East Grove Blues

Thoughts float around in my head as I only dream of sleeping. Laying in my room, listening to the fan attempt to be a part of the outside world. Together wondering if we will ever get to here true quiet. Finally wresting my body from the floor and stumbling to my computer to spew out the words that won’t quite in my mind. May you rest in piece here and now and give me some rest before I attempt once again to sleep.

Companionship has left me as soon as it arrived. I feel like the innocent child who has created a sand castle. I admired its beauty until the first rain washed it away. I understood why it left, but it doesn’t make its disintegration any easier. Now I am left in my sand box feeling rather alone and a little vulnerable. I expressly tried to avoid this situation, but fell into my own trap. A simple crush, to joyful understanding and finally a fleeting good bye. What would the wind do? Shall I listen to it cry, because that is as close as I can get to tears about it.

Poison ivy is crawling up my ankles, begging for my attention as I try fitfully for peace. Slowly it wins over and I desperately try to find its answer. I ask for solace but it forces my hand. I dared to play with it this afternoon and now is showing its terrible anger at its own destruction. It waited seven hours before bringing its cold vengeance to bear. Waiting patiently like a spider for my mind to rush and then my feat to itch.

My pale thoughts swirl in my mind seeking retribution for my own ignorance. Old friends surface in my dreams bringing back emotions I had long since buried and forgotten. I have attached too much significance to some people and when my heart is open things that never die grow like weeds in the bright opening. I’ll stitch the pieces back together and smother what I can, if only to be able to let my mind stop shouting at me.

Does everyone lay awake at night questioning the entire fiber of their being? Do they doubt the white moon as it glides across the stars? Do they think the next twist will bring the position that will bring enough comfort to sleep another night? I had hoped to go to bed early, but here I am again feeling wistful and silly as my mind wanders across the sky.

Trust no words, for words are nothing but air. Their meaning is twisted and flies away at the first breeze. We make words so we can communicate, but we end up confusing ourselves even further. We loose ourselves in our words and believe it is truth. The only truth Is. You can ask the trees if you know how. They can tell you without words. If only we could do that.

Time seems to fly by, and my ability to write seems to have flown as well. In my typical fashion I have gone from writing to much to not enough. These gaps in my life are hard to recreate, and I will defer the job to some sad angel in heaven who might have that task. In short, my life is up and down, and perhaps even a little side to side.

I have found tremendous joy in the act of scything. I couldn’t explain it all to you, but I can at least give a try. Imagine moving your whole body in a single fluid motion, while swinging a beautiful piece of steel, iron and ash to the soft sounds of it cutting blades of grass. It is the same joy I get from running, swimming and yoga. It is body, breath and no mind. You are just there, with the task before you and all that you have accomplished behind you, and yet there is only the cut. It is a work in spiritual attainment that I can never reach when I try to meditate or pray. When your done you feel like you have done something worth while. The smell of fresh cut grass and clover reach your nose in the most pleasant of fashions. You are sweaty, happy and tired.

I have thrown all cation to the wind and started running again. My internal bits be damned. I am tired of being careful, fearful and all around lethargic. Can you tell a dog not to chase a rabbit? And if that dog is trained how happy is it truly? I have chosen the only way I know how to get better. I choose to will it into existence. It could just be an act of futility, but at this point I have little to loose. I will just get better, there is no other choice. I will be me and nothing else.

Family keeps me awake at night in a futile sort of way. I know things will get better, but it will take time. All I can do is hope, hope for all of us for something better than what we have. Family has also made me intensely happy as well. Future plans are coming together and decisions are being made. I have spent too much time looking far down the road and not towards next year. I sincerely believe things will fall into the place they need to. They always have in the past…

Which leaves me in a sort of bewildered befuddlement. If only I could explain it better. The moment right now while I wait for dinner and have done my chores for the day.

This last couple of weeks have been interesting to say the least.

I won’t go into much details but a Grandfather of mine passed away. It made for a tough weekend and some very sad days. I never ‘lost it’ but I wasn’t in a good place. There is this tangled ball of emotion that I just don’t know how to deal with very well. I know it is there, but it is hard to access. Emotions like that like to hide on me. Africa, Van Allen and even some frustrations from Japan just sit inside me with no where to go. I don’t think they fester or get worse and in fact time seems to help a lot.

On top of that I still have medical issues I am dealing with. It is such a pain and so frustrating. I eat well and I don’t sit all day. I am usually moving most of the time these days, just not with the intensity of last year. I should be in great shape but there is this thing holding me back and so far the doctors have been baffled. I have another appointment tomorrow. Let’s hope they find out at least something this time.

So this leads me to have both sorrow and frustration in my life. Which is mixed with a lot of joy, because I am working outside and surrounded by really good people. I am having so much fun at Sandhill and learning so much. Nothing like feeling a dozen different emotions at once to really confuse the old mind up something fierce.

The good news is that I am bursting with music. I have written three songs with another melody line that needs a little more work. So far one of the songs has words and it is just an awesome song. I can’t wait to play it for my brother and dad tomorrow when I stop by the farm for the afternoon. I think I will keep one of the songs as an instrumental and see if I can’t find some words for the other ones.

I laugh when I think about when all my music comes to me at the moment. There has been a lot of rain so I have been doing work inside. One of the tasks I have taken on is to fill bottles with Sorghum. Well it takes a minute or two, depending on the jar, to fill up. At first I listened to my ipod but then I brought my banjo out and have been playing that while I fill jars. I took a tedious job and turned it into my music time. I think I will call my first album Sorghum Muse. I also have some other titles, Dreams of Africa and Japanese Backbeat. Now I just need to write some more songs.

It is hard to believe that I have been at Sandhill for a whole week now. Days seem to flow together in the endless drum of work and sleep. There are no days off at Sandhill, but I can also take a break when ever I need to. So far I haven’t felt the need to just not work. I know if I put it off I will have to do it later so it is best to just get it done and take a nice break afterwords.

My first day I spent cleaning my room and settling myself in. It didn’t take long until my room felt like my room. The next day we had a bee workshop and I spent the whole day learning about bees. It was awesome. I learned enough to get started on my own bees when I get home, though it will take years before I would feel comfortable with them. Working with any type of critter is just a whole different kind of experience.

The rest of the week blurred into several days of potatoes and the planting therein. I have also mulched berries and canned sorghum. In between we have been cleaning house/s and I have taken on the duties of cleaning the building space that I live in, the sugar shack.

The sugar shack is where they do all the processing for sorghum, honey and maple syrup. Right now it smells like a bee hive, which is a pleasant sweat earthy smell. The building is off the beaten path a little and away from the other residence buildings. This gives me a nice sense of privacy and a lot of quiet which is nice. I have gotten so used to living on my own that I couldn’t imagine living with a lot of other people around me.

It has been a good week at Sandhill. Work is new and exciting and I am meeting a lot of new people.

Over the last few weeks at home it seems that I have been fed a bit of creativity. I never complain when these hit, I just try to use them as best that I can. In fact they generally make me really happy. It is like a piece of me needs to just come out and see what is going on. “Hello world, look at me!!!”

It has led to a couple of songs! This seems to happen. I will have a really intense period of writing and then a quiet spell for months or up to a year. I have to give my friend Ryan credit for the first song. He was trying to make fun of me, but I took what he said and ran with. Ten minutes later a had a song written and ready to go. I have been polishing it today. Hopefully I can get it memorized soon.

The second song came last night. I had both a really good day and a really bad day. It is strange how that can happen. Anyway, I was playing music with dad and I was messing around in drop D. I just started thinking about Salem and the Underground Railroad and I felt compelled to do a song about it. The next thing I knew I was free styling lyrics. Afterward I wrote down what I could remember but I probably lost have of my good lines. I have been working on it today and it is now a playable song. I will probably do some more finishing touches as time goes by but I am fairly pleased with it at the moment.

My favorite songs are the ones that I rarely have to work on. They just come out spontaneously.  They feel natural while the other ones feel forced when ever I try to play them. I don’t know if people could tell the difference or not, but I sure can.

Well I made it back safe and have been enjoying myself on the farm. The weather couldn’t be better and spring has come mighty early. We will see if it stays warm or not.

The flowers in the timber are amazing in the spring. They cover the ground floor in white and purple and bloom in succession for well over a month. It smells like home and green. I can’t really describe it well.

I have a hard time writing much when I am home. I just never feel the need to so I won’t be updating much until I get to Sandhill. I will try to update about once a week, but it could be more or less. (My guess is it will be less.)

My internet will be shut off tomorrow at some point so I won’t be posting anything for a while. I will still be checking my e-mail in town in case of emergencies but other than that I am disconnecting from the web. I hope to continue that at home. The internet is a wonderful tool for me, but like TV it should only be used in moderation.

I have been slowing down my posting over the last couple of weeks and I plan to move to a more weekly schedule, or even twice monthly. Hopefully the posts will be a little more thought out than my previous ones. I will try to stay updated on my current events though, especially all that will be happening this spring.

My my last day of work has come and gone, and while I am sad to say good bye to my students and fellow teachers, I am very happy to be done with teaching for the moment. Teaching is a lot of fun, but it is also exhausting. I came away almost everyday drained and tired. That means that I put my all into what I was doing, which made me a fairly decent teacher I believe, but I didn’t have enough time to recuperate. By the end of the week I would wake and drag myself out of bed. Not because I hated what I was doing, but because I was still tired and wanted more sleep.

Some people are gifted with boundless energy. Some people can feed of the energy of others. I draw my energy from myself. I can get a boost from an energetic class, but only while I am around the kids. As soon as it ends I crash. On friday I got out of class and shamelessly fell asleep in a chair in the teacher’s room. A lot of time all I need is that nap. When I woke up a half hour later I was ready to go and play again. I just needed that time to recharge.

It has been a great time. I have learned that I do love to teach, but I want to do it on my own terms and by my own schedule. I somehow need to figure out how I can teach Yoga part time and work with trees on the farm. If I can do that than I could perhaps have found a little heaven on earth. So that is what I am working on right now.

Today is my last day of teaching Yoga here in Japan. I asked my students if they wanted to have a party or do yoga. They all said they wanted to do Yoga. That made me ridiculously happy. It seems most everyone’s favorite pose is happy baby pose. I could speculate as to why that is, but I will let your imagination fill it in. It will be hard to say good bye to my Yoga students. I feel bad leaving them without a teacher. I hope they continue on their own or move over to the Tai Style Yoga class on friday.

Wednesday will be hard as well. It is my last music night in Miyako. I have had a great time playing with the Ramblers and my voice has noticeably improved over the last year. I am starting to find my own voice, the one that is unique to everyone. I will keep singing until I have it down and being the lead singer in a band has been invaluable to me. In some ways it will be the hardest to say good bye to the Ramblers. They are like family to me.

I have been a bit hesitant lately to write much after my last debacle. For a while I was posting changes/feelings and everything under the sun every single day. I feel like I was taking it too far so I have scaled back to safer things like dreams. Last nights dreams were wild though and I would not post them on the internet for casual reading.

I am waiting right now before I report in detail on my health and my sleeping patterns. In short they are slowly improving. I don’t want to say much more than that in case something horrible happens. I find that if I report one day that things are fine, than the next day they will go to hell and then I will feel like a liar. That makes me feel worse.

Mostly though I just spent to much time obsessing about myself and it’s every detail and not really enjoying life very much. I have said that before so I will leave it at that.

I really like food and I missed it greatly.

I just watched the movie Where the wild things are and I was thoroughly impressed.

The sound track was really well done. The acting was fantastic and the special effects were perfect. I don’t know how they did what they did but it was fantastic. It felt like I had walked into one of my own dreams.

It really makes you think about the different aspects of yourself and how you confront those or how you ignore them. It is a great way to illustrate the need of each person to sit back and see what they are doing and how they affect other people.

I think this is a great movie about childhood and what it means to really grow up. In such a short time you can really watch the kid mature as he sees the consequences of his actions.

I also think this is a great children’s movie. It has adventure, imagination and danger. More importantly it was smart, mind blowingly so. If you haven’t seen it already then I would recommend it. I wish they had more children’s movies at this level.