you the ocean did not fail.

At first you can see the land and you are comfortable, many days and nights have been spent cruising up and down the Carolina beaches filling you with the illusion of control. The weather is calm the seas are low and the water is relatively flat. The wind is from the south east giving you an easy beat straight out into the ocean. Setting the auto helm and adjusting the sails you look around to ensure no others are on your line and you are free to move around. A little plastic cup with some scotch burns your mouth as you stare backwards at the shore. Already the rocks of the inlet are lost to the small swells and chop. The landfall has turned into a shaded edging to the ocean and only barely discernable. This is still close enough that your mind does not race from one weak point of the boat to another, close enough that the sounds of the seas have not overtaken your senses. Soon though, you have past across the horizon and land is gone. So too are the other boats, there is almost nothing now except the occasional bird. The wind has held steady. Hours pass and you go below to get some more to drink and to bring topside a book and some pillows, it is time to relax and sleep before the boat takes you out to the blue water. At some point loneliness will wash over you, it will be instant and intense. Knowing that the trip is for only so many hours helps calm this inescapable feeling. Now that you have been on the water for five or so hours headed due east into the middle of the Atlantic, all of your senses have built and you can hear every creak and strain of the rigging, you can feel the ocean breath as the seas rise and fall around you. You life shrinks to insignificance under the awesome weight of the seas. You can almost feel Poseidon reach up and grab your ship and push her forward. The recognition of your place in the world is the ultimate change in perspective and a clear constant reminder of the power of nature. You have come to grips with the inevitable, that you have no control and that your fate is intimately entwined with that of the world around you. Eight more hours and the decks are awash in blue water. The stars above you are bright and clear, the Milky Way is a visible path stretched across the sky. The trepidation that you had felt melts away with the wonders of the ocean night. The breeze has picked up and you can hear its whispering. Speaking to you of adventures and dangers that dreams and story books are made of, it is this voice that you have fallen in love with; it is why you adventure out. It is this voice that reminds you that you do have some control, that you can reach out with both hands on the wheel and change course. You can push harder into the wind, or bare off, you can turn and run with the wind or just go home. In the end it was your choice that had taken you to the edge of the continental shelf and it will be your choice that will bring you back. It is at this point you have finally shaken hands with the seas and made your pact with Poseidon. So you turn around refreshed and happy. With a renewed sense of self awareness, you have seen the world from another vantage point, and have regained perspective on life. The work is hard and brining the boat into port, but you are filled with the steadfast will of a new man.

so-pines

Your friends can tell you that you are being played but in the back of your mind you secretly hold tightly to the idea that maybe if you just give it time… Well in my short time in Southern Pines I have been successfully played by a cute 32 year old woman. She is a lot of what I want and only a little of what I fear I don’t want; but none the less, I have pursued and dealt with rejection and a hesitant acceptance, only to find that it has been conditional. She is using me for some type of social interaction, or just for conversation, or maybe she does like me and just hasn’t realized it. But that is the very notion that continues to allow her to play me. She has already made up her mind. She has already in her mind moved forward but allows this farce to continue as long as it doesn’t interrupt her schedule. Damn do my failures continue to haunt me. The failures of Colorado opened the door to a new way to live that would have I assume, allowed me to live within the normalcy of humanity. That I would be able to feel love and passion and true concern for others. Well I now can, and I do not like the feeling. I do not enjoy the constant needs that it inspires within me. I am wasting space and time on a dead end. The only sad thing is I feel comfortable around the girl, I feel content, I feel that I could give the relationship a chance, and here I am constantly reminded that she will not even think about it. Ah fuck it, I do not have time for this shit and I will move on, I will hopefully regain my composure. I will regain the initiative and move forward or in this case backwards toward what I used to hold has my shining shield in the face of all odds. I must rebuild the walls that have been torn down over the course of time.

Massonborrow Morning

The slow rotation of the earth returns the sun to my face a few minutes earlier than I would have liked. Though it is not fair of me to blame the earth for my early morning, it very well could have been the constant clanging of metal on metal that echoed throughout the harbor. The morning current rocking the boats in the pier, slapping stays and halyards against masts’ in a constant clanging that is relaxing and reassuring. The chimes are matched with the rhythmic splash of the water against hulls, bringing a solid beat to your morning. Sitting up in the port settee, I look out the port hole and find a world filled with fiberglass, stainless steel and canvass. The warmth of the morning sun slowly works its way into the fan cooled cabin, tossing the sheets I climb out into the world and am hit with the sharp smell of salt sea air and the smile spreads across my face. Arms stretched wide I embrace the morning at the water’s edge, rubbing my eyes I greet a salty old man, with tanned leathery skin as he motors his boat out into the ocean, with a wave and a good morning. His smile back, is the consummate reassurance of my acceptance into his world of wind and water. Bare chest is the dress code of the coastal morning and I am a believer in fitting in, wrapping a bandana around my curly hair, I boil a pot of water and make stiff coffee. Most of the pier is already awake and working on their various tasks. Across from me I can see the fishing poles and lines being prepared for the days catch, on the far side of the marina a crew is preparing to detail a rich mans boat, everywhere you hear the sounds of human activity, yet it is not the same bustle as the city, not the same roar that screams out urgency. It is the whisper of a day well spent in the sun and spray. It is the camaraderie of the ocean that brings each of us to our rightful spot on the continental edge. Below where I stand the colors of the water reflect the suns escalation into the sky, spitting out blues and greens across the harbor. Brown tanned men living in a perpetual squint from the sun wander by the finger pier and smile and wave.
I am deciding what I will do with this morning. I have already turned the radio on to hear the latest on the weather just outside the inlet, my bowl of oatmeal is already made and am listing to the winds as I eat. Decision made, I stand and start the engine. Casting off, I motor out into the open waters and raise my sails skyward to the heavens waiting for the breath of god to push me out to sea.

Friendly Revelation

The day I lost my first friends, the crushing feeling that I felt forever reverberated through my soul and heart. The crushing grip of certainty like a fist around my heart squeezed until I though I could walk no more. For one year I lived in this agony waiting, breathing, one slow breath. Just the hint of their return, just a moment of compassion of understanding that I had shown them time and time again. I had given everything to my friends; I had the ability to lie down in front of traffic for them. I remember the day I told my roommate after a late night phone call with my friend that I would leave school that very day to go to her if she had asked, thankfulness now rests with me that she did not. There was no obstacle I have not surmounted, no measure I have not met, and none that I would not have met for them had the need been there. The only time in my life I have been selfless and it is past and gone. The time that I needed something small, I was abandoned, and the time when I could have used all the support available I was alone. It was at this moment, that I solidified my past adventures and training into the completion of mind and body devoid of weakness. I stepped upon the plane with no regrets and a smile that can only come to those at peace.

For I recognized that though my view of whom my friends were had changed and though I had lost those that I loved unconditionally I had replaced them with a more powerful friends, those that loved me and I loved them not in unconditionally or out of some selfless infatuation but out of mutually achieved respect and desire. Out of a shared difficulties and trials. Out of pure ecstasy of the relationship, out of a sense of value that was worth my efforts. In the constant scales of balance their worth was more than I could pay at any time. These are the friends that would do anything for me, and in the end I watched some lay down their lives for others and me. Though this is not the true test of a mans worth in life, it sure can be used as a metric. In some form of irony fate has placed me face to face with a friend of my past, a friend that no longer recognizes me for I have changed so much. Though subconsciously I place my youthfulness out for her to see, so that she might be at ease, the man that I am now would not please those old friends, they would not approve. They would not like the horror that I have become, or what I am capable of. The process of my minds constant evaluation and adjustment, a constant analysis of the changing environment in which options are weighed and measured in a non-human way. The fact that once you have done things they become easier every time. Well damn it I want my sleeping bag back.

Something i should have never written (sorry!)

At a bar tonight talking to the local Alexandria regulars, I was confronted with my past. A girl that I would have laid down in front of traffic for, a woman I would have given up anything for to make her life right, smiled and waved me over. I went knowing that there was no good to be gained from this exchange, and hoped that our conversation would stay in the past, no matter how much I wanted to hear her lash out for the singular event that destroyed my only true friends love for me. Though I broke down and gave in some, I at least never apologized. It was her birthday and her ex continued to buy us drinks even as he realized that he had long out lived his usefulness in the conversation. His final departure marked the beginning of her drunken tirade against my person. Though I too feel that I have plenty to be mad about with her, I feel nothing. No serious emotional response at all was really available, if I had been able to respond I think if it was four years ago I would have felt something like this….

I could never tell you that I was furious with you. That you abandoned me when I needed you most. That I was at the point in my life for the second time where I would either be alone and start all over, or that the friends that I had would come and take me away. Yes, it sounds fairytale and ideological but damn it I had sacrificed so much for those friends. I had given up so much for their benefit and I was in need. Not only was I in need then but within a year I would be deployed and the first time in my life I would need my friends, and I had none except those I took with me. I was alone as I thought I had always been. That I had put so much into relationships that in the end proved to be fruitless, a reinforcement of my own self doubts, brought to life by the actions of the very people that said they loved me. Fuck them, fuck them then and fuck them all the way to now. Somewhere between there and here, the mask that I wore became real and they no longer mattered to me. How dare they presume that they know what was in my mind, how dare they presume with out asking how I felt. Well at the time fuck them, they say they feel sorry for me; I don’t want their pity. They hope that I have changed, well knowing the choice I made at the time; I know that I haven’t and am proud of it. As I sat down to write how I felt, thinking that I had so much emotion pent up and could write for hours on the exchange, it turns out that as I have trained myself to be, it meant nothing. I have felt almost nothing in the process of the night. I don’t even hope or wish for her. Then with a smile I think maybe I have become what she must have thought I was then.

It is funny, I have never apologized for that week of my life that caused my two best friends to stop talking to me. One for somewhat justifiable reasons, the other for no reason at all. It is a shame that I group them together, but they are not. They are completely different. One, was incredibly angry at my misinterpretation of the situation and my unwillingness to sacrifice for her on some small scale. It is funny that the small stuff will kill you. I would have given up my life for her, yet the three hours it would have taken to get her where she wanted to go and back, I couldn’t do. Obligations are funny that way, that when the small stuff cant out weigh the other stuff you will sacrifice. Yet had it not been that small, had it been a crunch or something more significant, I would have done anything. The other being so much more complicated but I will say that I have never been disloyal. I have never betrayed. And if she did not do that, then well I am completely wrong but that is how it felt. A girl that I loved and loved and loved hit just the right button. Its funny as well that most buttons can be ignored or argued about, but he combination of buttons that she choose, knocked me out. And that was it, I had been left alone again surrounded by what should have been my best friends. So, tonight I had the opportunity to say how furious I was with one of them and I couldn’t. She had been drinking and was again telling me how I should live and be so that I could grow and all of the abstract things that would make me a better person, when she looked at me and said, you know you have never apologized. My response was calm and soft, no, I have never apologized. Her response was what are you looking for from me, and in the same voice I responded, nothing, nothing at all. With a smile I tried to tell her happy birthday but it was lost as she came to grips with what she must have seen in my eyes.

I Wish I was There

The world spins around me as I continue to move through my life. I have woke again in self sadness that comes from the emotional high of victory. Only to find that it was a dream, that the victories were not mine at all. As the day grows cold and dark I know that I am walking in my footsteps again. That I am no longer pushing the world around but are instead moving in place. I dream the horrid dreams of war, and wish with every part of being that I was still there. For the news from the front is not what it should be, it is not filled with laughter and jokes of my friends. No, now I find it filled with sadness. I trained a platoon of forty men to be efficient and strong, and they were. The army took them away from me and sent them into harms way. And before they even loaded onto a plane and I lost a man. To call him a man might be an exaggeration at 17. Now they are in the midst of the toughest fight of their life, they have lost five to enemy fire, and have had over ten of them wounded. This time my platoon will return scar’d and changed for life, as I sit here and read about it. My dreams are tough, I have slain dragons and sieged castles, I have fought and stormed across Flanders fields, and I have wrestled Iraqis to the ground, only to wake and find that the life I have now pales in comparison to the sacrifice of those whom no longer dream of such heroics but rather live them. You ask me where I want to be today, I have only one answer “I want to be next to Verdeja, Boyd, Pulford, Watson, Salazar, and all the others that I have fought beside before, that is where I want to be.” I only hope is that one day I will be able to lie next to them forever and know that from then on I will always be with them.

Rest In Peace my friends

Arrogance

Lost in thought and study, I have found it hard to take pen to paper and scratch out some thoughts. The mysteries of life spread out before me to guess at the right and wrong, endless debates on the world as it exists, or for my not so cleaver friends, or does not exist. These ideas that I have pushed to paper for my new degree have left me with a notion that is so arrogant that only an American could have come up with it. The idea is that it might be our obligation in the world when asked to help, to help with the idea that the American way is the most efficient, and prosperous. That we know best, was the hall mark of the Marshall Plan and the New Deal, both to be considered successful reconstruction efforts. That the American values are good for all is not a new idea. In fact tried and tested in the cold war, winning us the final victory in the end. Well that motto became ashes on our tongues as we realized how arrogant we must have been, how un sophisticated we were. “Democracy and free markets are not for everyone… we shouldn’t force it upon them, might does not make right….” Well, those in the world that have preached this for the last twenty years have won, I will get in trouble for even thinking that we can teach Americanism, or re-educate another society, or reprogram a region of the world. What does that mean, that I cant even bring it up as a topic, even though it is the only strategy that has proven successful. The irony is that when another group of people need help it is usually their own practices and issues that have sunk them to the point of desperation. And, then they ask for help in the form of gifts and money, and say that you Americans are the only ones that can help us please show us how. Yet when we try to show them how, they say it is not our way, just please make the check out to so and so and we will be fine. Our response should be, because you have done such a good job so far with your own resources, so I am going to give you mine so that you may make an even bigger mess. Well screw that, maybe what we need is some mean spirited idealist, the revolutionary like Washington and his band of friends that terrorized and propagandized the rest of the colonies into war.

Irony vs. Karma

Today I woke to find that my favorite comedian had killed himself, Irony. The man responsible for the continual reminder of the direct relevance of the most common events, placing them into a useable perspective, the quintessential guide to understanding our own misunderstanding and the importance of little things the bother us the most. This man found that his own life was too hard and too much, too something to live and shot himself. Irony, the man responsible for keeping me from such a dramatic end decided that suck starting a pistol was the ultimate joke. Karma, would have been if he had shot me.

This particular incident had a much greater impact that originally thought. It forced me to evaluate two very different definitions that affect all of our lives. Even if you don’t buy into Karma, then change the word to fate, or god’s justice, whatever ill will you receive for actions of your past will work for me. Irony: the girl you want to date and marry is the girl that you best friend or dad just slept with. Karma that girl is your daughter. Irony: an Irish man getting crushed by a monstrous luck of the Irish sign. Karma, the sign lands on you. Clearly such a dramatic difference that I have found; that Irony is when the negative action happens near you, providing you with some insight into a glaring contradiction in life, where as Karma, you are the contradiction in life, and the negative action happens directly too you. Well as most are, I am racking up both negative and positive karma daily, though most days lately it would seem negative will win out in the end, leaving me to imagine how will it come back to me. With a little more uncertainty I travel each day evaluating and preparing for when I will get mine. I try to smile at least at one more person a day, say one more nice thing, help one more old lady across the street because what is my Irony is clearly someone else’s Karma. And I don’t need my new boat to sink to the bottom of the Chesapeake anytime soon.

Dreams

The deep blue water rises up and out of the ocean reaching for the sky in white foam only to be smashed back to earth by one of the few constants in the world, gravity. This rolling thunder crashes through the barrier and into the shore in a deafening roar. The sandy beaches smooth and soft from the pounding, poke-a-doted with footprints, some two by two, others in some random dance of the playful. Broad-leafed trees pushed back from the water leaning towards the ocean and sky as if bowing in acknowledgement of their weakness in the face of such awesome power. It is no wonder that when your mind sprints from where it is at, in hopes of redemption, most people find it on some beach in a tropical paradise. Those that work and suffer at the hands of others, the feeling of no control, the constant response to the whims of others or the necessities of life, long for the imaginary freedom that must exist in some base tropic existence. The fallacy is plain to see if you are willing to look, but most aren't.

So I too have trapped myself into the belief that the carefree existence is freedom; from the past and future, from needs and wants, and from loneliness. The irony is that the dream comes in single servings. So in response to a childhood dream of adventure still yet to be tamed I have set out in the first phase of some great sailing voyage yet to be. I have pushed a Sabre 28 through the shallow surf of the Chesapeake bay, starting to learn the skills necessary for bigger and grander adventure. With hope and patience I set out on the bay with the fall of the night clouds, and all the light of a moon and stars, I will my future on the sky and the winds.

The currents pull me in every direction; with limited patience it is amazing I have had any success at all. The great adventures to be had, the stories to be written, the academics to be studied, and the painting to be created all lie gathering dust on the shelves as my life stretches onward in a not so healthy mix of procrastination and military service. It is amazing to think that all men before they are soldiers dream of the battlefield, the comradeship, and hardships that will give them the title of Soldier. Yet; the irony is complete that from day one of basic to the cold nights on the Falluja peninsula we lie awake at night dreaming of all the other things in life we would rather be doing. In those cold nights, wiping the dust from our eyes and equipment, in whispers we talk about buying sailboats and cruising across oceans, or climbing mountains with a few friends.

These stories are the real dreams so fragile that they can only be told in whispers while lying still. They are as different for each soldier as possible and are all accepted, these are the stories told after the loud posturing and machismo subsides. The older among us talk about family and make futures for their children that are explained in detail. A younger man will talk of his new bride at home in infinite detail that would make him a poet if he was able. Some, the true loners with no solid grasp of the world describe the mountain range that they will conquer, where as I chose the sea to be my great glory. Maybe that is what it is, the attempt to find some glory in the dream of our youth, as we realize that war will not bring the glory that we had anticipated forcing us to find something else. Or maybe that reality of the situation requires such an escape that we create battles that are less real and more serene. In the end I do not know, but what I fail to understand as of yet, is the overwhelming feeling of not having accomplished anything, though I have meet more and more of my goals, I still feel as if the time is slipping away and I have almost nothing to show for it. I am not alone in these feeling, more and more professional soldiers with experience feel this way as well, that heir trade is so far removed from normalcy that they have nothing to show for their time.

Others around us try and remind us that it is just not so, that our stories are their favorite to hear, that they are envious of us, yet it is a hard fact to believe. How many times have I wished to have had the travels and successes of my friends? How many times have they looked back at me as if I had insulted their existence by wanting to shed mine to assume theirs. Their faces only remind me that as much as I have felt inadequate I would not change the life I have lived, the places I have been, or the people that I have known.