more normal than not

When I graduated from college, some camp friends invited me to move to Auburn, Alabama and start a band.

My parents must have loved that.

Here I’d spent 6 and a half years or so finishing up a degree in Art…working and paying for it myself, but still…and when I finally finished I went to a college town and tried to start a band.

I don’t even know where or how to put that on my résumé.

I must have had the most patient parents in the world.

While I was in Auburn, and the band wasn’t coming together very well or very quickly, I took a job working at a local vet clinic that one of my potential bandmates was already working at.

What a great experience that was…assisting with operations, bathing cats and dogs, keeping things clean and running smoothly.

I loved working with the doctors and the other staff…loved working with all the animals.

During this time, I’d sit out on the roof over the porch of the house we rented on Thach St. (Ave. ?  It was a long time ago…) with my guitar (when I wasn’t working at the clinic) and try and write songs.

I could watch all the people go by…wave…and go back to writing these silly songs.

I’d written a bunch of words in my spiral notebook when someone got a chance to read some of my “lyrics”…and mentioned that, “Man….you’ve got a lot of songs about dogs in here…“.

And I did have a lot of songs about dogs in my notebook.

Like the smell of the clinic must have been ever present on my body… my head must have been constantly filled with thoughts of dogs.

I had dogs on the brain.

There are worse things to be obsessed over, I suppose.

I just love dogs.

The guys I was living with in that old house were a bunch of rascals…so we had a lot of good adventures together.

I’ve been blessed to have adventurous friends…it’s been a lot of fun to goof off with these people.

Again, I don’t know where to mention that in my résumé.

Obviously, I didn’t do everything I’ve done in my life with an awareness of how it “would look on a resume”.

Most of my life has felt like falling into the water…not even jumping in…and then trying to figure out how to keep my head above the surface. Wondering in my surprise if I should just keep on treading water or try and make it to the shore.

Some of these “falling into” situations have been pretty great.  I loved working with those animals…and by animals, I mean the dogs and cats at the clinic, not my co-workers.  That was a good and unexpected thing to work around all those dogs.

I’ve known a lot of really great people in my life.  Kings and Queens…royalty amongst the human race.

Good Medicine.

I’ve also known a lot of really great animals…a lot of really great dogs.

Awwwwwww….I loves me some dogs.

Out on the mail route, I’m always checking things out.

I can’t help it.

I can’t stop.

I keep my eyes open while I’m driving around. I watch and I learn.  Whether it’s a mama bear and her two cubs…a bunch of deer….wild turkeys…a new satellite dish…piles of trash that weren’t there yesterday outside the trailer with the funky smell…it doesn’t matter…I see it all.

Lately, I’d been watching a bunch of fruit trees.  There are apple trees and it looked like maybe a pear tree…and one close to the drive that I was sure was a plum-tree just loaded with what looked like the most delicious plums I’d ever seen.

At this point in the mail run, I would have eaten about an hour previously or so…and I’m usually getting hungry again.

Those plums looked so good.

And they were ready to eat.

And I was hungry.

But these plums weren’t mine.

I’m hungry…but I’m not a thief.  I’m not going to get out of my well-marked Mail Jeep and gorge on these plums in broad daylight on one of the few paved roads in our area with any traffic without asking permission first.

That is not how I roll.

So, day after day, I would stop before I made my turn out into the main road, looking at these beautiful purple plums, thinking, “I’ve got to ask those guys if I can eat one some of their plums…they look so good.”

Yesterday, I drove by them again and realized that it was too late.

The plums…my plums…were rotting on the branches.

They hadn’t harvested any of these ripe plums.  Every single one of the plums that I had obsessed over was rotting and shriveling on the branches of that tree.

Oh, no.

No.

Now, in their defense, they may have been growing prunes.  It may be that it was actually a prune tree and my eating the plums before they had a chance to become what they were destined to be would have really upset the apple cart. It may be that this tree wasn’t what I thought it was.  I might have had expectations that were unrealistic and unfounded.

I’ll call it a prune tree if it allows me to have some peace over not getting a ripe plum.  I can do at least that much.

Now, of course, I couldn’t leave it alone. I couldn’t let a tree full of rotting fruit just be a tree full of rotting fruit.

For the sake of amusing myself, I had to find some kind of deeper meaning to all this. There had to be some kind of deeper meaning behind not getting to taste a delicious plum.

I arrived at the conclusion that I have aspects of my life where I suppose I’m “rotting on the branches”,too.

I live a rich and varied existence…I am in full bloom and fruitful…I rise up to greet the morning and run into the sun.

I thrive.

But there’s a hidden part of me that has abilities and dreams and deep, deep longings that I think I’m letting rot on the branches.

I don’t live a life of quiet desperation….I think I live a life of lazy expectations.

Nobody is watching for when the fruit is ripe, either.  I’ll be a prune before any one notices.

So maybe it’s not anyone else’s responsibility to monitor my tentative approaches to finding my own bliss.

Maybe, like George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life”, I just need an angel to calm me down and say, “Take it easy…here’s what it was all about…. all along.”

“Now eat your prunes…it’ll help you go to the potty…”

 

People say that the first step is the hardest.

I’m wondering this morning if it’s really the second step that is the hardest.

The first step can be one that’s half asleep and unaware.  You might not understand what it means to be out on a run on the cool first official day of Fall…it might be something that you’re doing in a half conscious state.  It’s not something to fear.

The second step really kicks in the reality of the situation.  After the second step things get even more real.

And all the steps that follow the second step are where the real proving ground can be found.

It’s continuing even after you really understand what the thing you’ve just started is really going to cost you that really matters.

So…I don’t know how much faith I’d put in the notion that the “first step is the hardest”.

I know that I’ve taken a bunch of first steps that didn’t go much farther than that initial movement. It’s easy to start.

Wheeeeeeeee.

It’s harder to stick with something and see it through to some sort of conclusion.

Although, when we went canoeing again…and took my 4-year old with us this time…you’d think that the hardest part of the trip was getting the boat in the water.

You would think that transporting everything and taking the boat down off the top of the Cherokee would be the hardest part and that everything would be easy after that.

You would think that it would all go down like that.

“Go down” is a bad way to characterize the situation.

You don’t want to think about “go down” when you’re in the middle of a very deep lake on a windy day with a restless four-year old who won’t sit still. You don’t want to think about any of that.

I think your animal nature takes over and it’s just about survival at that point.

It’s funny to consider being on the lake with a four-year old who’s never been in a small boat a matter of survival.

We cut a longer planned trip a little short when things really started to escalate a couple of hundred yards from shore.  It wasn’t pleasant for the canoe to be rocking like it was with one professed adult, two teenagers, and a cramped and cranky four-year old in a formerly untested canoe.

It wasn’t a good feeling to be rocking in the deep end.

Maybe the first step really is the hardest sometimes.  Maybe the first step is the hardest when you have enough experience under your belt to forecast what you think a situation is going to hold?  Maybe the hardest part of the “first step” is getting over apprehensions that don’t even have any toehold on reality yet?

We’ll go out in the canoe again…it’s fun to be out on the water…but I think I will try and be more amusing or something because Nate didn’t enjoy it after the first half hour.

I’ll understand that in addition to the “dog and pony show” we have going on, I’ll have to remember to throw in some juggling or something to keep little people laughing and happy.

Juggling in an overloaded wind-swept canoe sounds like it might be entertaining for all of us.

At least it’s a first step.

The next step is the one I worry about.

My little sister has turned me on to so much good music.

So much good music that also happens to be Christian music.

This guy, Chris Rice, is one of the best songwriters…who also happens to be a Christian…that I know of.

The real beauty of this stuff is that it’s good music whether it’s Christian or not…and that’s not always the case.  Some of the music in the Christian community isn’t really all that good. It doesn’t always stand on its own.

I guess it’s not fair to single out Christian music…bad country music is bad country music, bad rock is bad rock, folk music that’s lacking is always going to be bad, etc.  It’s just that within the Christian community I think sometimes that we feel like we have to like whatever comes down the pike…like it’s automatic that this music is supposed to be appreciated because of the motivation that should be behind it.

Chris Rice is just good ….across the board good.

Good, good stuff.

It’s not hard to appreciate Chris Rice.

I read an interview with Mark Heard a long time ago where he said that he was an artist who also was a Christian….not necessarily a “Christian Artist”.

I always appreciated that.

I have friends who would reject this music because of the spiritual aspects it holds.  Chris Rice doesn’t pull any punches…he loves Jesus and he’s not afraid to say it.  His affection isn’t masked…he’s pretty artfully blatant about his love for Christ.

There isn’t anything that I’ve heard that he’s done that wasn’t done artfully.

He’s an artist…and he’s a Christian.

That’s a combination I hope I get a chance to see more of.

I had a Christian music radio show when I was in college my first two years…played contemporary Christian music for an hour once a week that was sent over to a legitimate i.e. real station via telephone lines from a small studio in the basement of the Newberry College chapel.

I would have played the heck out of Chris Rice if he’d been recording back then.

Thanks for the “heads up” on Chris Rice, little sister!

 

It was cool and bright when I got up…perfect weather for a very early run.

The moon was full this morning and it was as bright as a very cloudy day when I left the house.

The moon was full and a fleeting thought of werewolves passed through my mind when I stood out on the front porch stretching.

A fleeting thought of all the weirdness that’s supposed to take place during a full moon swirled around in my head before quickly leaving me.

It was bright…and I could see everything.

There wasn’t a worry in the world…easy running.

It was a beautiful morning and I thought that it was kind of strange that, even though I was just kidding around with myself with all the werewolf thoughts, I would have any idea of the day being anything other than perfect for a run.

Some people around here have a habit of saying, “Oh…we’ll pay for this later..” when the weather is unseasonably pretty, like there’s some weird allotted balance that gets upset when they’re granted something that’s nicer than they expected.

These same people seem to have a talent for finding the alternative that “should be happening”…dry when it should be raining, too wet when they think it should be sunny, etc.

They are good at finding what they look for, too.  Disappointment seems to be something that is sometimes one of the “helpful emotions”…it’s a supportive emotion, always willing to build on itself and always willing to help us find more reasons to be disappointed.  Dissatisfaction can be powerful…it’s the rolling downhill that’s hard to stop as it gathers speed.

There’s not a day that goes by that doesn’t result in some kind of a “we’ll pay for this later…” kind of response.

It’s funny how nothing is ever really quite right…and if it is close to just right, something bad is just down the path to balance everything out later.

It’s like a balance of mediocrity is something to shoot for…no surprises, nothing “too good” that we’ll have to “pay for” later.

I had a beautiful run this morning.  It was only beautiful…no hidden edges or payback waiting to crush me…no coming alternative to watch for that might throw a bad element into my enjoyment of the moment.

Sometimes something great is worthy of being taken on its own merits.  In the moment…in that moment that can’t be changed once it’s passed us…a good thing can be just a good thing.  There doesn’t have to be some kind of need for a negative balance that’s going to “make us pay” somewhere in the future.

I had a great run this morning.  The moon was beautiful and the sky was clear, it was cool and there wasn’t much traffic, and it was peaceful.  It was as bright as a cloudy day. It was a good morning to be out in the world.

And there wasn’t a werewolf in sight.

I’ll probably pay for that later.