thoughts and musings on current positioning.. ie How am I doing?

The following is from an email that I wrote (Dec.26/09) to a good friend who had inquired as to how I was doing.. I think it's got some goodness in it.

~~~~~~~

I am doing mostly fairly well more often than not. ;) Times of wonder and joy and goodness, when I'm stoked on life and writing, singing, playing songs etc. Times when I want to write this book, share my ideas, etc.. times when I want to record an album, share my music, times when I want to find someone and share my life.. and then times where I can't even really think about it. Where I feel I should.. but.. that the book isn't good enough, not like what others write, my songs aren't that complicated, my guitar skills not much to talk about, and that really I'm always going to let down the people I love and that it's all just too scary to comprehend so I'll let the day pass me by.

Times of struggle and success and failure. Moments of joy and sorrow. Many moods that flow throughout. I still struggle with my weight/image thing. There's security in it for me I think.. i suspect that having had my childhood be so bizarre and crazy and beyond my control that I found ways to survive through adaptation and rolling with things. Keeping my head down and observing and reacting. Its hard to buck that trend. Its hard to chase life; to chart one's course in a positive determined way. At least for me. To feel the draw to community, to sharing, to love.. yet with the pull of fear and safety in the woods, wilds, and loneliness that waits outside in a forest or a cave, or on the water. Battles and struggles. I suppose most feel this and struggle with these things, perhaps many don't acknowledge or think about it, don't explore it.. I don't know. I can't know. I live in my self and it is what I struggle to somewhat know in some minute way ;) And so I go on. I know that much. That I am past the point of giving up. I've had those opportunities and dark times and... here I am still. Perhaps that alone is a victory of sorts. So yes.. I do well often. And based upon other's opinions and sights most would say "that Jordan dude looks to be doing pretty well". So based on that external observation it can be thought that I am doing pretty well. I struggle with gauging such things... to what standard is it held? How can I be other than I am? or other where than I am? I am continuing to grow and develop as I grapple with life and encounter it. The process of living/surviving is growth, is wisdom.

I think I'm lonely alot. I'm often content with where I am.. yet there is also that part that continues to seek, to search, to want.. and I suppose that makes me uncomfortable, makes me afraid. But I am very glad that part exists.. for without that? then what? Without the fear and the hunger, without the pull onward and to more, the spirit most likely would lay down and die. Hmmm.... perhaps there is an enlightenment and awareness in that. Perhaps it is a place I might get to one day, but I'm not there yet. So I continue. In seeing the world in darkness and hurt, in accepting that suffering and shit exist, we can also approve of and appreciate goodness, love, safety, companionship, beauty, etc... a progression? So we go on. We go on. I love because I wish to be loved. I smile because they are good things that I love to see. We sometimes do these things because we choose to, because we can.

Ok.. and sometimes I get pensive and introspective ;) Thoughts at hitting 30? haha Mind you it is almost New Years ;)

Dave the Little Hoer

Dave the Little Hoer
Originally uploaded by maplemusketeer

I wrote a song but it didn't have the right words
I sung a tune but it didn't have the right sounds
I wrote a letter but it didn't have the right verbs
But here it is.. I made it for you

Like crayons and felts on the door fridge
Weird culinary concoctions reside in the garbage
Stomping and jumping our way across the troll bridge
hand in hand side by side

We talked before you could speak
We clambered and fell pushed into creeks
I chased you with a hammer
You dislocated my coccyx
Lets call that even

Ok so Grandma was right when she broke up our fights
and told us that one day we'd miss each other. so.. ok.
I miss you.

Remember that time in Roberts Creek at the bus stop?
You latched onto my arm and clamped on through
my winter jacket. Leaving teeth marks as across the street you ran.
Darting your head out around the side of the Can Post post can
My arm cocked with retribution in the form of an apple.
I waited till your head wasn't there... and threw.
I hit you square in the face! In retrospect,
that still was an awesome throw.
Then you rubbed your face and I rubbed my arm
and we got on the bus to school together.

All the time we spent together wishing we were apart is now so long eclipsed by the time spent apart wishing we were together.

You always wanted to fight on your birthday when we were little because for a week we technically are the same age.

Welcome to Round 29.

Though somewhere along the way we learned to share.
And so now we share a week being the same age,
as we share our memories and experiences.

The magic and wonder
of trying to catch leprechauns
when spring was just around the corner.

Giant forts with lunch conveyance systems.
Matching outfits and vocabularies tenacious.

Growing a bit to running through woods
and swinging around giant trees.. with our pet Griffin.

And then the sea. Walking along and living in.
Forts to build, rocks to throw, fires to light,
making the most of where we were.
As we do still.

I don't know that there are easy paths in this world.
I would say that ours wasn't.
I know that as a big brother there were many times
that my best wasn't enough.
that I could have helped but wasn't there.
that you had to do things on your own without me.
Our roads parted for a time.
Our feet down different paths.
And we both faced difficulties, hardship, sorrows, pain, and beauty.
I regret not being able to share them, to share in them.

What is the bond of a brother?
To some it is genetic, that of the blood.
To some it is a kinship born of time spent together
through fortune and hardship.
To some it is a oneness of spirit and vision,
the call and response of one soul to the other
an innate connection, language, reality.
We share all these.

With you Dave it is not for better or worse.
It is only for better.
In my life I've only spent 11 months and 3 weeks not having known you.

You are my longest friend.


I cannot being to fathom a life not having shared with you.
I'm so very thankful for being able to look back
at these 29 years
with you
and wonder what it'll look like, and how many crazy awesome adventures and struggles and hills and valleys and floods and droughts and tears and triumphs will happen in the next 29.

Happy Birthday Little Bro
you're such a little hoer.

~ Thoughts in Motion ~

I've plied my trades and lived my days in various ways up and down this coastline.

A member in a familial tradition

Not of one trade but of many

Not of one location but numerous

Ever onward a heartwood true grows, strives and survives amidst the storm's lull, the rain's temporary abatement.

Gulls wheel overhead navigating their course through air's flow and effect, like a fishboat chugging along through the pass. The tidal surge, the wind and weather, the plateaus, precipices, and prominences seen and unseen, known and unknown, all influence and impact the flow which follows its nature; its need.

Only fools and the ignorant surge forward paying no heed.

To them the glory and cost of their high stakes. One thing this coast teaches is that life is full of squalls that pass and blue skies that darken. The season is upon us and those that fear and fight and rail against the drizzle shall live in the selfsame gloom they reprove.

This is the season of life; of wind whipped waves and salt laden sprays stinging numbly any hint of exposed flesh. The dampness that communes in our bones with the water within. Liquid life lingers lavishly in the fall air we churn our way through. In and out, rise and fall, oxygen for carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide for oxygen, water water everywhere, in every cell that breathes.

It blows hard and cold outside and is testified to by the swell of white topped waves passing beneath the vessels bow. People sit, lounge, sprawl contentedly and warm in their space, in their place, in their seat, oblivious to the wonders that transpire outside of their shell; outside of their presumed safety.

To my right I see clouds I've never seen before, in this form. And I look towards and above Gabriola Island and Nanaimo. You may not think much of that statement until I share the next detail... I have spent over seven years with that daily view. Living in Roberts Creek we looked across. Living on Edward Rd in West Sechelt we looked across. Living at what was the top of McCourt Rd we looked across. Each day is different. Each moment unique as they shift and morph before your eyes. To me a clear hot sunny "perfect" day is about as exciting as 320 tedious television channels. I haven't even told you what transpires to the left. While dark round giant puff balls glom out past starboard, a glow emanates from the port-side. Looking up the Strait, bracketed by darkness blazes the golden radiant hues upon the freshly whitened peaks rising north up the Island. A transfixing fascinating beautiful view more full and deep and glorious than any television show.

Standing atop the ship having the wind whip and strip the heat from your hands

as you gaze

the greens of the sea one can easily see and be lost and found in that tempestuous tranquility.

Then to return once more to the confines of the present mindset in that particular moment with a fraction of the past a memory that one can only half hold like water in a bathtub. When immersed, your hand, your arm, your all is consumed by the experience. Once your hand comes out the water rapidly spills out and drips away leaving you with but a fragment; a minuscule pond in the palm of you hand, from what once clothed your being... your all

We frame our choices and with our lenses we dictate our sight. There are many who disinterestedly suffer the tedium of travel, the monotony of a ferry ride traveled numerous times, the amount of time wasted in waiting in a waiting room for another 45 minute sailing, currently 43 minutes away. Today instead of having to wake up early to drive straight to the ferry terminal I chose to wake up earlier still that I could drive past the terminal to a park to climb my way up a hill between garry oaks and arbuti to watch the sunrise. An opportunity acknowledged, observed, and appreciated. I had the opportunity of a nautical voyage through magnificent views in an area I love on a blustery day. I got to sit, ponder, reflect, and journal as I savoured some yerba mate as it melted the dark chocolate in my mouth and the warm horn lured increased blood flow back into my superior distal extremity.

There are very few decisions in life that are actually made for us. When we are born, sometimes when we will die, and perhaps alien abduction. Other than that we have the freedom, though often unacknowledged, to do what we will. Sometimes we don't see our choices, don't know they're even there, or don't like the ones we do see. Fair enough, but they are our choices none the less. So knowing that, what will I do? What do I see? And what lays beyond, around the next corner, next thought, next moment? I'm not sure but my second ferry has just gone into motion and I hear the wind calling my name, waiting to freeze my hands and my nasal mucosa.

written November 13th, 2009 between Departure Bay, Nanaimo, and Langdale Ferry Terminal on the Sunshine Coast.

I never really thought of myself as a baseball player...

The world can be a sucky place, and many people strive to avoid the suck.
This is likened to a baseball game wherein people view the purpose of life as not striking out.

And it makes sense..

if the purpose of life is to avoid pain.
Don't go up to bat, don't swing, don't strike out.
There are times we've probably all felt like that or done that.

But it is limited and incorrect.
The purpose of life is to hit that ball.
It is to run bases and slide hard into second.
It is to swing for the fences and clear the bases.
It is to get a base hit over the pitchers head.

Singles, Doubles, Triples, and Homeruns are only available to those who are willing to stand up at the plate, swing, and strike out. You never will hit the ball from the dugout.

And that's where so many of us get caught up or astray.

We live life to avoid striking out because we have been taught, or assumed, or believe, or interpreted that striking out is a bad thing.

Well..
#1 on the all-time strike outs list, with 2,957, is Hall of Famer Reggie "Mr.October" Jackson.
A 14 time All-Star, a 5 time World Series Champion (2 times World Series MVP)..
his number retired as both a New York Yankee and an Oakland Athletic, the man clearly swung his bat; a lot.

And now.. the crunch time.
Every time we swing the bat, we learn.
Every time we strike out we are one swing closer to that next hit.
Swinging is not a bad thing, it's how we learn.
Whiffing through the air is not a failure but a success.

As is often the case with many things in life.. it's all how we frame it and how we view it. We are often so quick to attribute failure to our actions, or failures to act, when in fact it's all part of moving towards hitting that ball. Everything that has occurred to this point has yet again been preparing you for the next at bat and the choices you make will teach you and guide you to modify your swing. Even sitting in the dugout and watching teaches you a few things, and there is sometime when we do get benched and sit a couple out, but ultimately we are to get to our spot in the rotation, shake it out in the warm up circle, and then step up to the plate.

Hit or miss we're where life occurs.
So swing away, they're all cheering us on.

Hans Gruber was here..

Hans Gruber was here..
Originally uploaded by maplemusketeer

The other night I ended up on a roof in Vancouver as the last bit of the fireworks festival was happening. I turned off the flash and set the camera down with the auto-time going. Got a couple but this is my favorite because as soon as I saw it I thought about Hans Gruber. For those of you not familiar with the name.. it is the first big appearance of one Alan Rickman who most everyone knows nowadays as Severus Snape in the Harry Potter movie series.

But back to Hans Gruber. Hans was the antagonist opposite Bruce Willis' character back in Die Hard. Yes no numbers after that title. Die Hard the first. It is a classic movie. And Alan Rickman is in another one of my favorite movies as well and that would be Quigley Down Under starring Tom Selleck. Come to think of it... other favorite Alan Rickman movies would be Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves with Kevin Costner, Morgan Freeman, and Christian Slater (as Will Scarlet) and Galaxy Quest with Tim Allen.

There ya go.. amazing how the mind wanders from one photo to another. Oh we of the wikipedia/internet age. ;)

Temperate Coastal Rainforest

Temperate Coastal Rainforest
Originally uploaded by maplemusketeer

It's been much too long since I've written or posted.. such is life eh? Seasons for creativity, seasons for observation, seasons of business and ones of time....

All in all.. life goes on and it's in a positive progression.. i guess progression automatically indicates that.. otherwise it'd be regression eh? ;)

Make the most of your moments and be thankful for what we have left... ever heartbeat one less to live.. every breath one that'll never again be breathed.. and every smile a new creation