Fiction Friday: He Drove a Thousand Kisses Deep

Jack drove on a road headed for Mississippi, listening to Leonard Cohen.  At "A Thousand Kisses Deep," he had covered 146 miles, and he did have promises to keep.  Driving at about 50 miles per hour, on a dark Friday at 7:30, he saw another car coming towards him in the opposing lane.  Both drivers blasted brights.

Jack instinctively flicked his brights off.  Instantly, not a moment later, the other driver, male or female, also flicked off the brights.  In that moment, Jack bowed, a silent salute the other driver would not see.

But he did.  

He Saw It When He Looked

Jack was running at a park with a man-made lake.  The ducks didn't seem to care.   

He jogged while listening to an ipod playing something orchestral featured in a movie about people with hairy feet who try to destroy a piece of jewelry with lava. 

It was the very beginning of autumn, the part that always surprised him.  Cool air meant new beginnings.  For him, summer didn’t connote new life, it meant getting to swim more and hike less.  Rather, fall was the new chapter, the chance to start over.  Maybe he associated it with the beginning of a school year.  Maybe he just liked how it felt. 

Cool air woke him up.  Like rain, cool air could pull him from any personal drama.  If he’d worried for an hour if his burning knees meant something malignant, it was rain or cool air that tugged and said, “Nah man, look at this.  Right.  Now.”

So he looked.  And he saw this:

Adventure Tip: Find Easter Eggs!

From M-W.com (Merriam-Webster)

Easter Egg noun

Definition of EASTER EGG

1.  an egg that is dyed and sometimes decorated and that is associated with the celebration of Easter

2. a hidden feature in a commercially released product (as software or a DVD)

If you’ve ever played a video game or watched a DVD, you’ve probably been in the presence of Easter Eggs.  Other than being targets for young children in the blood sport known as “Easter Egg Hunting” (I’ve watched and endured more human cruelty in that yearly event than in Ultimate Fighting---in “Easter Egg Hunting” no referee will protect you), the words refer to hidden material in various forms of media the creators left behind for diligent watchers or players to find.

So in a way, Easter Eggs are a method for the creators to communicate with the players, a tip of the hat, a “Hydee, way to go!”  Some Easter Eggs are easy to find and others are nearly impossible.  The website eeggs.com is a vast collection of Easter Eggs throughout all forms of media and a great resource to check out if you’re interested in this subject.  I personally had no idea that everything from the Harry Potter series to a Beatles song had Easter Eggs!  Cool!

If Easter Eggs are a way for creators and artists to communicate with fans, could Easter Eggs not also serve as a way for people to communicate with each other?   Here are 5 real life Easter Eggs, I’ve found while adventuring.

1.  Underwater Rune    

In December of last year, one of my best friends and I were walking at a local park on a rainy day.  On a rock underwater, we found this:

 I’m not expert on the subject, but I think I’d call that a rune.  Whoever drew this using a heavy marker obviously wasn’t catering to your average Greenway walker.  If you know what this means, please write about it in the comments sections.  To find this rock, we had to almost wade out into the river. 

2.  Warning on a Wall

While on a city hike through Murfreesboro, my friend was teaching me about what photographers call, “the magic hour,” the first and last hour of sunlight during the day.  As we moved through an alleyway, we encountered this graffiti:

This photo was taken by my good buddy, Logan.  You can find his work here.

One could analyze this message in any number of ways, but for me, this doesn’t conjure up a cute, cuddly proclamation.  The stark, dark boldness of this graffiti on the white wall suggests a sense of desperation.  What do you think? 

3.  New Orleans Narrative

My traveling buddy and I had once again set out, this time on a significant, yet drivable distance to New Orleans.  After something like 9 hours in a car, in the chaotic, humid environment of the French Quarter with almost no food in our stomachs was overwhelming and magical almost to the point where we felt we were walking in fiction.  This graffiti only strengthened that feeling:

The message, written in narrative form on an otherwise nondescript wall carries with it a sense of humor.  I like an Easter Egg that has me wondering about the person who created it.  I think I’d like to meet this one. 

4.  John Cage Tribute

Asheville, NC is a city with many colorful, artsy features and interesting, nice folks.  While exploring downtown, I found this wall-sized Easter Egg:

"To accept whatever comes, regardless of the consequences is to be unafraid." ----John Cage

This piece illustrates the power an Easter Egg has to introduce something to another person.  When I first laid eyes on this quote, I didn’t really know much about the composer John Cage.  I liked this quote so much that I did some research on the guy and found this piece of “music” history.   

Easter Eggs can become a method for strangers to share what they love.  I’d thank the artist who created this.

5.  Chattanooga Dancing (and Kissing) Lessons 

If one crosses the pedestrian bridge in Chattanooga and heads to the North Shore, they’ll find this:

"The Kiss"

 This blog does an incredible job of sharing the beauty of Chattanooga as well as the different dance Easter Eggs around the city.  Similar to how the John Cage quote in Asheville can share culture, the dance steps in Chattanooga serve to instruct, to teach.  A person passing these Eggs could unlock a long dormant desire to take the Tango, or they could just enjoy dancing in the street. 

I’m defining Easter Eggs in broad terms.  For me, they can be street art, graffiti, or something a person scrawled on a rock in a river.  Either way, Easter Eggs document a moment in time, and in any number of ways can facilitate communication amongst people who likely never meet.       

Whether in your own city or town, or across the country and overseas, Easter Eggs can be found anywhere.  As a friend pointed out, the sport of Geocaching could be considered the game of Easter Eggs itself.

What are Easter Eggs you’ve found in your own life?  Share about them in the comments section!       

  

Coffee: Or How I Took a Sip and Became a Fatalistic Noir Hero in 3 Seconds

This morning, I drank a cup of coffee.  In earlier, more caffeine-addicted times, a “cup” was actually a mammoth mug that likely held closer to 2 cups.  You will probably drink a cup (or mammoth mug) of coffee at some point today yourself.  After all, the International Coffee Organization reports that “1.6 billion cups of coffee are drunk worldwide everyday.”

For me, a number like 1.6 billion really just means “a bajillion,” a lot!  On a chemical level, coffee provides caffeine, the ultimate drug to help one through the agony of leaving warm covers each morning.  Like pushing the turbo button in a race car, we can feel caffeine working in seconds.  It makes us feel better.  This character in Open Season understands coffee well:

The notion of “going to get a cup of coffee” entails more than downing a drink or just getting a surge of energy in the morning. If it was only about the substance, folks could brew value versions of coffee at home and save 7 dollars apiece.  Rather, getting coffee is social.  It's an experience.  We like our coffee to be good.  It could be a first date or a place for friends to get together.   Like the characters in the series “Twin Peaks,” coffee is both a social and personal experience (and perhaps spiritual in this case). 

When we were kids, my cousins and I viewed coffee as a “grownup’s drink,” something we watched the hardboiled action heroes sip before they dual-fired 9mms.  I still remember our granddaddy letting us drink heavily sugared up Styrofoam versions.  With our neon-green handguns (we spray-painted black, silver, or gold in one case to make a “Golden Gun”), we felt cool.  We didn't need the pick-me-up, we just wanted to be cool, and since it was a chilly day, we were super cool.    

Even now, decades later, I still mimic an FBI agent or the lone hero having morning java.  Coffee is not just coffee, it’s a story.  The story could be about friends or lovers, the exciting or mundane.  I don’t’ solve supernatural crimes or fire weapons on an average day. But I do drink coffee, and you probably do, too.

Want to get a cup of coffee? 

SPECIAL BONUS!  A scene from one of the weirdest video games of all time featuring coffee:

Share your own experiences with coffee in the comments section!

I Couldn't Do It Until I Did

Uncle Rubel the night before the trip 

Me, circa 2006 the same night

If you’re like me, you’ve run into moments of not knowing what to do, situations of feeling stuck.  Frequently these experiences come at a time of relative peace; we’re not fighting for basic survival such as rent, water, or groceries.  Instead, we’ve found a way to make it (even if that means eating lots of lentils and saving lots). 

During these moments, we become lost.  We’re not excited.  A conversation with a friend might look like this:

Friend:  “What do you want to do this weekend?”

Me:  “I don’t know.  What do you want to do?”

Friend:  “I don’t know.”

Like most experiences with inertia, indecision begets more indecision, and it’s in these moments where we might fall into doing the activity that’s easiest.  Somewhere deep in our being, we know we really don’t want to watch Attack of the Show or Workaholics right now, but it’s what’s on the plate, so we eat it. 

This passive experience for making life choices becomes stale quickly.  Even if we like the show, movie, video game, song, photo or whatever, we still might feel a subtle “This isn’t what I really want.”

So how do we get out? 

At the heart of being stuck lies a feeling of confusion.  We really don’t feel like doing anything. 

Even so, twinges of desire may surface despite one’s inability to act.  Little inklings of what we want might become our only roadmap of what to do next.  Sometimes it might be easier for us to determine what we don’t want.  Either way, a faint light is still a light. 

Yet, even if we know we want to go to San Francisco, or Boulder Colorado, or Asheville, North Carolina, we still couldn’t possibly do those things, they’re too expensive, too far away, we’re too tired, too dark-haired.

In a fight, sometimes the best way to protect ourselves is to move straight at our opponent.  We need to hit our indecision in the mouth!  Despite the metaphor, this act doesn’t involve violence.  We simply make a choice, sometimes without thinking too much about it.

In 2006, my Uncle Rubel and I went on a road trip where we explored the towns and places where he and my father grew up---literally the links to my past.  At the time, I was a second semester freshman, and my weekends were generally spent playing capture-the-flag in the courtyard with my dorm friends---merry days indeed. 

When my uncle called me to discuss the day we’d leave for the trip, I kept saying something to the effect of, “We’ll figure it out, we’ll figure it out.” 

Finally after many promises to “figure it out,” my uncle called and said, “We need to decide right now the exact weekend we’re going to do this.” 

Immediately I felt relieved. I had been given an ultimatum.  I did select a weekend, and now I look at that as one of the most educational and full days of my life.  I won’t forget that trip.   

I think in the scenario of being stuck, we need to give ourselves ultimatums like my uncle gave me.  When we do turn the ignition, we might find we’re not as tired, busy, or as frozen as we thought we’d be. 

We’re excited. 

During the trip, Uncle Rubel showed me the land in Corinth, Mississippi where my Grandparents lived.

You Can’t Save Me from the Boogie Man, but if We Both Punch Him in the Face, He Might Run

Sometimes we need other people to see we have it together.  There appears to be an unspoken obligation in some relationships for us to behave in a certain way, to be quiet, be energetic, be thoughtful, be positive, or whatever.  To do anything threatening this dynamic would be to freak the other person out.  We’re not acting how we usually do.

Maybe the best situation happens when someone can see through our show.  They see our act and subsequently call us out on it.  Then could we be free to feel tired, overwhelmed, or unfunny?  How about crabby? 

It’s not that the other person saves us from our problems. Instead, they let us have them.  Being around this person who doesn’t need us removes a pricetag.   

Free to be happy or exhausted, facing the endless waves of success and failure become easier when we’ve got someone to ride them with us.    

What do you think?  Have you had this experience?  Have you had the opposite?  Post your thoughts in the comments section!

The Hiking Mirror

Hiking is movement.  We choose a location and decide to travel through it.  Sometimes hiking is walking in a complete circle.  How could that be fun? 

In our daily lives, we have to move to interact, whether in work or play.  So work is movement, and having fun is movement.  Eating food with a friend requires we chew, pick up the fork, and drink the sweet tea.

So why would we choose to hike, to move through the woods, through a park, or through any location?  Movement is so essential to every moment that, even if we’re standing completely still, the internal workings of our body are constantly in motion.  We don’t explain to our mother, “I’m sorry Mom, I can’t help you move those file folders, I have to practice my digestion right now.”

But why hike?  Why would we choose movement for the sake of movement?

When hiking, maybe we have an end goal in mind: to reach the top of the cliff, to grasp the end of the trail, or to return to our car.  And in that sense, hiking seemingly becomes similar to other activities with a beginning and an ending.  I pick up the toothbrush, I brush my teeth, I rinse the toothbrush.  Done.

Even so, hiking constantly undermines agenda.  Better yet, it reveals our agendas.

If we err on the side of striving and reaching specific goals, we might quickly come into contact with the driving desire to finish the hike.  Go, go, go!  And much like the tunnel vision-nature of achieving goals, while constantly pushing forward, we miss the entire experience of the hike.  Afterward, there might be the vague sense that even though we walked a trail, we were never there.

If we struggle with motivation, we might constantly be focused on the physical discomfort of a hike, especially a strenuous one.  Much like the goal-driven hiker, the soundtrack of our pain might overwhelm any sound of birds or wind.  Again, our own internal dialogue interrupts our lives: “Ouch, ouch, ouch.”

A person constantly grasping for dramatic, peak experiences might find a hike dull.  In a place thick with life on top of life, this person might ask, “Where is all the action?” or, “There is nothing going on here.”  Like a moth moving toward a light bulb, this person hungrily grasps for validation, hoping that finishing the hike will bring some lasting sense of happiness.  By the end of the walk, rather than feel disappointment for this unfulfilled desire, this person is already running for the next shiny light bulb.

Hiking reflects our ways of dealing with the world.  If we push for a hike to give happiness, we’ll probably be disappointed.  It’ll be the movie not quite funny enough, the zip line adventure that was kind of boring, or the cheese cake not as delicious as we remembered. 

We could watch a hike.  We could watch ourselves, our methods, our trips, our internal conversations.  And we could keep stepping, constantly seeing both the story inside and the actual world outside.  We could feel the 63 degree wind while we feel the tough day that a coworker was rude to us.  We neither push the experience away nor allow that difficult Wednesday morning to remove us from the soreness in our calves or the earth on our knuckles.

We hike as we live.  And while moving, we might see all things done and undone, all goals reached and failed, all our kindnesses and our cruelties, the plethora of human storylines forever spinning in our minds. 

And we might also see that beyond these rich novels we write, there exists the smell of dirt, the feeling of rain, and the air we breathe with each step we take.

Alive. 

What is your experience with hiking or another activity?  Share your thoughts in the comments section!

Melting! My Weekend is Melting!

The scariest thing in the world might not be the Boogey Man!  This artwork was created using MS Paint.

We fight and Hail Mary our way through our work weeks, school weeks, or whatever weeks we have.  Swinging for the fences, struggling, pulling ourselves from the comfort of sleep, we rise from our beds to face whatever it is we must.  And some days we really don’t want to get up.

Through the trenches of our week, we hold out hope.  While stuck out at sea, we peer towards the land in the distance---our weekend. 

Some folks have full 2 day weekends, while others have none or maybe one day off.  Some folks work intensely for 4 days a week and have 3 days off.  Some professions work 24 hours on the job and 48 hours off.  Either way, we all face variations on a theme: the times where we are held within a specific set of things we need to do, and the times where we get to choose (if we’re lucky and already have food, shelter, clothing, and all manner of basic needs met).  We all hope for the days where we can turn the alarm clock off and go back to sleep---or better yet, kick the clock entirely. 

Finally, we arrive!  We’ve reached the final hurdle of our week and now are within grasp of the prize, the jewel we’ve hungered for all week.  It’s ours!  TGIF***!

Now what?

Could it be that when the initial high of having survived another week passes, that we feel a very subtle form of worry or regret?  Now we have what we hoped for, and we have to do something with it.  It’s a popsicle constantly melting.    

Because we know the weekend (or variation) will end, maybe we become poverty-stricken, trying to stuff as many incredible experiences as we can in the day or days.  Another option is to numb out as much as possible, doing as many things as we can to relax or distract ourselves from our experience.  Either way, even on Saturday night, we begin to feel the dominoes tumbling in on us, the day of schedules and clocks is returning!  The inevitably of the death of our weekend might make us so frantic we don’t even experience the gift we have. 

I’ve heard folks say, “Man, what am I going to do with all this time off?”  I’ve also heard other folks say, “I can’t wait to get to the weekend!”     

What is your experience with time off?  Do you plan what you’re going to do on a weekend, or do you coast?  Do you experience mostly individual time, time with just another, or do you get together with a group?  Is your experience totally different than the one described here?  Share your experiences in the comments section!

***Or like some of the  jobs I’ve had: TGIM, TGIT, or TGIW