ideas, stories

Running down a mountain after the last gray light has begun to fade away, I see a firefly for the first time in my life and stop running, hold out my hand and it lands on my hand like it knows me, this little insect, absolutely nothing at all and at the same time the neatest little beautiful thing, walks on my finger then lifts up again lighting its own way off into the last bit of dimming light. Then they all came out and lit my way as I ran down the mountain.

Exquisite grammar is so far out of the field of question, even words just seem wrong.

stories

Yesterday morning at six thirty sharp I was woken up by music. This song wasn’t horrid like the title says, merely very curious. It was being played over a megaphone on top of the house kity-corner to the one I live in. It was being played very loudly, too. I didn’t really understand the lyrics, could only make out something about jesuchristo, then something about jamas asi o algo asi. Anyways, I was only bit annoyed; by now I’m accustomed to things happening unexpectedly in the morning (machine-gun-fire story coming soon). The part that mildly annoyed me was how the chorus had this terribly screechy and out-of-tune violin part.

Then the song finished. Phew! I thought to myself–now onto a different song, or if I’m lucky that was just some good-morning-world greeting from friends to another friend. They have different ways of showing friendship here.

Silence…for a few moments and then the music started up again, the same song.

Uh-oh..this cannot be good, I thought. I thought right. This song, at first innocently curious, for 14 hours repeated, became horrid.

At eight-thirty p.m. yesterday I left the house to go to the office. I’d spent the better part of the day making soup and reading and was at my wits end with this horrid song. I’d tried thinking about it as a joke, and this worked for a while. I tried enjoying it, and this worked for a while. I tried making fun of it in my mind, and this too worked for a while. I finally plugged earphones into my little mp3 player and used this, but the earphones aren’t sound isolating so I had to use serious volume to overpower the neighbor’s megaphone-piped screechy-violin song. Finally at eight thirty my head hurt too much to think or really do anything, so off to the office I went, and there I found good peace and quiet–it was wonderful.  I’m ashamed of it, but I actually did have brief thoughts to wait till a bit later at night when there’s good darkness and then to hurtle a rock at this screechy-song-spewing megaphone. Honestly, I thought about it–but no, that’s not a good thing at all. I quit the ideas of destruction or violence, but remained very bitter and somewhat angry at whatever ridiculous person, the ridiculous person who thought it some sort of stupid joke to play the same horrid song all day long.

This morning at six thirty sharp I was woken up by music. Again.

Yes, you guessed it, the song with the out-of-tune screechy-violin chorus. However, there is a saving grace, and because of this saving grace I actually laughed out loud (lol!) when I heard the song pipe up. Today is the first day of work–a day I’ll spend at the office, not at home, not near this horrid, horrid song. Because of this, I laughed–those silly fools, their snarky joke today will fall on nothing but an empty house. Bahahaha. I have to say that, at the office the night before, the resident security guard Don Alvaro had mentioned that an old man had died and the music was some sort of tradition, some custom of the indigenous people–that didn’t really strike me as too important though. It paled in comparison to both my headache and the concept of this ludicrously snarky joke. By morning today, I’d practically forgotten what Alvaro had mentioned.

There’s a little tienda, this tiny snack store, a stone’s throw away from the office; I’m a ten-a.m. regular. At least two or three days out of the week I head down to the tienda to quench the jones for some sweet and salty treats; sometimes I go healthy with juice and a piece of bread, other times it’s Coca-Cola and chips.

As I was walking out of the office to the little tienda thinking about Coca-Cola and chips, I heard music. It was the screechy-violin-chorus song! I heard it faintly, growing louder; I froze in my tracks and looked to my left down the dirt road towards where the music was coming from. There was the funeral procession, forty or fifty people: family members and friends. All the men were dressed in old suits dirty with road dust and the women in traditional woven skirts and blouses, all of them somber and quiet. Towards the back of the group was a beautiful ornate coffin on the shoulders of five younger men. I walked to the side of the road and stood, cap in my hand, thoughtless. Walking next to the pallbearers was an older woman with a single candle. The small yellow flame, barely wavering in the calm breeze, was hardly a notable thing in the bright midmorning sun of a cloudless sky. One man was carrying the megaphone mounted on a tall two-by-four, another was carrying the stereo and battery, a third the cables that carried this song from the stereo to the megaphone to be sounded out in static-heavy reproduction for all to hear, as if it was transmitted from a poor radio station or a radio station in a town very far away.

They passed by me and proceeded on to the cemetery, led by a pastor with an old and worn bible in his hand.

I ate lunch at home in peace today, the song wasn’t playing any more. The man who had died was 65, I don’t know if he left behind a wife or not.

The end.

Edit:
Later, I explained this a little bit to my sorta-boss and really-mentor, Danery. As I got to the point about hearing the song and realizing that the funeral procession was passing by, I thought of my friend who died and his funeral and what it was like to see soldiers and his brothers and his coffin being carried by them and I nearly started crying right there half an hour ago. And right here as I type this in the office I’m a hairs-breadth away from falling apart into a bawling mess. Asi anda la vida.

ideas

I love stories–I love to tell them, to hear them, to think about them. Huge bonus points for stories told around a campfire or while having beers with good friends. That’s the majority of what goes up here on my blog, stories.

To me, storytelling is a pure and unique thing. It’s an act, but really it’s not acting at all; all stories are always stretched, but yet somehow within nearly every story is more truth than a old veteran mathematician can shake a stick at.

This isn’t storytelling though, this is a personal note; there won’t be a “this may or may not be” statements at the end.

A few quick and relevant facts:
-I believe in god; to label myself, “christian” fits best. Important note: Jesus wasn’t a Christian! Oh snap.
-If my faith was just a little bit less puny, I could tell a tree to walk and it would. I could probably levitate, too. Yeah-huh, levitate. But my faith is really, really really small, so I can’t do that stuff–but I think that’s ok for now.
-Jesus is important regardless of what one thinks of what he said. He changed the entire world for all foreseeable time in less time than Obama will have for his first term.

Note 1
Why the do we Christians always pray for bad things to not happen? From all I’ve seen and known, we predominately pray for bad things to not happen. Sure, we pray for good things, for safe travels and…wait…that’s actually praying for a bad thing to not happen. How about for financial stability–oh nevermind, that too. Dear god in heaven above, I pray that you would help my marriage continue strong and health–oh yup, there it is again. What about cancer? We always pray for cancer to be cured. Same thing again…but who am I to look at a man in the middle of life’s journey and tell him it’s silly to pray that his wife doesn’t die this weekend? I’m confused.

What’s a good thing to pray for then? What’s an honest and good thing to talk to god about?

Where’s my treasure, and where’s yours?

That’s what I’m going to pray for, for now.

Note #2 coming shortly.

other, stories

Today I rode through a little town in the middle of nowhere in a developing country in Central America on an old dirtbike, to my desk inside of a warehouse-building-turned-office.

other

I left Seattle last tuesday at 10:30pm ish, arrived at Barillas late friday night. Here’s a list of things that I’ve done since stepping off the plane in Guatemala City.

One of them is … FALSO! As the old song goes:

One of these things
Isn’t like the others

1. Eaten at Pizza Hut
2. Eaten at Pollo Campero
3. Played soccer..while having absolutely no spanish-soccer-vocabulary at all (with the exception of “GOALLL!”)
4. Made italian food for dinner
5.  Driven country highways and a little town at nighttime, dodging people, boulders and buses
6.  Not gotten sick from anything…with the exception of the oatmeal I accidentally dumped italian seasoning into. Mmmmm yum.
7. Watched a truck drive sideways (well, not completely, but pretty close to it. That rear axle was seriously out of wack.)
8. Taken ~500 photos
9. Used facebook
10. Acquired 5 (female) body guards. Yessir, one very safe gringo.
11. Read The Old Man and the Sea by Hemmingway
12. Switched to using Google Guatemala. I don’t mind it, but it’s not really by my own volition. Google is very persistent about it.
13. Become…EL MATADOR DE INSECTOS DE MALARIA (yeah you Guatemalan mosquitoes, you heard that right. BE AFRAID.)

stories

My friend died a year ago.

The phone call I received at 8:30am one year ago lasted less than twenty words, and it’s etched deep and forever in my heart. I can’t say much more–I wrote about it some months ago, and what I wrote then for memorial day was all I had to say, and still is all I have to say, about that day and that phone call.

After an IED claimed his body and life here on earth, it was months before I could sleep right. Nightmares? No, and I thank God for that. I honestly don’t know if I could’ve handled nightmares without spiraling downwards with utterly crippled emotions and mind. I simply couldn’t sleep right. I would try to stay at school and do homework, but couldn’t focus; I don’t mean that I wouldn’t, or didn’t want to..literally I could not focus. Months passed, and than one night I slept and woke up rested.

That was the single most bittersweet morning I’ve known in my life so far.

Some time later, one night after a long week and one particularly long day, I was still awake in the early morning, really troubled.

Joe believed and understood more than I do and likely ever will who God is, what redemption is, and the both heart-crushing and soul-saving beauty of the death of God himself, in human form as the carpenter’s son. I knew that Joe was in a better place.

Somehow I didn’t have peace about his death though. “Why the hell wasn’t that me?” I would ask. I could’ve joined the army, I could well have been in that Stryker instead of him. He was married and wanted to help troubled kids after he finished in the army. Joe White was larger than life.

I didn’t have peace.

That night, restless and painful, I sat on the deck stairs looking up at the stars as the wind spoke through the trees, and peace came.

Peace came.

Like the small wave that reaches just further than the rest, to where you’re standing, cool fresh salty water splashes over the tops of your feet cleaning off the sand, and it comes far enough past your heels to even wash away the footprints behind you.

Peace came.

Joe loved and he loved with more depth and soul and power than most folks will ever imagine could be..except for the folks that knew him. Those who knew him knew that there must’ve been something bigger, something else. It was something more, oh you bet it was something more: it was god. Full, real love–something so damn big that it doesn’t fit in this universe, but sometimes when someone actually realizes it, gets it, and decides to live by that, when you meet and come to know one of them, you catch a glint of this light, a blinding beautiful shimmer. That was Joe. His life shone with a glimpse of eternity.

I can’t write anything else, but I want to put something else here: notes he wrote. I copied these off of his facebook account, and they’re some of the most moving things I’ve read in my life–because he poured himself into what he wrote, and he had a lot of soul to pour into things. Some of them are also some of the funniest things I’ve read in my life.

I’m going to have a Rockstar, today, for Joe. He always had one in his hand–everybody’s got their vices, his was Rockstar. At the end of the day was it even a vice? I’m not sure, but I don’t think so. You should have one for him today, too.

BOB! go to sleep.
Tuesday November 18 2008

at first i considered him a mouse problem (i’m assuming he’s a dude mouse because i’m uncomfortable with the thought of sharing the room i get naked in with a female). anyway anyone (even if it is a mouse) who steals cookies that my girlfriend makes for me is a problem. but he just helped himself to them like his mother never taught him manners. so i trapped him under a pillow one night and punched it as hard as i could (it was on my couch and i’d rather get rid of a couch pillow then have mouse guts all over my hand.) i heard something pop and thought it was the mouse but i’m pretty sure it was just my knuckles now because when i lifted the pillow he was no where to be seen. i took it as a sign to leave him alone (well more like i didn’t want him thinking i was a problem and bite my johnson off while i was sleeping at night… well sleeping anytime really i’m not sure why i put at night.. whatever. i have serious ADD) so i named him bob and told him to help himself to MY cookies. i’m such a nice guy. i’m sure bob’s forgiven me for trying to turn him into mouse sauce with my fist. at least i hope he has. i am sharing my cookies after all.

Simple?
Monday April 7 2008

God is good. God is merciful. God is faithful. and God is love. sometimes it’s just that simple. everything else is only matters for the brief moment it is relevant and then disappears for the rest of God’s eternity.

funny, stories

(from a few weeks ago)

Observation #1: when sleepy, it is very easy to misplace things and very hard to find them.

Observation #2: coffee helps this. It helps a lot.

…now I’m off to go slog around the office to find where I left my coffee mug.

This may take a while.

ideas, other

It seems that in Western culture (well–Seattle culture, the only culture I’ve lived in) that us people–humans–we define ourselves by three main things, in varying proportions:

1. What we do (hobbies/sports maybe)
2. What we make/contribute (could be nine-to-five?)
3. What we own

I’m not sure what to think about that, more will follow. I have this knee jerk reaction that I’m either missing something, or that there’s some wrinkle in the way things work, and there should be something more to how folks..ah..well…are.