A Poem.

What the Waves Know.

He stares at waves he has seen before,

That he laughed at in innocence,

That he wondered at.

The waves wave back and play on the shore.

They recognize the man in the hat,

Who's gained one or two wrinkles

Since they saw him last.

He waits. He stares. Wanting more

Than their knowing furious silence.

He yells. They say nothing back.

The waves simply wave and play on the shore.

They play there knowing deeds present and past;

The things he's told them when the stars twinkle;

Things he now wishes he could take back.

He sits. He stares. Wanting more

Than their deserved insolence.

He cries. Yet -now comforted by a hand on his back.

The waves simply wave and play on the shore.

Now two wrinkled men sharing deeds present and past.

Laughing at the wonders of innocence,

and plotting together how they might get back.

The New Girl on the Block.

***Forgive the following illustration, it in no way signifies the state of my marriage.

Not more than thirty minutes ago I logged on to the digital neighborhood of the internet and stepped out to the edge of my street to check my mail. And there she was. There across the street was the new girl in my digital neighborhood. Her name? Google+ (I'm not sure what the whole + is about, but I figure if Prince can use an unpronounceable symbol for his name then she can use +). Intrigued, I walked across the street and introduced myself. I was casual and rather uninterested, though I was very interested. We were about halfway through a great conversation when I noticed a moving blur over her left shoulder, peeking around the edge of a house. Facebook. I felt a small sense of shame. I was faced with the reality of this new intriguing crush, while still relatively involved with the friend who had been there since I discovered what social networks were.

So here I am in this little love triangle, something's got to give.

All joking aside. I don't really feel like juggling TWO social networks, though I find them useful as a musician and a writer to connect with other musicians and give an outlet for my writing. There have actually been tangible real life relationships that have developed through social networks that I today consider very valuable. I've also found it a good forum for some great ideas to be shared.

So for now this is the plan. Probably going to keep up facebook, spend less time on it (like I already should) and check out + to see if it's going to be a benefit or a time waster. Honestly with the plethora of google items I already use (this blog for example). I'll probably end up in the latter circle (pun intended). That's the plan/guess.

On another note, I'm reminded again of the value of all this networking and whether or not it's a necessary (of course not) or good (maybe) thing. Investing in relationships isn't a bad thing (usually) but I'd rather not invest more time in mindless consumption of status updates, especially when I have a list of other reality based items I'd like to accomplish.

Anyway, hello google+, nice hair.

30 ft is Roughly 40 Years long.

The plane in this picture is travelling at just over 500 m.p.h.... toward my father and oldest brother. 0.1 seconds later it adjusted pitch by about five degrees and forcefully landed into a group of 50 or so people in the box seats in front of the grandstands, making a two foot deep by six foot wide hole in a military grade tarmac.

By pulling up, the pilot probably saved a couple of hundred lives, including my father and brother's, exchanging them for 9 others.

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to be grateful.

My dad said he didn't have his life flash before his eyes. There was just an adrenaline induced silence ringing in his ears as he stared down the Mustang as it slashed it's four broadswords frantically, trying to scare the crowd away, then a sound like a bag of flower being dropped on a wood floor.

If you've seen saving private Ryan, this would be one of the scenes that teenagers would talk about the next day, only this time the effects weren't digital. It's funny how we try to make movies as realistic as possible, yet we wish that no one would ever have to witness something like this.

My brain always pulls me to a larger scale. I am comparing my fear of what this post could have been about, then to what it is about for people other than my father, then to what it's like to people in war torn countries or people who lived somewhere in Europe and might have been shot at by the plain that hunted down 9 more victims a few days ago. Ultimately, I place this in the context of history, and somehow this becomes normal. This is our normal.

For my dad, 30ft may mean 40 more years on terra firma. By comparison, the world and it's history is 7901 miles wide.

It took 2 seconds for the Galloping Ghost to call in a mayday at 50 feet, roll out of control, climb 100 or so feet, and come down another 152. Dad said there wasn't enough time to have his life flash before his eyes.

I feel grateful, yet unsure. There is something here I have to accept, that 9 people died instead of my dad. There is a tension there I don't know how to resolve. It's like someone is letting a jazz chord hang in the air, maybe something diminished, and I wait for the resolving note to come. There is a beauty in the chord, but the dissonance haunts me. It sounds like it's going to hang in the air for at least another 30 ft or so.

What I Can Do With Five Minutes?

I'm reading Ben Franklin's Autobiography. A story of a very interesting, resourceful, and self-inflating person. Franklin was dedicated to self-betterment to the point that he kept charts on success (or failure) in his self defined virtues as well as a rigid schedule of work, study, and even liesure. Which leaves me wondering, what can I do with the next five minutes.

We have opportunity in each moment to convey some sort of significance to the world around us, or to prepare to convey significance at a later moment.

I spent my five minutes sitting down to convey and prepare to convey with my writing (something I don't do often enough).

What will you do with the next five minutes?