The Story behind France

Elias Gaines was a man of few words and fewer faults. Naturally, as a farmer, the idea of wasting energy in fruitless ventures was akin to wasting energy in slothful languish. Elias Gaines did much of what any farmer did, he woke with the sun, worked himself to the quick, and went to bed as the sun did.

His good wife, Amelia, cared very much for him, often working herself through the house just as hard as Elias did in the fields. Yet no matter how hard she worked, she could never keep up. Even as a young newly wedded bride, she could feel the dark shudders of cold much harder than they ever could have been. When she passed, Elias found her laying in the pantry.

Elias never really talked much before his wife passed and after, his lips remained just as welded shut as they had been if not more so. He went about the chores as usual, he went about his life as usual, and yet rarely did he spend time at the pub. Rarely did he spend time at church in spite of Father Logan’s insistence. Rarely did Elias receive mail, but when he did, it was always packages from France.

While post from France was hardly news worthy, it was for a small farming town in Texas. He never said much when he picked his mail up from the post office but simply smiled. Each package was a small smile, a gift to grace us from the hard, sun-scorched skin of the old farmer. His aged, callous, and worry-worn hands gripping the edges of the packages. Fingers inspecting the edges for damage, identifying any faults in the surface, and when satisfied, he would always nod and thank us, thank the world for his gift. It was always a strange moment when he left the room with his package. It was as if we had missed some strange joke that the old man had played on us.

It was rumored that the packages were letters from some long-lost love. Gifts from a French gendarme who he saved the life of in the trenches at the Somme was another story. Another story was each package was a painting from a French artist he patronizing.

Each story, although riveting, was far from the truth. The truth was far less interesting, far more mundane, and when that truth came out, the townsfolk could only nod and smile.

Every day, after tending the fields, fixing his tools, going into town, making dinner, and after finally kicking off his boots Elias sat in his living room and listened to the sound of Mozart. His antique phonograph softly filling that old farm house with the sound of masterful violins, enchanting piano, and the gentle notes of woodwinds that floated from across the sea into Elias’ eager and overjoyed ears. Each night he would choose from his collection, choose a master of music and enjoy their craft to their fullest extent. Handel, Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Schubert, Brahms, Debussy, Tchaikovsky. A wall of his house had grown fat with their collected works, shelves packed to sagging with vinyl records for his enjoyment, and enjoy them Elias did.

Elias passed with a soft smile at his lips and his record player skipping on the last line of Chopin. His house filled with the crackle of the needle, covered in dust from France and Texas, and yet still, this farmhouse might have rivaled the grandest of conservatories.

The Fruit of Wisdom

 As Summer grows ever closer, the world seems to grow a little less clever, a little less wise, and in that I think there is a true loss. It’s tough to imagine, but you can be wrong. You can make that mistake, you can make many mistakes, but if you learn nothing from your mistakes, then you’ve wasted a perfectly good opportunity to learn.

Most of my students have yet to learn this, even as they look forward to graduating in just a few short weeks. We’ve created humans who cannot learn from their own mistakes let alone, too scared to try for fear of looking foolish, and worse yet, too scared of getting the wrong answer when that’s the only way to learn. Yes, I too hesitate to admit that I am wrong, but since becoming a teacher, I can proudly say that I can make light of my mistake and use it as a teaching moment.

For those of you who need it, “the greatest masters have made mistakes, the worst students have made none.”



The Language of Wisdom has been and always will be written in mistakes and lessons. Each and every blunder, misstep, miscalculation, error and failure is a moment in time in which a seed has been planted. That seed is from the Fruit of Wisdom, it takes time to grow, time to cultivate, and time to harvest, but that first taste is often the sweetest after many bitter failures. No one tends their own farms alone, often, we begin with help from others. Help from those who came before us. Help from the lessons they spent their lives cultivating into fruit bearing trees.

“Never run with scissors.”

 

“Fire is hot.”

 

“A Bad Moment does not make a Bad Day.”

 

"Look both ways before crossing a street."

 

“You are the only one who can change who you are.”

 

“Manners maketh the man (or woman).”

 

“Your journey is different from everyone else’s.”

These lessons are older than you can imagine, each holding some truth, each a fruit of wisdom that has been planted since long before you were born, and yet they still taste just as sweet. Even as you work hard, making your own mistakes, planting your own seeds, tilling your own soil, these lessons are there.

All these lessons, each and every iota of them are all from the seeds of wisdom that others have already planted, already cultivated, and have given to you to taste on your own. So, eat your fill, but never forget to plant. Never forget to learn your own lessons from your own mistakes, never forget your own truths.

On Old Journals and New Beginnings (a.k.a. Illustrations of Frustrations)

 It's always interesting cleaning up your room and finding old toys and old bits and baubles from your childhood. You always think, "Wow! I haven't seen this in forever!"

Naturally, the inevitable happens shortly after that. You start to lose yourself in those memories, you start to think about where you were, who you were when you first experienced that object. It's funny how desire to make something can slowly be twisted and warped as you grow away from that person you used to be. Looking at this blog, I can only help but laugh as I remember how proud I was that I was able to produce writing for it, and then I started to slow down on writing, slow down posting. One week went by, then another, then a month, and before I knew it. It had been EIGHT years since I last posted on this blog.

I want to rectify that.

So, if I can, I'd like to turn this into a project that I'll finally keep up with. I want to post at least one thing a month to this blog. One short story, one poem, just one thing that keeps it from being another forgotten thing in a closet.

And so, without further ado, here is that one thing.

Illustrations of Frustrations

 To say that I was frustrated would have truly been a lie. I was not merely frustrated, I was immensely frustrated. I was that feeling of anger and annoyance swirling within the confines of your mind as you struggled seemingly uselessly against some invisible wall all to accomplish a task that leads only to more tasks with more walls. I was that sense of hopelessness that still held onto that prideful vanity of "it's gotta work this time" and yet even deep down, regardless of whatever minute detail I change, I'll still fail.

 I was not frustrated. I was irrationally frustrated. Not to say that my frustration was irrational, but rather that my frustration made me irrational. I punched my thigh as hard as I could to physically manifest my frustrations. I cursed my inability, I flagulated my emotional flesh to drive home my frustrations, and still it did nothing to help me or my frustrations. The pain still hurt, the emotional damage never healed, and still I blame myself for my frustrations.

I was not frustrated. I was inconsolably distraught. Like some kitten on a row boat in a storm, there was no place for me to hide. Instead, I simply forced myself to claw at my frustrations weakly and without any real ability to damage them. My body tossed about, leaving me with no foothold to steady myself, to give me leverage to right myself and to give me a fighting chance. I was at the tumultuous seas whims.

 I was not frustrated. Because frustrated would imply that I could accomplish the task but was simply without the skill or the equipment or luck to do so, of which I had none of those to rely on. I struggled uselessly like a fish in a net, I was already caught by my own intense desire to be successful that I resigned myself to do or die. DO or DIE as if it were a choice that I could so easily make as I hammered and bashed and pounded and pulled and pushed and heaved and cried and wept and pleaded and begged. Still, I cannot say I was frustrated, because it was so much more than that.

I was not frustrated.

Scrap: I Need to Die

Well, this is obviously the culmination of boredom and a writing prompt I found on the internet, and not a cry for help at all. Don't worry, the title just seemed to fit much better than: "Old Man", which might've been even more distressing...Anyways! The prompt asked the question: "When would it be okay to be happy to die?" At first I thought, "Well, Cancer patients... Long term illness", but then the idea came into my head,  "What if God was trapped on Earth in a human body? Who could he tell? Who would really believe an old man who just popped up into the world with not even a cent to his name?"

This is the culmination of my efforts and spontaneously decent ideas! Short, sweet, and simple. ENJOY!

"I can no longer remember. I used to be somebody, a soldier I think, or maybe a newspaper man, or even a judge... I just know I was very important and wore a uniform. My name? I can't really remember, just... Please... I need to die."

That was all the man repeated, that was all he ever repeated during his interviews, but he was still locked up in the seventh cell of the St. Michael's Hospital for the Mentally Ill in the Alpha wing. It was quite humorous to Doctor Henry Davids, it was almost like the man was begging to die, and while as a youthful intern working his first "Psych rotation" at Boston General he had toyed with the idea of euthanasia. Assisted suicide, it was still called back then, it would be more appropriately called "Murder" now, but since the man was not in pain it neither compelled Dr. Davids to actually do anything about it. The man  after all was brought in after being found stone drunk in the middle of interstate with only a white robe on. The damned thing was the only clean thing about him, the rest of him was dirty, bruised, some spots sported sores, but all of it pointed to things such as Disassociation Disorder or Alcoholism. The man was quite old though, remarkably in great health, and was spirited for an old man. His gray eyes always frittering about, telling stories from the Bible, Koran, the Tanakh, and even a few lines from the Tao Te Ching, and a few other books of great philosophies, but other than that, the old man was forgetful.

Everyday he would wake up before the sun came up, he would stare out the small, barred, glass window, and the moment the orderly came to open the door he would turn and ask the same question, "Is today the day I die?"

He would go about the day, smiling warmly to the other patients, greeting them as if they were all old friends, and then he would sit and have a staring contest with the one man in the room who cannot say a word. It was almost as if they were having a quite ginger conversation, their faces not moving, but there was a sparkle in their eyes. Next came story time after morning pills, Jonah and the Whale, Isaac and Abraham, Tower of Babel, Mohammad's ascension to Heaven, all of these were like memories that he was sharing with children. The old man smiled so wide as he spoke, his eyes gleaming with pride as he told the stories, but there were many times where he would almost begin to cry. Stories such as Noah's Arc, Sodom and Gamora, or even stories such as Job's persistence all brought the old man to the verge of tears or even over the threshold, but every story was finished without interruption. It was quite interesting to see how every patient listened, hanging on every word , even if they had heard the story over a hundred times already. The old man, once done with story time, would sit and listen to the others tell their stories, smiling, laughing, and enjoying every moment. The nurses were even taking notes as much of what he was told was more than any of them had ever said in a group therapy session.

The old man would then join the rest of the patients out on the lawn for some exercise, he would look about the world as he walked, noting flowers, remarking the way the grass was cut, commenting on the sky's color, and said all this as if he were seeing at all again for the first time. After exercise would come lunch, he loved every morsel of food he was served. He was always complimenting the staff of cookers and food preparation professionals, giving them each a firm handshake after every meal. The staff simply adored him, he would listen to them talk, smiling as the nurses and orderlies all gave him their problems and he would return to them with the most sagely of wisdom and advice. After dinner, depending on the evening's entertainment, the old man would either sit and look at the stars with a few of the other patients in the windowed common room, or when it was "movie night" he watched intently, eager to take in every emotion before weeping and giving a standing ovation at the end of every film. When bedtime rolled around though, he brushed his teeth, put on his long-limbed pajamas that almost covered his hands and feet entirely from view, and would then look to his orderly with a look of almost disappointment before saying, "Perhaps tomorrow will be the day I die."

Dr. Davids began to wonder about the old man, wondering if his life were truly at an end, and it was interesting as he began to take into count his own life. Each day seemed rather boring in comparison to the life the old man lived, a day full of wonder, of uniformity, but also full of the expectancy of death. Living each day as if death would come to take him was quite a daunting feeling to master, but this man seemed quite content with the thought of death. The day of July first rolled around, the Old Man did not wake up early.

The orderly quickly rushed into the room, checking the man's pulse, and was surprised to find it was dreadfully weak. After almost ten years in the Hospital, the Old man had finally been asleep when the orderly showed up to unlock his door, and the nurses and doctors all gathered at his doorway to look on as the old man was inspected. He simply smiled that intoxicating old smile as he waved at them and said in a raspy, weak voice, "Don't fret, I'm just dying, be happy."

Doctor Davids began to order him transferred to the local medical hospital for more on hands care, but the old man refused. He smiled as he did it, shaking his head as he asked Dr. Davids to put down the phone he had in his hand, and simply thanked the man for caring for him. The nurses seemed a bit distraught at the transpirations, begging him to let them help, but he refused and smiled at them, "No, no, this is a good day. It's sunny and warm outside, see?"

It was true, the day had been unusually perfect, but still, the thought of a death was incredibly heartbreaking. Dr. Davids had not expected the Old Man's last wish to be to see the other patients, his weak voice happily saying, "I just want to say goodbye to all my friends."

Each patient walked in, one at a time, each sobbing, or smiling, or laughing, or crying, or even angry at the old man for dying on them. He laughed with them, they hugged him, and he told them that he loved them each as though they were his child. He beamed with joy though, every second was full of joy as he began to feel the pain of his body beginning to shut down, and when the moment finally came, there was silence. A comfortable one. When the last breath left the Old Man's body it was a beautiful moment. There were no tears, no sobs, not even the squeak of a wheel chair, and everyone in the Alpha wing was gathered in the room. 

Average Joe - Average Jane

When two people meet, there's a spark, the spark is born and takes shape by our emotions; the spark feeds off of these emotions, we gain strength from these sparks, but when the spark dies, we are at our utterly weakest. Our world's seemingly collapse around us as we become nothing more than a shadowy husk of our former selves. The spark within each of us is always strong, it never dies for any singular reason, and yet it never grows unless we allow it to. If we let it simply pop and crackle within us, then it can't grow stronger, we can't grow stronger, and in that instance, we are weak in both body and spirit. Whether we make it grow stronger on our own, in the quiet bedrooms without a soul around, or with the person who first created the spark, strengthening it together, or with a group of people, each holding an inferno of brightly burning sparks within them, as long as we allow these sparks to grow, so too do we grow.

Average Joe - Average Jane, I don't know why I wrote this, it's romantic in a way, almost comical, almost melodramatic, but it holds a certain power. It reminds me of better days, days to come that will be even better, and days undreamed of that we can't determine. Short and obnoxiously sweet, I give you my most recent poetic piece.

Average morning,
Average Pain,
Average warning,
For Average Jane,

Average Evening,

Average low,                                 

Average seething,

For Average Joe,

Average tasks,

Average fright,

Average Joe asks

Average Jane out tonight,

Average date,

Average heart,

Average mate,

Average start,

Average love,

Average woo,

Could my Average Jane,

Be you?

Heartbeats

 So, I've been thinking lately, no one really stops to write poems about the things we hear. I mean, even sitting at my desk at work, I hear the clacking of keyboard keys, the sound of a printer running, the mechanical wheels of a scanner feeding paper through itself, and even I hear my music playing softly to my left, but if I shut my eyes, listen closely, I can hear the soft drumming of my heart, and it's oddly soothing. 

What your heart says is important, but just by listening to nothing, you can hear everything.

What is that sound I hear?

Mice scurrying about in the walls?

Scratching about in fear?

No, too loud to be paws.

It’s almost a thump, thump,

I hear from below,

Perhaps a neighbor’s bump,

Hammer and nail the cheeky fellow,

No, no, it’s quieter than that,

It sounds soft as well,

Hardly a racket or drum pat,

It’s like a soft tum, tum, swell

A feeling now, a feeling I find,

Growing, spreading, boring,

Deep and warm, a burning kind

Feelings of wings soaring,

What is this sound,

growing louder now,

Tum thump, in the round,

Growing louder now,

Tum thump, it’s filling my ears,

Tum Thump it falls deaf to my peers,

My heart,  it beats loudly,

My heart speaks out proudly,

“Love”, it says over and over,

“Love”, it says “before it’s over”.

A Quick Fix

Sorry for the long delay since my last posting, a mixture of school, tragedy, and lack of decent thoughts have left me pretty scaled back on my writing, but I'll try to at least add something once a month... This is a project that I don't want to have just die into obscurity. Anyways, here's my latest bit of writing, it's tiny, it's lacking in fiber, but it has imagination behind it.

It's Midnight, I have school in the morning, but it's a drug. I haven't done it in a while, the rush, the feeling of wonder, the excitement of that first hit, that first tap, that first plunge into the deep white ocean that I had longed for since the world turned and life was questioned. It's like nothing I have felt before, but it was more familiar to me than the sight of my own face in the mirror. My mind exploding with whirling, twirling thoughts, rushing through every empty crevice, soaring down my veins into my fingertips, and my body was one with the universe. I didn't think about my grades, I didn't think about how fat I was getting, how lonely I was, or even that my Dad was dead. I just needed that hit, that surge, that glorious feeling of accomplishment as I stabbed away, and then it erupted. I was slamming my brain against my skull without moving, fireworks were exploding behind my eyes, and the music was all silence to me now. Every key opened up a new world to me, a new world to everyone, and I had the invitations. I wanted everyone here, everyone to see that I for once in a good long while felt good, no I felt GREAT! The adrenaline pumping through my veins was enough to make me keep going, to make me push more and more, and the world began to fade to black. The world wasn't what I needed, it wasn't what made me feel good, not with all the stories of rapes, murder, shootings, terrorism, no, none of that compared to the world I had created for myself. A world that had no need for sadness, no need for worries, a world free of care, hunger, guilt, pain, sadness, depression, anger, jealous, a world devoid of the toxic sewage that invaded our souls with every new news report on some tragedy, and this world was open to everyone, they just needed to take my hand and let me show them. Tonight, my fingers trembled as I took my first hit in a long while, my body almost forgot what it was like, but the warmth made me feel so much better. Woke me up, stood me up, brushed off my clothes, and said "take me with you". The world I made was nothing short of marvelous, a paradise, a utopia that would never fall, a world that would be perfect for everyone, and then I saw it. Even as my fingers continued to pump more and more into my veins, my brain filling the voids, and the only sound in my ears is the clack, clack, clack of the keyboard; I could see the hole in the world I had created. Gaping, gouging, gushing with the blood of my paradise, one phrase tickled my tongue as it exited my throat and sounded out into the air. "Too Perfect..."

Backspace, backspace, backspace, highlight, delete, highlight, cut, paste, click, type, and the world began to brighten. The world I had created, the world with the hole that I had created, the world with the hole that I had created was closing up, and I could only cry as I began to place disease in my sweet world. Trash piling up, grass dying, trees wavering, flowers wilting, men crying, women sighing, and the world was at war, I had created a world that was nothing to be proud of. My eyes ached, checking the clock again, the world never stopped as I still felt the sweet beauty flowing through my veins, even with the ugly stain that I had left on the paper before me. It was a beautiful stain though, if you tilted your head just right, held your tongue just right, curled your toes just right, held your breath, counted to three, jumped on one foot, rubbed your belly with one hand, and patted your head with the other. No, it wasn't beautiful, it couldn't be beautiful, how could it be beautiful and yet still flawed? I kept this question in my mind, sifting through the trash I had strewn on once golden roads now littered with prostitutes and transients, and I could see it... It was dim, only a soft twinkle under a million feet of death and grime, but it was there, that perfect world was there, and it was waiting for something... It needed me, it needed a reason, and without me, it was nothing more than a place.

The Tired Mind Writes the Best Sonnets

Too tired... Too long of a day, too weird of a day, but also it was fun... Here's someting my brain came up with at 2:00 AM. You are welcome, I hope you enjoy it... Someday it will be read and someone will think that I was talking about the deep inner feelings that lay within each and every human being, perpetuating the individuality of modern society as a constant objection to the natural way of things, the evolution of the dogmatic days of yore into the technological giga-monoloths which stand towering overhead that somehow depict the frailty of the human condition by simply saying "no", or they'll say, "Oh God, another Graue poem... Why do I have to study this?" HA! Enjoy!



The late night witching hour is almost come,
Yet here I am, awake, biting my thumbs,
Unable to sleep and dream of a sweet find,
Blanket and Pillow, take away my mind.

Let me drift on clouds as I have oft done!
Let me rest on flowerbeds in the sun!
If not a moment of your precious sleep,
then pray my sanity am I to keep!

A new day dawns and I've not shut my eyes!
The red sun peels back the night in the skies,
My pillow I clutch tight, pleading for rest!
How can I start the day not at my best?!

Stars twinkling, give me all your power,
close my eyes tight and turn my heart sour,
silence my deep thoughts, let them stir me not,
As I try to sleep in what time I've got.

World Shaker

So, I missed my chance to post a blog post last week as I was busy with being lazy, so, in an effort I purposed myself to write the love letter of an old man to his wife. I don't much know how great it will turn out, but nonetheless it's a bit of work. Enjoy!

“You used to sit there, you used to sit in that very chair and smoke those cigarettes with the hearts on the filter. Smoking them, like you were kissing old lovers once more, like each one would bring you some sort of brief bliss from the squalor we lived in. The spark of your lighter bringing me from my paper to your face, my eyes staring with a sense of contempt before I would flash you the brightest of smiles. My eyes must've given me away quite a few times as I went back to my paper, they were tired eyes, eyes full of memories, eyes longing to forget, eyes longing to go blind to the world that we had created. You'd simply breathe in the carcinogens, holding them in your lungs as your shirt stretched fast against your breasts. I remember how I once lusted for you, once desired your form, once wanted to never stop touching such delicate beauty, once. Ah, but even now I can see that what we had is long gone. What was it you had said to me before? 'Beauty is in the Eyes of the Beholder'? I hardly remember what was said yesterday, it's hard to imagine I could remember something said all those years ago. I could remember seeing that sly smirk tugging at your lips, edging on a smile as you pressed your body to mine, urging me to dance in that old dance hall. My throat was so tight I felt like I would suffocate if I had done more than a waltz, but you opened me up to your devilish charm.

A sweet scent of roses, that was what you always wore, it was muddled behind the smoke, but it was there. Like a feather on a pillow, it was subtle, but it was there. Our first drink, sneaking in through the back of that tavern, my hands fumbling with my wallet while you had already downed every dripping drop of beer in your glass and had proceeded to drink from mine. We laughed as we walked home later, and then you stopped and we kissed in front of an old couple's apartment. They stuck their heads out the window and cheered us on as we giggled and ran off into the night. Your legs were so strong in those days, you ran everywhere, and when you weren't running, you were dancing, or skipping, or standing, or just walking. Anything you did would've made you a princess to strangers. I remember when you broke your ankle, the world crashed as you fell from the front steps, an earth quake happening precisely as you fell would've been insane enough for anyone to believe, but I was there.

You cried the pain was so bad, you cried so much that the blue sky turned an ominous black and the rain began to fall. I remember having to run with you in my arms to the hospital, you stopped crying as you clutched my shirt, but the rain didn't stop. Memories are great things...

Remember that time when you looked into the toy shop? Those children waved at you and we waved back, you smiled and it was as if those children had seen the most glorious thing they would ever see. That is what I see everyday I wake up to you. I remember the very words you said to me, the day you left, “and don't forget to smile, you grumpy bastard.”

The photograph I took turned out brilliantly, you would've been proud of the bowtie and suit I wore. But you couldn't have been. You weren't there to see it. The world seemed to be gloomy the rest of that day. There was even an awkward silence about the city, like everyone had already known what I did not. Now, here you lay, your body interred, your gravestone a simple marble monument, and the worst of it all is that damned cold nipping at my hands. The world is getting dizzy and so I guess it's time already. I've come to lay with you my dear, I've come to be with you in my final moments, because I can hardly bear the thought of being without you, even after all these years.

None of the people that I've met over my lifetime could make the world tremble, could make the clouds move, or make the rain fall. You will always be my world shaker."