Stream -- Old Man Troubadour

Note: This is a stream of consciousness piece written in one session and printed with minimal revisions.

We sat on the grassy hill under the tree that overlooked the beach several hundred yards away. Close by behind us, the hill sloped gently down to the quiet road. We were close enough to the ocean to hear its rhythmic sounds and smell its sea breeze. We were far enough away to sense the rest of our surroundings. We hoped to hear the familiar sound of strumming guitar strings soon.

Her nickname was Hula, and she was beautiful. She was exotic and yet somehow familiar, always, and that's why I loved her. She was what I wanted... not what I thought I wanted. I had never seen eyes like hers before. They were dark, and her hair was dark, and her skin was a smooth brown, and her face invited you in only to sting you with her bright smile.

She wouldn't want anyone to know my nickname. But she said I was strong, probably stronger than I can say, and I was sure that's why she loved me. I had a lot of spirit and it reflected in my face. My age, my knowledge, my wisdom, I guess, showed in my eyes. And that's how she put it. I'd agree and, as an extension, say I had a lot more to learn.

That's when the old man troubadour surprised us. He was new to our routine, only having been around for about a week. We so enjoyed hearing first the music and then seeing the man behind it. The old man was always strumming something new and yet in that short time, each bit of music sounded like a part of a master piece. That day there was silence. He awoke us from the hypnotic ocean view. He still had his guitar, but it was strapped on his back. "Hello there lass and laddy," he called.

I turned to be greeted by his joyous smile. "There's our troubadour," I said with a good-natured laugh. The old man looked to Hula and asked, "And how are we today, sister?" As I motioned him to come and sit with us, she said, "We're doing great! How are you?" He breathed in deeply through his nose, exhaled and said, "'Tis a wonderful day!" While I certainly agreed, it felt different, perhaps melancholy, without his song. At the same time, however, it was quite possibly one of the most beautiful days of the year to observe.

Rather than wondering, I asked him. "Will you not play a song today? I see your guitar there, friend." The old man had a great sense of humor. He looked back at me playfully, as if thinking *Well, look who thinks he's the boss*. He said, "Indeed, brother, my guitar carries me everywhere, but you're right, I'll not play it today." Hula was miffed somewhat and rhetorically asked, "What will we do with no music today?" Old man troubadour was standing up, looking at the sea, when she said this. He seemed confused by it and sort of stared back. Then he smiled as he walked back toward the road. We went with him to say goodbye.

"My friends," he said, "I play the music almost every day."

"And what about today?"

Then he spoke his goodbye:

"Today, lass and laddy, today I listen to the music."

Leaving the walls of Troy

After six years at the University of Southern California, this will be the first in which I am no longer associated with that institution's undergraduate education. I had an amazing experience there, and the beauty of USC is that the thing they call the Trojan Family is real. I have found there is a vast, and generous, network of Trojans and people associated with USC in some way who are willing to be of help to me and other people in many capacities. This type of network means that I am not ending my time as a Trojan or my association with the University, though I have concluded my technical education. I have many fond memories of that education.

I began as a broadcast journalism major, bright eyed and bushy tailed. For me, as a freshman, that really didn't mean very much. It took about a year of core classes before I was able to take a course at the Annenberg school. Ultimately, I ended up leaving the school and the major, but as one of many hundreds of students, every day I attended, I was treated like the next big thing in journalism. I had a wonderful adviser named Annie who guided me through the three and a half years I was registered there. She was technically the broadcast adviser, but even when I got mysteriously dosed with some common sense and switched to print journalism, she stayed with me. I worked with Jabari, the print adviser, a little and he was a great, big, friendly guy. Annie and I, however, had a great rapport.

In the fall semester of my fourth year, I took the course that was called the Newswriting Module. Essentially, it consisted of the three core writing classes, one each for broadcast, print, and online. In reality it is a brilliant set up by Annenberg to train students for what is a dwindling job market. It became clear a week or two into the semester that my limitations would put limitations on me in these courses without some assistance. Before hand, I didn't see any obstacles and neither did Annenberg, but there were obstacles. USC has another fantastic department called Disability Services & Programs (DSP) that facilitates notetaking, test taking, et al., for students with both physical and learning disabilities. In the blink of an eye, Annie was on the phone with the head of DSP setting up interdepartmental (six syllables -- and they say we don't go to class) meetings to get me what I needed.

So, I met with Annie, Jabari, my three newswriting profs, the head of DSP, the head of the Annenberg IT, and probably a couple bigwigs way beyond my pay grade. To someone more accustomed to professional expenses and problem-solving, this wasn't that big a deal. To me, I was very positively astounded at the speed, planning, and expense to which these people and the school went for me. They hooked me up with three Annenberg students for notetakers and an empty office and computer for in-class projects equipped with the mouse and microphone I needed to get my work done. That semester went great, and I do still believe the quality of my writing made all that work worth it. Unfortunately, I repaid those efforts by changing majors!

Annenberg's wise move to make students capable in any form of journalism (which I agree with) ultimately hurt me as a pure writer. The next semester would have been the Reporting Module and I would have been responsible for $625 worth of equipment to take to an assigned city to cover news there. It was double the work of newswriting, and the work had a minimal amount of writing involved. I was, expectedly, hesitant to disappoint all the people who had worked so hard for me, but they would have done that for any student and Annie always treated me like she wanted what was best for me. She pushed minors and double majors all the time, but she never pushed me.

That, at last, led me to the Creative Writing major and it has really been off to the races since then. And I certainly owe much of my success in this brand of writing to a few of the people who make up that great Trojan Family.

He may leave the walls of Troy, but he takes a piece of her in his heart, and leaves a piece of his heart behind.

My Year in Review (Part Two)

Note: I move into my next year Sunday, when I turn 24. Here are my thoughts as one year impacts the next.

As I begin to look forward, it is important for me to internalize those lessons I've learned over the past year. I'm not sure there's really any sort of process which will allow me to do that, but I think a simple awareness that those lessons are important is all that is necessary.

Some of the lessons a person might take from my friend Chuck's death are age-old lessons, and ones that I am already intimately familiar with. The fragility of life, appreciating each day, time being so fleeting, trying not to waste life on the negatives, those are things that I already know, but it never hurts to have them reconfirmed. Or better yet, it always hurts and that's why they need to be reconfirmed.

The other lessons are most certainly not cookie-cutter optimism, but they are real, and true optimism for me is about taking a realistic fact of life and applying it to myself in a positive way. Death doesn't wait for someone even if they are important, or young, or have things to do. That doesn't make loss any easier. Dealing with it, in fact or in potential, is a constant struggle. But it tells me that it's not worth individual stress. It's out of my control, and if I can let go of that, I think about all the other things in life that I can let go. There is positivity in the finality of death. It brings many realizations. The hard part is keeping those realizations vivid in mind when everyday life begins to take its toll. If I can do that, maybe I won't be scared to tell this person how I feel or maybe I won't find reasons not to do this thing I want to do. That's a liberating feeling.

I will take my lessons into the next year. I expect to continue prioritizing my quality of life and continue doing things the way that is right for me. Knowing now that it's not so simple as just supporting or not supporting myself emotionally, I can trust others with my burdens. I can trust that my strength is, in fact, a source of love. Continuing on, I'll use that source of love in the depth I feel it for others. My meaning of life is simple: to love, to be loved, and to do what I love.

Being able to step back from a situation and observe it from many sides has always been a skill of mine. I also feel I have a talent for self-analysis, and as I grow older, I find I can do more than just spot my weaknesses or areas I need to improve. At this point in my life, I find myself able to see my strengths and not only that, but I can be confident in those talents. I know I can write. When I combine that with my other abilities, the path through which I should take my writing becomes clear. After some conversations and some deep thinking, I have learned how to make this blog part of an active writing project. I'm certainly excited to begin writing my story, which is what I'll be doing now and then.

My new year begins Sunday. I plan to officially end my education at USC by writing a letter to the administration that did so much for me, and to the people I owe a great deal of appreciation. I plan to appreciate, and enjoy and love, all the loved ones that fill up my life. And I plan to begin writing the stories that have made me who I am.

My Year in Review (Part One)

Note: my 24th year is drawing to a close and will end on my 24th birthday, Sunday. I've decided to take a look back today in Part One.

There's no way around it: it has been a long, hard year for me. Like I've always said, I'm a positive guy, but even I have to admit that I faced a lot of negatives. You might say it was a rebuilding year, if I may use a sports analogy. The negatives will follow me into the next year in many ways, but I still foresee the significant shift that hopefully comes with each new year. First, however, I take stock.

I lost my dear friend, Chuck, about a month after my last birthday. He was my long-time orthopedic doctor who did my spinal fusion, recommended me to USC, and was really a stalwart ally. He "got" my sense of humor and used it in each of the many times I had to go see him to assess my condition. To this day, I still sometimes feel like it's vulgar to use him for some sort of lesson, but then I think that we are always learning and the best teachers are those people we meet who become our friends. I think about my spinal fusion surgery. One of the things I wrote after Chuck died was that if you had to have a scar like the one I did, you would be lucky to have one this beautiful. I said it in a mostly facetious manner, but if I had to take away a lesson it would be what I wrote, and I have Chuck to thank for that.

Some months later, thankfully after the USC Trojans demolished Michigan in the Rose Bowl, my right lung collapsed. The pain of the reinflation procedure was quite literally the worst in my life. There is no other way I can put it than to say, I felt messed up after that. I'm used to feeling vulnerable as there is a continual process of accepting certain realities. But the fear of that happening again, of that pain and that vulnerability, will be with me for a long time. I did a lot of growing up that day, as I think about it. I didn't have anyone there to comfort me during the procedure, but in this case I was glad. It's difficult to explain beyond that.

The hospital stay that followed was difficult. However, it reconfirmed in me the belief that the way I go about my life and the way I approach things is right for me. I wouldn't have gotten through that without my m.o., and the fact that it has worked and continues to do so says a lot to me. While I got through the hospital stay, the hospital stay, unfortunately, got through me. I had a nice little souvenir called a wound care situation with which I was left. This one is testing my endurance, but I have much precedent in the way of battles won, therefore I take comfort in the fact that I will soon turn a corner.

There were many worrisome events, but what I found in direct proportion to that stress & tension was the depth of love from my loved ones. Mentally and emotionally, I have always been a self-starter and more so, a self supporter. I was probably so effective at that because I didn't have that ability physically. This was a year, however, where I needed my loved ones. I really really needed support from the outside-in. I received that support, many times over. My family took on many burdens and made sure I was well taken care of. My nieces and nephews came over to play and watch movies. The visits from my friends were numerous and heartfelt. Some friends helped me find entertainment. Another showed me that my strength was a source of love. I noticed, as well, that my love for others deepened and in many cases, did so in a way that many people will not know or understand.

This year marked the end of my education at USC. While I was sad to say goodbye to the yearly life force I found there, to many of the people I met, and to the wonderful educators, it also marked the beginning of my foray into professional writing. I was so fortunate to work with Jason and feel so indebted to the people involved (all of them). Especially considering the fact that I finished the project before any health concerns began, of course it was right under the wire, I feel very lucky. Soon after that, I began this very weblog which has very effectively kept me connected to my writing.

The Modern Gladiator

Often, I find that the search for an applicable mythology, hero, or symbol is better served by accepting current trends. Our warriors, our adventures, our quests are not lost. They always exist in essence. Modern society mostly finds them in spirit, but there are still places where they exist in form, as well. One of these is something I like to call the Modern Gladiator: the athlete. We resist many natural things these days, and yet we still yearn for purity in our athletics. We enjoy seeing the physical form at its height. We encourage our athletes to push themselves, and nature itself, to the limit.

Athletics even offers a physical nirvana that cannot be explained or really understood, but it can be felt by the athlete and seen by spectators. This is called the Zone. An athlete who achieves this state is said to be "in the zone". They reach a heightened awareness as time slows down. Their skill sets become near-perfect. Sports fans have witnessed basketball stars make shot after shot for a stretch, as if unconscious. Every so often, a baseball pitcher goes nine innings with flawless control and wins a perfect game. My favorite is the running back who takes hit after hit but refuses to go down, or whose speed visually shifts gears as he disregards oncoming tacklers.

In fact, the modern gladiator is best exemplified in the American college football player. This young man is the titan of our age. He is the biggest, the fastest, and the strongest of us. He is the greatest physical specimen that can be seen. He can carry a 265 pound frame 40 yards in four-and-a-half seconds, or, at 210 pounds, it can take him less than 10 seconds to run a hundred meters.

Even considering all this, he is more than physics and biology. Surely he has aspirations for success based on all the hard work over the years. But something more than that must drive him. He represents an institution. At the college, fellow students, alumni, faculty, administrators, and all the members of the community that is his school support him and depend on him. He represents a program. His team has fielded many of the greats that were considered legends long before he was even born. He has a standard to live up to, from those who have gone before him, and one to bear, for those still to come. His teammates stand by his side for years and he owes them the best of himself. His coach teaches and trains and mentors as he owes each gladiator the same. The gladiator, in turn, must honor that. He represents all these things: city, institution, program, community, family. He represents himself.

Those things matter, but then they don't. Something even more must drive him. Excellence. Competition. Pursuit. He has the week to practice and make ready for the moment of truth when he simply must reach his peak, and play. When game day comes, only his best will do. The locker room is a sanctuary, simultaneously a place of peace and tension. He cannot achieve what he is here to achieve in this... safety. His ankles are taped expertly and his cleats are laced. Sometimes, other areas need taping: wrists, knees, or fingers. Braces, rubber sleeves, and other support systems required by past scars are applied. His armor is next. The major pieces are his shell & shoulder pads, his jersey, and his helmet. Trainers prepare his body for battle. Coaches prepare his mind. The gladiator looks into the eyes of his teammates, some blackened by warpaint.

The fire is team wide. Coach delivers his final pregame speech. They jump and chant together. They leave sanctuary in unison and march down some kind of tunnel. As they approach the field the gladiator hears his marching band, which has preceded his team into the hostile environment. The roar of an opposing institution overtakes the familiar music. There are gladiators on the other side, too. And their fans are united against him, flying the colors of the opposition. Blue, green, orange... he only really sees one color: red.

Everything has come to this moment. All his time and energy, and all his effort. Every defeat and every victory has led him here. In reality, it has taken him forever to get here. His mind is focused on one thing, however.

Eternity begins at kickoff.

Stream -- Julian still held a romantic idea...

Note: This is a stream of consciousness piece written in one session and printed with minimal revisions.

Julian still held a romantic idea of anything related to a boating lifestyle. Often, he would go to one of his favorite food places and take his order over to the harbor, to eat lunch. He liked being among the boats. Average sized sailing vessels were his favorite: nothing really big enough to make a statement, that was a statement of its own. Every part of the ship had a use, and yet it was still primarily used for pleasure. It's bright white color when viewed from afar on a windy, choppy, dark blue ocean day was like a beacon, but up close, on the harbor, you could see that each boat had its own experiences and shares of highs and lows.

The food, of course, attracted the seabirds, and that reminded him of those chartered fishing boats. All souls would congregate aft. The music would be playing, comfortably audible. In his mind, he heard Santana or Bob Marley. The smells of fresh fish and clean, salt air were pungent. Usually, they would cook up the first of the white sea bass that was caught, and Julian could taste the meat with just a little butter and lemon. He loved thinking about how the undulations of passing waves became second nature, and then lasted beyond the fishing trip itself, even onto dry land. His favorite was the deep blue, far as the eye could see, going into the horizon. He enjoyed feeling lost in that environment.

The seabirds were most interested in the smells and tastes, as they were on the harbor. Seagulls would creep up cautiously, to see what Julian would do. These ones weren't too pushy, so he could could eat in peace. Sometimes a pelican would fly overhead low and slow. The bird would force itself to drag against the wind long enough to check the goings-on. Then it would flap its wings and move on, presumably to the open ocean.

Julian knew he loved the sea life, in one way or another. He often thought of that day at that house. He sat in a gazebo-like structure on the rock seawall. It was low tide on a blustery day and without that structure around him, he would have been very cold. The water was dark, dark blue but was being broken up constantly by white caps out past the breakers. He just stared into the water and thought about absolutely nothing. He was mesmerized by the rhythmic movement and just knew he belonged exactly where he was. Then he saw a moving white cap that initially broke his concentration.

When he made the object the focus of his concentration, he knew exactly what it was. He recognized the beacon immediately. Julian knew he was witnessing another part of its experience, a high, a low, maybe both. It was a bright white, average sized sailing vessel. He could tell it was captained by someone who was serious about boating. Someone interested in recreation might use the motor on a day like this. This was a serious sailor's day. This sailboat was sailing. Julian watched intently. From this vantage point, the boat almost ambled across the sea, taking each wave as it passed. He was sure this happened for the captain as well, but he also knew, relatively speaking, that boat was moving. The bright white ship created a bright white trail in the choppy ocean. Long after the captain had moved on, Julian watched that trail sink back into the deep blue.

Broken

Update for Thursday, September 6, 2007: I'm very pleased with how this entry turned out, so I've decided to leave it up for today as well. Until next week... hope you enjoy.

All people feel broken at certain points during their lives. To not feel broken is to lie to oneself or to live a terribly safe, sterile existence. I believe being broken is one of the fundamental aspects of life. On its face, it is not something I take comfort in, but I've grown to respect the fact that it should be acknowledged and accepted. Again, this realization doesn't make anything easier. Quite frankly, it is just one of the sucky things you learn about growing up. However, if each one of us did not break in some way, there would be many things in our lives we would not need and thus many things we would not have.

There are many ways to be broken. People make poor decisions or have lapses in judgment or possess character flaws, and those in turn affect reputation. Many live under strained financial situations or find themselves jobless, which hurts stable finances. Others suffer in health. Mentally or physically, they could have lifelong issues from birth or freak accidents or late developing diseases. Even more people see relationships with loved ones end or change. Tons of people face some or all of the issues I've mentioned, others face only one, and some face other issues I didn't list. For other people, the simple knowledge of living the aforementioned safe, sterile existence is what breaks them.

In all these situations, a piece or all of a person is broken. Time assures us that they will never be the same. And often, they cannot be fixed, in whole or in part. What do we do with these broken pieces? In a way, the broken pieces add up to a life. As a group, we respond to this suffering, this brokenness, in two ways.

The oft quoted teaching that suffering brings about compassion is true, in my experience. One way we respond to being broken is through communal means. The compassion from a person's surrounding community can be crucial in their response. This includes friends, family, organizations, churches, charities, and schools. If I may be naïvely optimistic for a moment, we as a society even have compassion-based careers. Nurses & doctors, teachers, and even holy men are just a few examples. All of these communal support systems originate from one group: our loved ones. That is precisely what the communal response to suffering does. It allows us, more fully, to love and be loved.

There is another type of response to brokenness, and that is through personal means. You can pick your own "struggle-through-adversity" cliché. They all apply. You learn a lot about yourself when you stare down that barrel. All the mentoring in the world can only provide you with the tools for character building, actual character can only be made by you. Your personal response to your own suffering is the best means to that end. Again, brokenness provides a vehicle. In the case of the personal response, it allows us to see who we are and to build ourselves into what we want to be.

Although the broken pieces often cannot be fixed, we can still heal. There will be scars and baggage left along the way, but ultimately one of the main things life is about is the cycle of brokenness, response, and healing. It is a struggle with many twists and turns, and no positive guarantees, but it has to be. It certainly is not always the way we want, but the personal and communal responses help us heal and some way, somehow, we move on.

This healing can hopefully help our situations. If a relationship ends, perhaps healing helps us to understand why. If it changes, healing allows us to grow and find a new role and accept that. For those with health concerns, maybe healing is reflected in an improvement of the condition. Maybe it isn't, and instead we find a way to make peace with it. As far as character goes, healing gives us a direct path to making ourselves better. None of these processes is easy. All of it involves the awareness that parts of growing up suck. However, I know I wouldn't have any of the things I have without my personal response to brokenness and the support of the people who love me & the people I love.

It's a wonderfully awful, amazing, dangerous, down-and-dirty, beautiful, exciting, suffering-riddled, shitty, character-building, pleasure-filled, painful, lovely life!


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