Category: Hope

nice or not

April 10th, 2019
nice or not Download

It’s so early, but so late.

I wouldn’t have this perspective if I’d had more to eat or less to drink. Nothing would make sense, and these words would not fall into place like this had I not gone through all that I have in my life.

And I haven’t gone through much.

At least that’s what they tell me.

I am after all, white.

And male.

And semi-privileged. Which means my parents worked their asses off to make sure I had what I needed to succeed—food, shelter, and an insurmountable amount of love.

But I don’t want to get into the haves and have nots. I did that once before—writing about riots and the poor decisions people make when they are oppressed and frustrated—and a woman said that she felt sorry for me. I didn’t understand, she said. I couldn’t understand, she said. I was ignorant, she said. All because I mentioned that the issues we have can be boiled down to something simple—you’re either nice or you’re not.

My kids get it. Other kids get it too. They don’t see color or history or gender or whatever other labels we do. They just see good. Unless their parents have poisoned them. Making them see what they want them to.

You know who you are. Devils.

We do everything we can to complicate this life. Create issues that don’t exist. Blame people for their ignorance and try to push them into some category that says—indirectly, of course—that they are less than others.

But that’s not true.

The overweight fella collecting carts at Walmart is not all the different from the man loading his cart with organic veggies, cage free eggs, protein shakes, and booze.

The elderly man offering savings in the form of a coupon-filled flier at the entrance of Meijer is not so different than the lawyer and his family buying candles, chocolate, and video games.

We are all in this together.

Human beings on a big ball of dirt and water whirling through space.

But we don’t want to break down to the basics.

We want to be special. To be heard.

We are so selfish that we believe it’s early, but late.

We believe that our perspective has the power to shape. That if we have less to eat or more to drink everything will make sense. Words will fall into place and finally we will express all we’ve gone through in this life.

We are ignorant, they say. All because we believe the issues we face can be boiled down simplicity—either you’re nice or you’re not.
- 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.
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.
the mightiest of wolves

September 17th, 2018

Not many men write at night.

After wives and kids have gone to bed.

Those that do, I suspect, have pain. Or boundless energy. Or are so narcissistic that they don’t know any better.

Dan Rather says, somewhere in his new book—and I’m paraphrasing here—that we shouldn’t feel sorry for people. Instead, we need to empathize. Seek to understand. Extend our hand, reach, and bring people closer.

Together.

Because when we are close—just sharing space—there is always the great chance that we will find our commonality. Create community. And unite.

But what Dan Rather has to say, and what I have to say means nothing if you are unable to recognize that most of what you know isn’t yours. It was put into your head, as truth, by somebody else.

You have been taught to believe in God, taxes, and Santa Claus. You have been taught to tie your shoelaces, turn the other cheek, and to stand at attention for the flag.

It’s a shame really. How easily we are duped. Shamed. Made to fit into sheep’s clothing when we are the mightiest of wolves.

Aching to howl.

Barefoot and ready to fight.

Fearless, as we kneel and allow our enemies to take the first shot.

~ K.J.
something unsavory

August 20th, 2018

I don’t want to let things roll off my back. I want to react. To feel, to fight, to see, and believe. I don’t want to be in the background waiting my turn. I don’t want to stand by and listen as the ignorant and selfish try to pull us down and backward. I want to move forward. To progress and learn. To change and be challenged. I’ve been working hard for far too long to fall into step and follow someone else’s lead. Too much time has passed, and my path is deep in the making.

There’s a couple of lines in my mind tonight. From a movie called The Switch. Jason Bateman and Jeff Goldblum are talking, and Jeff has this wonderful, truthful line about what drives a man sometimes.

It goes something like this: “I’ve told you about hungry dogs in the cellar. You know, if you don’t feed them, don’t acknowledge them, at some point they’re gonna get out somehow and do something unsavory.”

I felt like that this evening. Sitting on the couch. Enjoying a little TV time with my wife and kids. Happy to be home and together and relaxing, but at the same time teetering. Feeling that I just needed to get out. Get away. Have a little time by myself to decompress, unwind, get centered again. There are times, for whatever reason, that a man doesn’t feel appreciated. That he doesn’t feel wanted. That he feels absolutely alone even when he is in the best company he’ll ever keep. I don’t know why it happens. I can never predict when it will happen. But it does. And then, I get all twisted up and stupid because I feel guilty for feeling. I feel bad for not wanting to sit and smile and be Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky. After all, the moments I have with my wife and kids will never be repeated.

Not in dream. Memory. Not even in the afterlife. This is it. All we’ll ever have.

But I have to remember that there’s a me in all of this. In all we have. And maybe it’s not a bad thing to get away sometimes. Half an hour in a hot upstairs writing room. Cup of wine. Fingers on the keys. Little bits of inspiration all around me—family pictures, books waiting to be read, an old Woodstock typewriter and all of its ghosts, haunting me. Hunting and pecking or typing in a mad rush of fluidity. Strangers all around that I hear but can’t see.

Maybe it’s best I let it all roll off my back. I shouldn’t react or feel or fight or see. I just need to believe that patience is the key and that waiting silently in the background is as brave as a man can be.

Sooner or later, I’ll get my chance to move forward. To progress and learn. To change and be challenged. And when I do, I’ll do whatever I can to make my own path and take the lead.

~ K.J.
Kids, look up.

August 18th, 2018

8/18/18—For my kids.

You gotta look up. Look forward. At the sky. If you stare too much at the ground beneath your feet, you miss out. On smiling strangers. Monarchs bouncing through the air. Clouds that look like animals. Maybe something from last night’s dream.

It’s easy to miss out on opportunity, to put your tail between your legs and mosey along meekly if you are not observing, listening, open for more. Don’t be afraid of getting hurt, losing your way, or failing. Mistakes are for learning. Those that don’t understand that, those focused on perfection, are the most flawed of all. But don’t hold them in poor regard or avoid them. Embrace them. Empathize.

Saturday morning bells from the church down the street. It’s nine a.m. and counting. Seconds to minutes, minutes to hours, hours to weeks and months to…

Is there any time at all? What’s this insatiable desire we have with putting numbers to everything? Clocks and codes. Sizes and calorie count. Weight and height. Cell phone numbers, serial numbers, social security numbers, and those most wanted numbers of all—those that land on our paychecks. How did we get so brainwashed? So controlled.

Ever think about how hard it is to think for yourself? Probably not. Isn’t that part of our problem? We have this magnificent existence with heart and brain and gut and spirit, yet we give it up without much care if it means we will meet someone’s approval. Kind words. A compliment. Our name on a plaque, respected in meetings, or put down in black-and-white print. Shouldn’t the one thing we simply need be our own approval? A recognition earned when we finally find the way to live within the many fibers of this daily existence without losing our happiness.

Some people don’t understand that, and never will. But give them the benefit of the doubt.

It is possible to be a devoted husband and dad but speak honestly about the trials, oddities, and outright foolishness of marriage and family. It’s possible to be best friends if you accept each other’s ugliness. A person can be an excellent employee for a gas station, a non-profit, or a billion-dollar company day-in-and-day-out while questioning capitalism, the thirst for oil, and voting whatever way they damn well please. And a person can do these things while being an artist, an engineer, an entomologist, a doctor, a dreamer, or a drummer in a band. Don’t get caught up in the game the world plays at pitting one side against the other, and don’t look down on others. We are meant to be multidimensional. We are meant to question and learn and share and think and feel. We aren’t here for anybody else, but us. And the trick is that everybody else and everything we do helps make us…well, US.

You can be one thing to one person and another thing to another. And you can do both of them well. Don’t get pigeonholed. Don’t ever become someone’s bitch, even if you have to play the role for a while. That’s what this life is about. Playing roles. Doing what it takes through the art of compromise a little here and a little there without totally compromising the fiber of your being. Remember, it’s quite all right to bend—just never, ever break.

You gotta look up, kids. Look forward. At the sky. If you stare too much at the ground beneath your feet, you’ll miss out. On smiling strangers. Monarchs bouncing through the air. Clouds that look like animals. Maybe something from last night’s dream.

~ K.J
we’d never do that

February 21st, 2018

Everyone suddenly knows what it is that drives a young man to arm himself with a weapon and extinguish light.

Driven by their own beliefs, agendas, and experience, they label, pigeon-hole, and validate. Nobody seems to consider that perhaps all of it is more complicated than what we read and hear and see. We want so much to make sense of it, to understand and control it, that we do all that we can to simplify it.

After all, we have kids. We want them safe. We are good, God-fearing folks, and we believe most definitely that there’s a right and a wrong. That it is good or evil, black or white, left or right.

But maybe that’s the problem.

We spend so much time pushing people into places we think they belong that we forget.

We’re animals.

Sleeping and waking and working and faking. Doing whatever it takes to survive.

And when we are cornered, afraid of what may become of us and everything we believe to be true and right and just, we bite. We fight. We lie and cheat and steal and walk into schools with weapons wanting to kill those sacred, beautiful things we once had—innocence, possibility, dreams—all because we’re afraid that life as we know it is being destroyed by the OTHERS. The liberals, the conservatives, the waffling wimps in the middle, the whites, the aliens, the blacks.

It’s always somebody else’s fault.

The immigrants. The corporations. The lazy bastards at home milking the system.

It’s never us.

We’d never do that.

Ever.

~ KJ
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.
watch me

June 19th, 2017

I know night when there is no time tick, tick, tocking and all of our efforts are fading.

So sometimes I listen to music in the dark.

Bon Iver’s Blood Bank or Manchester Orchestra’s April Fool. Maybe even Eddie Vedder driftin’, driftin’ away.

But it only makes me remember that I have a secret I don’t know how to tell.

We do it because we are bigger than this. Because we have everything and because when we are surrounded by those we know and trust and love, we are alone.

We know tired. It simply becomes the norm. And we know more than most, that we have everything. That life does not need to be better. That it never gets easier. And we believe in God—the place we came from—because it’s in our daughter’s eyes, our son’s smile, and the buzz of hummingbird wings.

There’s no getting out of this. But sometimes, we look at the clock to see if it’s time.

But it’s not.

And never is.

I have to be patient. And fine. And better.

Modigliani’s long-necked ladies watch.

Snoopy taps the typewriter keys.

And goddammit, I’m sure everyone has had this—a dark, stormy night—but I can’t let it get to me.

There isn’t a noose that’ll hold me. A bullet that can hit the spot. And I’ve been in darkness deep enough to know it’s not strong enough to pull me under.

We all know I’ll always rise to the top, break the surface, and breathe.

Just give me a chance.

Watch me.

~ K.J.
last day of February

March 2nd, 2017

artwork by Brooke Stevens – www.horsefeathersartstudio.com

A man stands outside in pajama pants and a hoodie, while the yellow dog sniffs undisturbed snow under the weighty boughs of the sleeping evergreens. And the fuzzy stars shine. Stuck in the middle of fading in, or fading out, and it’s another night of unsettling silence in a Michigan winter that shows no sign of mercy.

Invisible fingers are reaching—touching deep—penetrating his skin. Squeezing with all their icy might to grip, hold tight, and shatter the bones within.

He feels the crack coming. Is aware that this reckless life has filled his fibers with fissures that cannot be repaired. But he believes enough in silly things—like true love, grace under pressure, and finding god on his own—that he musters enough strength each night to fight for dreams that leave him hopeful each morning. And so, he is able to swing his feet over the edge of the bed, put one foot in front of the other, and create meaning in his messy existence and he is able to savor the sweetest things.

Like staring up into the dark blue sky. Getting lost in an instant of bright movement. Brilliant motion that shifts the plates and shakes the core. Makes the warmth rise up inside so that the spirit tingles, and the touch of the dog’s cold nose on his hand gives him the sensation that he’s taking his first breath. That he has been given another chance. To be better and stronger. To live again as if all of this is unfamiliar and new.

~ k.j.