Take me away, take me farther (a poem)

To tear down the pieces, blast the halo

Taken away and taken farther,

                into an uncertain void

                before the harsh crowd

                toward a prayerful precipice.

Is  there light in his eyes, fireflies of wonder?

Taken away and taken farther,

                about a vengeful swirl

                like holy water

                toward an uncertain absolution.

Wondrous primal instinct, emotions just under skin

Taken away and taken farther,

                into kaleidoscopic Video-8

                about his Spider-vision

   toward his answerless appeals.

Time to buy the ticket.

Thoughts along the Pavement

Went running yesterday, the first time in two weeks and something all too infrequent since I got this ‘walking pneumonia’ back in April timeframe.  I had a couple thoughts:

·         Taking an alternate route through an alley is fine, unless you’re dumb and choose one behind the restaurants – at lunchtime.  Talk about scrumptious BBQ!  I even pondered what type of wood they used – hickory, I think.  I was ‘a sliding around on my own drool…

·         It was a four-mile loop, but I made myself stop three times so I’d pace myself and stretch a bit.  I think that frustration was the toughest part; panting while Oompah-Loompah’ing down the road is a lot easier.

·         As I huffed and puffed up a hilly road, here comes this guy, running backward a minute to show off.  Where’s a missing manhole cover when a guy (as in - him) needs one?!

·         I feel like Bilbo Baggins, already saying wistful goodbyes to my favorite running routes.  And I don’t even like DC.  Interesting.

It’s Time to Ramble On

We’ve been awhile in DC, my friends, almost eight years of watching the pale morning become the light of a new workday.  But I’ve never been caught up in the Governmental Lights of DC, and now a neat opportunity came up. 

Where are we going?!  Well, it’s a relaxed city of 205,000 that sits at 2,700 foot elevation and gets but 19 inches of snow per year.  We’ll also be six hours from two legendary national parks (Yellowstone & Grand Teton NPs) and ten from another amazing swatch of wilderness (Glacier NP).

Did you figure it out?  Yep, you’re right – Boise, Idaho. 

We report Sept. 10 to my new position:  computer information systems administrator and project manager with the US Forest Service’s Fire and Aviation Management division at the National Interagency Fire Center complex.  There’s big changes afoot, so I don’t know my exact duties but they’ll involve bringing together federal and state firefighting and emergency prep offices as we thirty staff members help develop and run fifty computer systems.  Helping protect people and their property, as well as the firefighters and their aircraft -- talk about a meaningful job. 

Wow!  BAM!  It’s been a long time coming and I’m so grateful to ALL of you because you each bring something unique to the mosaic of my life.  Seriously, folks.  My life journey means all that much more for it, and I carry on with humility and (yes, Mom) a determination to live up to my potential.

If any of you would like to adopt one of our cats, please call me ASAP.  They cannot come along and we really want to have a good home for each one of these neat little folks!

And, If you want to contribute more to this conversation and unfolding story, email or ring me sometime to share your wisdom/advice (work: 202-690-7245, cell: 301-751-5921).  The TMM blog, and my emails to you, will continue awhile so I can share with you my wonderment of this upcoming adventure.

Best Wishes ~ Jose

Down in the Honky Tonk

I’ve come to a mini-realization:  designing a Microsoft SharePoint environment is just like herding cats.  Not really talking about work or anyone in particular (superb job, splendiferous co-workers).  No, it’s more about the vagaries involved when you bring folks together for what’s supposed to be the common good. 

It becomes a lesson in human nature.  There’s the Self-Preservation Clan who just can’t stand cleaning out the cupboards.  There’s the Invaders from the Eighth Dimension who want to blast apart the old and start anew.  And in-between we have the Romantics, dreaming of what could be but without the day job to buy you that nice ring.  Lastly, I see the Blue Collar Guys who grab the pickaxe and get to moving files without caring about what the Spiral Architect, the system designer, envisions. 

At home we have cats, we all have some of those same personalities, eh?

And, speaking of my home, here we herd cats.  Kind of hilarious that our tones of home become those of my workplace . 

Cat people rule! 

Tucked away for another Day

They don’t need you, don’t want to hear a word you say

and they won’t take back those shots in the dark

those called-out words fading,

        falling and tumbling

                down to tears,

                        never felt by anyone.

So don’t you slide into their bitter gloom, listening

to those that lie-preach, those that hide in noise

spaced in the time between,

        along and among

                things they cannot change,

                        cannot slide to ‘OK.’

We’re finally complete with the truth around us,

when it comes down and comes out to a realization

that’s been pieced together,

        words never sent

anger never raged,

                        having found your way home.

A Touch of Madness

In 21^st century America, land of the free and the brave, why do have gym bathroom signs for things like, “Please do not put paper towels into the urinals”?  Just what kind of IQ have they put onto the payroll?  Are they serious?  If so, they ought to preface it with, “Hey You Big Stupid Dummy, how would you like it if I came to your house …”

While we’re being good gym rats, I figured out why I never feel like I’m in good shape.  It has something to do with the color-coordinated women in the gym who are sweat-impaired.  They act like they’re getting a good workout, I guess, but they rarely go outside where I’m at, and certainly cover up any perspiration somehow without us figuring out how we can do it too. 

OMG, women are smarter than guys!  Damn, now I finally figure this one out?  Ignorance was bliss.

Menopause—Time for a Change

Yes, dear reader, you're reading the title correctly and I can only imagine the quips I'll hear [sigh]...

Part of public service is helping out other over-worked public servants who strive to do the right thing but often with limited time and no funding/publicity.  In that vein, my friend RN Deb the public health nurse, occassionally develops outreach presentations on important health topics.  So here's some important info she encouraged me to share with mom's, sisters, friends, etc.

Deb says she believes that good nutrition, regular exercise, and daily relaxation can help a lot with the challenging symptoms, and the booklet “Menopause: Time for a Change” mentions similar strategies.  Here are two file she recommends:

Menopause: Time for a Change

http://www.nia.nih.gov/sites/default/files/menopause_time_for_a_change.pdf.

Women’s Mental Health (Deb's presentation slides are in this large 6Mb file)

http://store.samhsa.gov/shin/content//OWH09-CONSUMER/OWH09-CONSUMER.pdf

Blue Gel Shoes

That’s the modern version of Elvis’ ditty about living large (my new running shoes have neat blue gel mid-soles).  I’m stretching in today’s blog, spit-balling to come up with something meaningful to share with you.  I parked my next creation, a poem about [hah – do you really think I’m gonna tell you?!] because too much sappiness brings out the Calvin and Hobbes reaction in me!  Gag!

Back to talking about ‘faking it,’ there are places and times, gentle reader, where pretending to be Real while living large could get you in a whole world ‘o trouble (ye who date, beware).  We all should live meaningful lives, but that’s impossible to do 24x7.  But lilting through the morning’s bus ride to Led Zeppelin, with Robert Anthony talking about “hearing words but I could not relate,” now that resonates, that sparks something meaningful about living small. 

In the dissonance of our lives, led in a cacophony of competing imperatives to do this/that/the other, I find living creatively may just be the best approach.  My friend, Mountain Man of MT, lives as he speaks, as he dreams and bounces between his business travails and among relationships with the unique personalities in his orbits.  Living nuttily would be his take on the trick of the tail his life has become!

Signposts might be a better analogy to my life than my new running shoes (talk around living slowly).  We often see signs telling us things but we’re living rapidly, we miss them and go on into the future.  It’s time to end this pointless languid rumination about ways to live, and get on with my late May work week.  Au revoir and live smartly this week.

The Quiet Beating of Wings

Editor’s Note:  this post is a delayed reflection on a departed friend, serious but hopefully not somber nor reflecting the anger I feel at her early loss at just age 50.  Please wait for another day’s post if my reflections on our mortality aren’t your cup of tea.  Thanks.

So … I take no pride in saying my first long-crafted essay on our friend Beth was lost when my laptop’s hard drive got corrupted.  And I’d just polished it to where it shoulda-oughta-have been.  But as my wise friend Arkansawyer would say, “Sir, that’s the problem.”  Yes, I knew/know/will know where the story should go, but life doesn’t work that way, does it now?

Beth was a kind person beyond measure, taken from us far too soon.  Yet, I was only one of many who knew her and wasn’t even in her nearest orbit.   That’s why her leadership in our ‘community group’ made her contribution to my life that much more amazing.  I won’t tread where I ought not, railing in anger:  “Why, God, did You choose her to go so soon?  We weren’t ready yet.”  So many other feelings loom on the clouded horizon, but as I see from the books of Matthew and Daniel, the answers will come only with faith in He who brings us that truth.  Yeah, that’s deep but so is our collective spirituality and dealing with our inevitable own journeys into the here-after.

Diagnosed with stage 4 skin cancer, she immediately knew the odds weren’t in her favor.  No matter, no bother, no complaints (to us!), no sorrow.  She took a year-long journey on the spiritual high road her near and extended families paved with love.  So much goodness in that last interlude before she left us.  I remember her now as I saw her then, at her best when picking on us to think, to ask questions, and at the end simply asking us to help her smile.  Her spirit shone on, even the week prior to the end, when I visited and saw not pain/pity me, but just Beth as I’d known her.

The ache her man, and her children, feel is far more keen because it reflects how she sparkled her family’s way through a tough world.  Ted also has taken that bite of the same faith and come out comforted and strengthened, a real lighthouse for us all. 

So, here I finish, not far from where I started:  we had a friend and we still have a friend.  Some of you are Beth & Ted’s friends, so walk across those stones of tears, and of need, and let’s help the light-keeper and his family remember the best of the past as they journey on.

Or, as Arkansawyer would say, “Yep, something like that. You only can do what you can do.”  OK then, let’s get on with it.  And, thank you, Beth …

Signposts and Smiles (a poem)

Darkness falls, the moon spills her sighs

Lost was I, and I didn’t know it at the time.

Sun sparkled my eye, a twinkled sound -

then I blinked and found myself on The Road.

All the pressure left behind as the sun flared,

that fiery azure-eyed One Way sign.

I was picked up and pitched away

so why hide, why try,

‘cause I’ve lost my mind, beautifully so,

on our own 27 Road.