Author: Tom (Page 57 of 71)

Sometimes I wonder if there is ever a comfortable place between us, where we can sit and be and wonder about things. I wonder if there is ever a simple place we can rest, and talk, and share in our natural delights. See, there is this place called “out there” that seems to scare us into frozen inaction, forcing even the most comfortable of places to remind us of hideous darkness that does not even exist there. Sometimes it seems we create our demons in the most perfect places, and make them whole, convincing ourselves that this is how it must be.

And sometimes that “out there” resides in the deepest places within us. Sometimes we are so beyond ourselves that we have no idea that we have become an alien even to our own hearts. Sometimes we have become so tainted, so jaded, so absolutely scarred that we have no place left to injure, to hurt, to feel well again. We fear “out there” so much we forget to live, or we lie and pretend that the box in which we have confined ourselves is living without walls. Somehow stepping in became stepping out, and we even lose track of our own direction.

Sometimes “out there” is where two hands meet. It’s almost as if the world will end if fingers intertwine, if the flesh itself molds into one place where two souls meet. It’s like the Universe fearing the big bang, a human fearing conception, fuel fearing flame. It’s almost as if we choose to live in hell, and then name that place “heaven” in order to live there with some kind of acceptance. How will I ever know anything if my feet never touch the ground out there?

Sometimes “out there” is where my lips meet yours. It’s as if we have climbed out from the cragged foothills of our lives and we fear falling back into them if we simply love. It’s like I fear that if I inhale your breath I will be stealing it, and if I give you mine I will lose myself out there. It feels as if we fear the darkness with such vigor that we will never discover the light that exists out there. We forget the joy, the promise, the potential of the very act of love. We’ve been caged for so long we’ve learned to love our imprisonment and, in turn, have created and enemy out of the very thing that frees us.

There are so many “out theres” and I want to conquer them all, and jump freely into them with enormous joy and confidence, and utter fearlessness. I want to discover them, and know them, and beat them where they stand so that love itself is so natural that out there cannot exist anywhere.  I want to make each and every out there an “in here”, and want to make them places I can go to in order to freely understand my place, my heart, my world so much better. Fuck the parachutes and ropes and belays, let me crest the summit and dance in the valleys with equal joy and equal strength.

It is not a strong man who clings to the box and rigid ideals of his forefathers. I’ve tried that, rarely venturing out of there despite my deep desire to do so. Practicing machismo and exercising my strength make me pathetically weak, but it’s easy. We gain acceptance there. We are praised there. We learn to live for all of those “out theres” that we forget who we are. That’s when out there becomes “in here”, and in here becomes a foreign land to the enslaved. Well, for me I want to keep jumping into the dark places, and live or die to tell the tale.

I love you, for some strange reason I am a man who loves you. Despite my strength, my size, my fierceness, I love you. Despite my brain screaming logical things, I love you. Despite my hardness I am soft there, where I love you. Despite my shallowness I am deep in those places where I love you. Despite my comfortable little place here, I want to jump out there where you are. I want to taste it all, feel it all, and never forget the fragrance where you stand. I want to take your hand and run with you, hear that laugh, kiss those lips and jump anywhere a dark place exists.

I think the trees outside this window are laughing at me. Maybe it’s me laughing and me blaming the trees, but in the natural world this would not be a debate, or a question, or even an uncertainty.  I would be there.

I can’t describe the feeling I get whenever we communicate. Your words pop up on my flat screen and a rush sweeps over me. Your thoughts fill my cup and the world becomes warm to the touch. Your face stares at me from across the universe and distance seems irrelevant. Just knowing you exist beyond the grain of sand that separates us brings an involuntary smile to my face.

What is this? None of it is needed. None of it is asked for. None of it is demanded of me, or necessary for my joy. Yet, there it is, as sure as the new moon rises it is there.

And just as the new moon will rise without my input, without my doing a thing, I plan to allow these feelings to rise effortlessly and naturally. Of course the moon rises in the action of things, so too does love emerge from the hearts of man. Hands are held through spirit creating action. Kisses are shared through the need of a heart to know that feeling over and over again.

True love goes beyond the pleasure of physical encounters and dives deep into the very feelings those encounters reveal. Those feelings are a soulful speech, a knowing that something indescribable exists beyond the flesh. That something is discovered in inexplicable places, in sometimes inconvenient moments, often without warning or fanfare. These wave often come when we aren’t looking for them, or needing them, or even wanting them. We call it “love” because we have no other way to name it, even when the word itself falls far short of an accurate description.

The mind often interferes in the discussion. It argues with the soul, demanding concessions that address the scars and opens wounds it knows through experience. Yet the soul loves on, demanding nothing in return while watching the mind argue, fight, and dance with itself. It embraces the mind, allows it its own insanity, and does nothing.  Much like watching the new moon rise.

I wonder though, when do I simply surrender to the language of my soul and confine my mind to watching the new moon rise? When do I simply tell her, “I love you”? When do I truly decide to lay naked and exposed on the floor, fearless in my actions, impeccable in my words?  Which parts of the list need be checked off before our human minds can simply express what the soul has always known?

I can’t help but believe she knows. She has too. Yes, a part of me is laughing at that statement.  My soul often laughs at my mind. My mind screams, “Go away! I’m busy! Leave me alone.”  My soul just laughs and continues sitting, watching, and waiting patiently.  It knows…it’s always known.

When I’m sitting in stillness it reminds me in the green-hued light around me. I can see it in the red that leaks through the fingers of my mind. I can feel it in the raised bumps that dominate my skin, and in the powerful cues of the upturned corners of my mouth. So off I go into a great unknown, knowing full well that this feeling need not be received in order to be given. It is what it is besides the human component of soulful speech. The new moon will rise regardless of who pays attention to it, or can see it.  See, the soul knows. Yes, it knows. I know. Fuck…

“Happiness is only real when shared” ~Christopher McCandless (Into the Wild)

I sit beneath the calm sky, the cold winds whipping at my weathered skin. In between the vaunted gaps of questioning, talking and arguing I find what I am looking for.

Stillness.  And with it a feeling of warmth that has long been absent from my days for a long as I care to remember. Yes, I remember.

Around me the cold drops of a winter’s ice begin fall from their icy confines, hitting the ground with the great rhythm of our Natural Universe. Involuntarily, my heart begins to beat in time with this natural order of things as my body begins to sway in the unseen wind of my heart’s desire. The snows that once burdened the branches of the trees that surround my heavenly space begin to fall away, and slowly the limbs of my faithful forest friends move along in the song as well.

A shift has exploded within me as I hope to draw closer to the very flower I have admired from a distance. I want to feel her warmth caress the deepest parts of me. I want to hear her sing, and feel the way her laughter makes me smile. I want to have her next to me as we hike a woodland trail, hear her splashing in the lake we have both dove into, and then feel her hands snake around my neck as we embrace in the crystal spring. I’ve prepared for this, and I am ready.

I’ve made room, moving beyond the inane thoughts that served few, and toward that shining star I was built to discover. I’ve surrendered to the cause of love, that awesome warmth in the midst of such complete coldness, and have worked myself into a taut warrior with one cause: to make it to that summit where she resides and to kiss her deeply in a way she has never been kissed before. There, love will explode around us like a new heaven, and there we will make it known our intention to share moments like this with each tick of our man-made clock.

My blade has been sharpened, my flesh tested and my mind steeled. I stand and look ahead toward the distant peaks and horizon, ready for the journey and thirsting for the drink. Here I come, my love, hear my roar and ready yourself for the moment when we touch. It is near.