It's Love, It's Joy

"Joy, Joy, for I was received." *******"Jets to Brazil

Without hesitation, we shared a needle. We shared beers. We shared time. Mathias's Joy was infectious. He woke me from my drunken power nap for my 11. Ben's circle of dots seemed well and complete. Ashley and Elisabeth shared a dot as Michael watched. We pierced the skin, our age no hinderance to these moments of Love and Joy. Thanks to all.

Promises

"Words, words and expressions, all these confessions of where we stand. How I see you and you see me, dedications of symmetry. Together, we will be forever."---"Promises", Fugazi

Does God really have a side to take in anything? Or is it that God tends to take the side of a believer, no matter what you believe. And it seems that we all believe in something, even if we believe in nothing.

As we build the rhetoric for our own belief, so does everyone else, each of us really speaking a different individual language. Communication is possible but never a pure transmission of ideas.

I was always told as a child that God could see and know everything i ever did. This scare tactic now says to me "none other than ones self could really know everything and anything about one self. One was there and experienced it all. Memories do fade, but who really bears the guilt for supposed evils? One does suffer the guilt.

If we no longer believed in God, would our guilt rise and allow us to simply exist? Perhaps we could more easily see that we can be better with each other. It's hard work, but we can. Also, we might see that we can never be perfect because this is just how our existence works. One cannot step on the soil with out disturbing a soul, but One can be aware so that when a change is needed, possible and helpful, One is comfortable with it. All that said, noone can really always be comfortable with it. The cattle need grass. The fox needs small animals. The chickens need seed. We need eggs. We need each other.

We don't need another hero

For two days I've been humming the theme song to Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. Tina Turners voice echoes inside my box and I am subject to images of the giant animal planted on the top of her head while roaring roadsters speed around in the dust.

"We don't need another hero. We don't need to know the way home. All we want is life beyond Thunderdome."

And then I watch The Motorcycle Diaries for the first time Sunday night with my wife, Elisabeth.

"This isn't a tale of heroic feats. It's about two lives running parallel for a while, with common aspirations and similar dreams." Ernesto Guevara de la Serna

Not another hero. When do we save ourselves?

Hopefully Nov 7th!

Life as a box

All Hallows Eve; a day we all give in to a light-hearted look at our fears. Three days before; I am making a box. It will be my shell with holes for air, slots to see (2007 prototype is projected to come with optional side holes and a better air flow system), handles to lift for movement, and a drink holder. which was without a doubt the first thought in approaching this costume.

When I was a child, my mom made cars, castles, and tunnels from cardboard boxes. At 13 years of age, I snatched the cardboard box from her new treadmill before it was tossed aside, Jane Fonda's ridiculous outfit destined to rest until eternity or biodegradation in a mound of our leavings.

I laid it down in my bedroom, it's long flat body nearly covering my entire floorspace. My brother, with whom I shared this box, did not seem to mind. I carved a whole in the top to crawl in and I built a divider within it. I slept in it. I played in it. I did my math homework in it after midnite. I watched movies from it and I would have drunk from it.

In this shell, at this party, I am free to look out at everyone that I know that I do not know, with absolute comfort, joy, and peace. They know the box, the microwave oven and the filing cabinet and they know the box inside and that which is me, boxes within boxes. Like an onion, I peel and my eyes sting, and I laugh again like a child. I hope that Lily enjoys it just as much.

Get inside of a box and get back to you.