Category: belief

Middle School Band Performance

November 26th, 2019

Parents

in camo and pajamas

reeking of cigarettes

and marijuana

and hard work

and BO

at the 7^th and 8^th grade show.

A bunch of kids

playing instruments

for people

that don’t really care.

Moms and Dads

swiping phone screens

talking

not giving a shit about anything

because they confuse being present

with parenting.

I wait for my boy to pound sticks against skin

as people return

again and again

to the spaghetti line

the ice cream line

the soft drinks line

and all I can feel is how much I love

being Dad

when I see him

doing this simple thing.

Making music

without knowing it

getting his insides out

in the middle of this

bullshit.
Been Here Before

July 27th, 2019

July 17, 2019

8:26 am

We are citizens of the Universe. Feeling like we’ve been here before.

Energy waves. Vibration. Attracting and repelling other energy.

It’s difficult to remain connected—centered, but even more challenging to rediscover connection once it’s been lost because this existence requires a measured amount of disconnect to function.

The great trick is learning how to disconnect without becoming desensitized. To take that leap of faith that propels you beyond what you know.

Maybe it’s a new job.

Taking a different route to work.

Or forcing yourself into an uncomfortable situation.

Whatever it is, you’re never sure in the moment, but recognize it once it has passed because you feel regret for not letting go and allowing the Universe to take control.

Why are we so afraid of giving up?

So content with comfort?

Stuck in this perpetual return. Die. Come back. Die. Come back. We die again and again and again. So tied to the fears of this physical world that we’re unable to break free and simply be.

And so, we are left with fleeting instances of déjà vu.

~ KJ
magic stuff

December 3rd, 2018

December 3, 2018

We’ve got the cold wrapping up all around us. It’s time for long johns, parkas, and insulated boots. Trekking through snow and slush. Penguin-stepping over ice. Or dodging puddles. It is Michigan, after all. Twenty-seven degrees right now at 7:32 pm but it could be 45 by tomorrow morning. Even with all the gadgetry, computer models, and confident weathermen and women, we never know what we’re gonna get. We can predict and assume, extrapolate and forecast all we want, but the truth is we just don’t know. Try as we might to make sense of this world, there are factors—magic stuff, I like to think—beyond our reach, our science, and our beliefs. But that’s just me. Forty-five years old and realizing more and more each day how little I understand and know.

~ K.J.
the never end

October 4th, 2018

I lifted the cat and hugged her.

Even though she’s shit on our bedroom floor and I stepped in it twice.

Barefoot.

Once, as I clomped my way to the john in the dark. Bladder so full of vodka, Sprite, and water that I thought I’d never go back to bed.

The other, a weird moment when I was here, but there–a man dead, but alive–dreaming but awake. It woke me, but instead of cleaning it up I sat on the floor listening to my wife snore.

And I loved her more than I did the day I said I do.

There are more moments like this than I like to admit.

Broken plans.

Wayward dreams.

An intense belief that ghosts do not only exist but push day-after-day to remind us of how quickly this life ends.

But I don’t believe them.

I can’t.

There are cats to hug.

There’s shit to clean up.

And those hands sweeping round silently never ever end.

~ K.J.
understand

October 2nd, 2018

I have many faults.

I’m impatient. Lack discipline.

I’m too lazy to understand

our differences.

And so,

I get stuck

in deep ruts.

My wheels spin.

I create paranoia.

Make problems that don’t exist.

Because I’m bored.

Like a coyote in a cage.

Running back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.

Again.

I don’t stretch beyond what I know, so I do what I’ve been doing all along.

Dying without ideas.

Even if it’s wrong.

Because it is easier to reject the unknown than it is to understand.

~ K.J.
ticking

September 25th, 2018

(this is a work of fiction)

Getting too old for these crazy things.

Polishing off a bottle of wine at 10:14 pm, well after the kids have gone to bed.

Too locked into the norm to believe I can write with the best of them—Stephen King, Margaret Attwood, the writers for Ozark.

But I have time left.

It is ticking.

I hear it sometimes over the ringing and clicking and voices, as I waver between the now I’m dissatisfied with and the tomorrow I want. Well aware of the colossal mistakes I’ve made.

Ignorance. Stupidity. Hatred. Foolishness.

Simply being unaware of the power we hold and should honor as living things.

I’ve written lots of stories.

A few poems.

And I have plenty of journal entries that will need to be burned before they are read by anybody but my wife and my kids.

They already know how flawed I am.

Mood swings.

A tendency to drift off from the moment.

“It’s like you’re never really here,” my wife said to me one night.

We were eating dinner and having drinks at The Courtyard.

I had been out of the hospital about a week. We had some extra money—somehow, I managed to save—and so, we were celebrating. I was alive. I wasn’t in jail. And now that I had come back from the dead, I was seeing things.

It started with the all-too-familiar feeling of somebody over my shoulder, watching me.

Then it escalated.

I was seeing bits and pieces. Moments of lives that weren’t mine. The woman in front of me in the checkout line at Walmart. Her husband dead, but right there beside her, encouraging her not to buy the brisket. He’d eaten too much meat. Year after year after year. And now, because of an exploded heart, he was dead.

It moved on to others.

The girl working at Dairy Queen making cones and sundaes and Blizzards, all while her Grandma that died of throat cancer stood beside her.

Coworkers at the coffee pot. Their dead relatives hovering.

And family…oh, the family.

But oddly enough, the people closest to me didn’t want to hear.

Except my wife.

She wanted to know everything.

And so, I told her.

Every time I sensed a something, I shared it. But the more a person entertains certain thoughts, the more those thoughts come alive.

They begin to kick and scream. They want to be seen.

Heard.

Understood.

And when a man is expected to understand the more of everything that waits patiently below the surface, he begins to realize…

He’s too old for crazy things.

Like wine at 10:38 pm. Well after his wife and kids have gone to bed, and he is certain he’ll never be able to write with the best of them because there isn’t much time left.

And it has been ticking.

Barely perceptible over the ringing and clicking and voices.

Just another man. Wavering between the now I’m dissatisfied with and the tomorrow I want. Well aware of all the colossal mistakes I’ve made.

~ K.J.
bull run

August 23rd, 2018

It’s a strange trip. Buying the dips. Waiting. Patiently. For the bulls to run. I hope it’s soon. I want to be able to help as many as I should. Not with these little words or necessary acts of kindness—though those will never stop—but with cold hard cash. I want to set up my kids. Pay off our bills. Make sure my parents and in-laws are set. People that have worked their whole lives shouldn’t have to worry about healthcare, where they are going to live, or buying groceries.

How in the hell we ever let it get this way is beyond me.

I am going to donate.

I am going to create.

I am going to travel and learn and listen so that I can get better at detecting the bullshit, discovering the problems, and developing solutions. I will not be about dividing. I will not be about separating. I will unite and fight and never lose sight of where I came from.

There will never be anybody in my back pocket or sitting on my shoulder telling me what to do. I don’t need that. I know right from wrong. I see the aches and pains. And when the stampede finally comes, I’ll be ready. Hands out, reaching. Ready to give as much as I can. Away.

I will wake early. I will read more. I will write more. I will walk more. Think more. Talk more. I will find the deepest rabbit holes. I will scour the surface. I will be the eccentric fella in the big old house with the pretty wife and energetic kids.

I guess you could say I’ll be me. Just the same as I am now, but with more resources to help the world.

It’s nice to dream.

To not think about the bad. To focus on the good.

And when I get like this, I feel strongly that everyone has the power to change. To rise up. To be better.

You just have to embrace this strange trip. Buy the dips and wait. Patiently. For the bulls to run.

~ K.J.
Exploration

October 21st, 2017

We have these great beautiful minds and souls to explore and a whole life to do it. And yet, we shy away or flat out refuse opportunities to open up and learn. We subscribe to someone else’s beliefs. We fulfill expectations that aren’t our own. We pull away, opt for comfort and safety, and slowly lose the ability to think and feel and understand our parts in this spectacular experience.

Rise up. Move beyond boundaries.

Question everything, especially that which you’ve learned.
Maybe you’re not right after all.

– K.J.
church doughnuts

July 30th, 2017

This morning is a good one. It’s going to be another beautiful summer day in Alpena, Michigan. Clear sky, probably high 70s. Little to no wind. Except for cars passing down 2^nd Avenue every so often and crows cawing and heckling a few blocks over, all is quiet in the neighborhood.

Julian gassed up with Cocoa Krispies and half an hour of cartoons. He threw on clean underwear, the same shirt and shorts from yesterday, brushed his teeth, and ran out the front door to meet Gary, his mentor from church. They are in charge of purchasing doughnuts and treats and setting up the snack table for the devoted congregation.

Jovi got up, made herself a fried egg and toast, and dressed in her Sunday best—something colorful and not-matching, with beads and butterflies, and purple streaks in her white blonde hair. Nana and Papa picked her up so they can meet Julian, eat doughnuts, and attend the beautiful outdoor service.

The church is First United Methodist. My kids enjoy it. They go early and stay late to help with chores. They attend youth group, bible camp, and participate in whatever they can. They like the snacks, the library, the arts and crafts, hot cocoa, socializing with other kids, and spending time with their grandparents.

I’m no fan of church. It’s spooky. Thankfully, my kids are young enough so that they’re only interested in the surface stuff. They latch onto the love and tolerance and WWJ, but I think they’ve both got pretty good built-in bullshit detectors that soon enough things will start to stink and they’ll figure out that church isn’t necessary. That spirituality is beyond archaic, guilt-ridden messages, stained glass windows, and passing around a plate. That the love preached is not the same as the real love that grows from experiences at their fingertips, under their feet, in their heartbeats, thoughts, and dreams. That the real God probably prefers them getting out and doing on Sunday mornings—on every morning—rather than sitting and listening. The same messages hammered out over and over and over again. An old way of thinking disguised as new, still trying to send spirits backwards rather than encouraging true progress. The church’s filter stifling individuality and encouraging judgmental behavior by the sheer notion that one is not to judge.

But there I go. Preaching again when there’s shit to do.

I hope my kids are enjoying the doughnuts. That they’re watching seagulls float atop the waves. Listening to the water against the shore. Feeling the sunlight from the baby blue sky as ants in the grass carry crumbs and candy sprinkles to their colony.

~ K.J.
and tonight, there is this

May 22nd, 2017

He’s lost it a little. That something that pushed and pushed and pushed him. It was light. But there was deep darkness too. Days did not end or begin. They only moved seamlessly one into another. And now that he is full and filling out—heavier, slower, more patient with the world—he has so much of what he needs that wanting—feeling the urge to fight, fuck, and be free—seems selfish. Silly. Desire, he believes, is something for youth. And his youth is fading. Things are not as tight. Steady. As dependable and strong. He does not get and cannot take what he wants because his job is to be giving. To do whatever it takes for his family to be happy, healthy, safe. And though he finds great satisfaction in giving them a better life than he had as a kid—a better life than he, himself, now deserves—he wonders sometimes if he’ll ever get it back. If he’s lost it at all.

Maybe it’s in the river.

He thought this tonight as he and his wife spent the one hour they had without kids walking around the old town that he has loved and hated for so long.

“You want to stop in at The Lau for a drink,” she asked.

“No,” he said, and looked up at the sky that was moving quickly from light to dark. “We only have half an hour left, and you say you never get to walk the North Side.”

“Are you sure?”

He wasn’t. Never is. What is there to be sure about in this life, except for love?

For you wife.

Your kids.

Your family.

A few friends.

“I’m sure,” he said.

And so, instead of drinking, they walked. And walked. Past the Lau, St. Mary’s Parish, and up Miller Street. Past shitty old houses. The dead bakery. And around the skate park, where kids—just fucking kids—sat, stood, skated, rode bikes, and smoked cigarettes. He wanted to walk over and slap each and every one of them. Knock sense in and smoke out. But there was no slapping, no fighting, no anything. They crossed the Ninth Avenue Bridge, and for a moment he thought of Aden and Jake. His two friends from the only decent story he had ever written. People he made so much like and so much unlike himself that he considered them his first kids.

Until he had kids.

And as he and his wife crossed over the dark water and he thought of what it was like to lose Jake—just a character that he conceived in a book that nobody reads—he could not bear the thought of ever losing his real kids. His wife. The reason he gets up every day, puts one foot in front of the other, and does what’s necessary to keep a good, solid roof over their heads. And as he peered down into the swirling depths, he began to feel better.

It has only been a bad day, he thought. One bad one in a string of good ones. It is true that I don’t have the time I used to have. That I am not the man I had believed I would be, but even my bad days are good. And time, as evident as it appears in the passing from day to night, is seamless. There is hope. A possibility.

He may have lost a little, but he has gained a lot. He is full and patient. And he is still learning how important it is to not worry about what he wants, but to be thankful for what he can give.

And tonight, there is this.

~ K.J.