Carving with Grace

My mind constantly scrapes against all the things I used to know. The memories remind me of haughty moments, times when I thought the scars wouldn't take, times when I thought I'd be spared from the harsh truth.

Scrape. Scrape.

My mind like a blade on a sharpening stone.

I've been here before.

The blade must be honed.

Again, I've been here before.

The sharper the blade, the cleaner the wounds.

I will cut this lesson into my brain so my heart can understand the message; ya know, they rarely speak the same language, the fickle pair.

Grace knows how to use a blade. She once told me, "A dull blade is a travesty."

"A travesty of what?" I asked, trying to sound astute.

“A sharp blade, of course . . . for carving,” she answered.

“And to carve what, my dear Grace?”

She smiled with acuity, her face still pointed at her work. Grace’s deft hands worked a blade against a sharpening stone with long even strokes.

Scrape. Scrape.

Her upper lip began twitching. The smile faded.


“To carve flesh,” she answered tonelessly.

Grace's head rose from her work. Her bright, gray eyes threatened to push my brains to wisdom. My breath stopped short. She seemed different – as if she had been to war and back in just a few moments.

"Yet, it's not so much what you carve, it's the WILL to carve that’s important," she added. "It's the bravery to carve that lends you much-needed scars. And these, my dear – these slivers of new skin, these memories of past lacerations, they beckon you to higher ground if you know their breadth and fully appreciate the pure, unchecked will that put them there in the first place."

I nodded, but I only knew a fraction of what she spoke. I was often left to donning a perpetual dunce cap when Grace uttered something or another.

I wanted to say something clever, but my tiny brain fell miserably short. All I could do was submit to Grace's eyes. I loved her fiercely.

"Let's dance!" she blurted suddenly.

"But there's no music."

Grace's lip twitched again and her eyes flashed like lightning. "Music is unnecessary when carving!" she squealed, suddenly slashing my forearm with her blade.

I cried out and jumped back. The wound was superficial, but deep enough to expose fat cells, which were yellow and alien.

A scar from Grace on my forearm.

"What the-!" I started.

"Dance!" she screamed.

"But . . . "

"Shut up and carve me!"

Grace leapt to a fighting stance, pointing her blade at my tender throat. I did the same, confused and overwhelmed.

"Why did you cut me?" I implored.

She ignored me, swinging her blade with a deafening slash through the air. I curled my body away from the attack and she missed. I offered a weak counter attack at her periphery.

She laughed at me.

And then Grace wailed, "Commit! Where is your will! You don’t need reasons! Be done with your thinking and CARVE!"

My confusion tethered itself to survival and my nostrils flared. "Fine," I thought, "if she wants me to cut her, then I will!"

I lunged at her, taking another swing, which was overzealous and violent, and I pretended to fall. Grace thought I had lost my balance, but I was waiting for her. With my free hand I made a bold move and clutched her knife by the blade while slashing her porcelain-colored thigh with the other. She screeched in pain and I managed to twist the blade from her hand. It clinked to the ground. A dark red line appeared on her leg and it distorted into a messy trickle.

My chest heaving, I yelled at Grace, "Is that what you wanted, huh!?" My hand began to bleed and shake. Red lines raced to my fingertips and drips plummeted to the floor.

I stepped closer to her and she whispered, "Yes . . . yes, my love."

Our breathing slowed in unison for some moments. I watched her. Her curves were relentless and her lips distracted me from stoic poise.

She took a step closer. My blade lowered.

I waited.

Grace took another step. I dropped my blade. Another clink.

Her palms found my chest and I breathed into them.

"Good," she said, speaking like a sage, "I love your commitment to the bleeding. The carving will meet you half way. The scars will be grace when I am gone."

"When you are gone? What do you mean, when you are gone?"

"Never mind that right now. I will shift later."

"Shift . . . ?"

"Just you never mind, my love. It will come much later."

And Grace’s eyes wandered to the floor.

My hands went to her hips and she pushed herself against me. I was taken. She commanded me just by breathing.

"You will carve alone one day," she said suddenly.

"But -”

"Shhh," she interrupted, and Grace kissed me softly.

I fell silent. Her lips softened the blow of her eyes, which continued to push my brains to wisdom, carving and all.

Three Years Alone

In May of 2001 I moved to Germany. I had no plan other than to wing it, to fly by the seat of my pants or as my dad might say, to let my dick flap in the wind. I deliberately avoided planning as an exercise to do exactly the opposite of what I normally did. In fact, before I suddenly decided to move some 6000 miles from home, my plans were so thorough I had the next 10 years pretty much etched in stone. I was going to earn a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Dartmouth by the age of 27, get married shortly thereafter and then have kids starting in my early thirties. But I threw all of my plans in the trash because of a powerful variable I hadn't considered; two years previously I had fallen in love for the first time. It took a while to sink in, but I changed my mind. The emotions I experienced in heartbreak derailed my brain from the pure logic to which it had become accustomed. Having spent most of my life in the microcosm of education, I began realizing I had too much book experience and I lacked significantly in world experience. I needed to take more chances. I needed to put myself in harm's way. Moving to Germany without a plan was a perfect course of action.

Self-reflection brought me to this important decision. I knew what I needed. I needed more heartbreak.

Today, more than a decade later I find myself reflecting on the milestones, the markers of great change and the occasional wreckage that brought upon me scars of humility. My move to Germany fell apart; the authorities there denied my application for residency and asked me to leave by a certain date or I'd be arrested and never allowed to enter the country again. I fell in love four more times in the in the years after and suffered the weight of three more broken hearts. I was hit by cars five times while riding my bike and for some reason, despite my deplorable track record, I'm still riding all the time. I had brain surgery, which violently shook from me what conceit I had at the time and turned it into some measure of unflinching courage. I fought tyrannical corporate monsters and met some successes and failures there. I carried a few family members to their graves, spread the ashes of my best friend from high school into a waterfall, and subsequently (as the cycle of life goes) watched all of my brothers bring children into the world.

See that puff of dust?
The one just above the rocks?
That's my friend, Darren, from high school.
R.I.P.

This rap sheet of trials and tearjerkers, good and bad, is probably not that different from most folks. I have not suffered more than most people. However, my list of humbling moments provided me an awareness of people who have not suffered that much. And if, after reading my list, you find yourself thinking how remarkable it is that I have been through so much shit, then you ought put yourself in harm's way . . . because, really, my list isn't that bad at all. Compared to some people's challenges I probably seem like I have diamonds for tears and rainbows shining out of my ass. Make no mistake, I am grateful for my life - ya know, for the breathing, for my ten fingers and ten toes, for my functional eyeballs, for higher cognition, for the chance to improve myself . . . duh, for all that I have.

So, I have taken some time today to think about my last decade and consider the weight and whimsy it has brought. Specifically, I want to touch on a particular topic I've ignored for some time.

Being alone and loneliness.

Consider for a few moments what it means to be alone. And I ask for aloneness to not be confused with loneliness, for they are fundamentally different, the latter an element of despondency and the former an element of self-strength. As many of you, I have experienced both, but no time was more poignant for these elements than in the years leading up to 2002.

The actual building # of my apt. in Cologne.
My address was 147 Oskar-Jäger Straße.

I recall December 31st, 2001. I was living in Cologne, Germany in a student apartment building, sharing a living space with eight other young people. All of them were gone. All of them had plans to be with friends or family on New Year's Eve. I was completely alone. I had no real friends in Germany. For whatever reason I struggled a great deal to find people with whom I could really connect. It was probably a language or culture barrier thing. Or maybe I didn't try hard enough.

Anyway, for as long as I live I will not forget the quiet of that New Year's Eve. From the time I woke up to moment I went to bed I didn't utter a single word. It seemed the entire city had emptied into the far-away arms of friends and I was stuck in a concrete box with a thin carpet and few blankets. Midnight came and went with no fan-fare, no countdown, no screaming and hollering, no drinking, no fireworks, no kiss from a pretty gal. This may sound depressing, but I've done this a handful of times and with every holiday, including my birthday. It can be quite liberating and empowering. If you've never spent a holiday or birthday by yourself, I urgently recommend it . . . try it at least once.

Unbeknownst to me, that January, I was about eight months shy of a three year stint of being alone. Let me explain this in a bit more detail in case it isn't clear. I was alone for three years in my mid-twenties. I had no relationships. I didn't date anyone in any capacity, save for making out with a few gals. I didn't even have sex - for three years. I'm not sure if this is unusual for people. It seems as though it might be, considering much of what I've seen over the years in folks has been serial dating and a constant, dirty wash of co-dependency. What I do know for sure, however, is that I don't make good friends with people who exhibit such tendencies; they just don't understand the immense value of self-reflection and aloneness.

I'm very thankful for the three years I spent alone. I learned many valuable lessons you can't achieve easily. Mainly, and I'm gonna hammer this home again, I learned how to be alone and how to self-reflect. At the end of those three years I was a pro at these skills. It seemed my best friends were the four walls of my room. Being alone didn't bother me at all. I had become an unbreakable pillar. I went through my days holding myself up, not needing much from others, not needing affection, not needing conversation, not needing to look into someone's eyes. I was emotionally independent - as much as one can be I suppose.

But this self-strength and beautiful time for self-reflection didn't last. It can only go on for so long. People can only take so much alone time. I hit a wall that winter in Cologne. My aloneness turned into loneliness.

So, I took action. Being the pillar I was I set myself to a strict regimen of exercise, eating chocolate and masturbation to increase the dopamine levels in my brain. I was very scientific about my loneliness and it worked for a while, but in the end . . . I needed human connection. Eventually, the regimen didn't pick up the slack and I often found myself randomly collapsing to the floor crying. I cried in every corner of my room . . . several times. I sweated out nights of loneliness, back-to-back, discovering a new part of myself. Loneliness became some kind of a dark entity, a personified immortal being whose job it was to choke out of me what little cheer I possessed. Since that time I've written Loneliness in some of my stories as an actual character and, for whatever reason, Loneliness is a woman. Not sure if that means anything, but it probably does.

A couple weeks after that New Year's Eve I visited my dear cousin, Sabine, who lived about an hour from Cologne. When we hugged I realized it had been three months since anyone had hugged me. Think about that for a moment. Three months without a simple hug! How many of us could do that? Some of you have probably never gone that long without a hug. Maybe some of you have gone longer than three months. Regardless, I don't recommend it. I don't care what value one might glean from such deprivation . . . I still don't recommend it.

A few days later I found out my application for residency was denied. I sold everything I owned, pooled my money together and bought a plane ticket home. When I had returned I had fifty bucks in my bank account and a few boxes of belongings at my father's place. I got a job as a bike messenger in Seattle and when I had enough money I moved into the city. I still didn't know anybody in town and it wasn't until I quit that job and began working at a book store that I started making solid friends.

That was a decade ago. <Sigh> I've done a colossal amount of work in ten years. Some of it was ridiculous. Some of it was eloquent.

Today, I spent the entire day alone just like that New Year's Eve some ten years ago. I haven't uttered a single word and the quiet was so quiet I could hear it ringing. If you've never heard the "ringing" of silence, then I suggest you try being quiet for once in your life. It's an odd "sound" to experience and you might give yourself a better opportunity to think. Throughout the day, the strength of those three years alone in my mid-twenties jumped into my head. I remembered the aloneness and loneliness with epic clarity; the reminders were like a sharp knives, carving out the scars I need to reconcile the trespasses of this year. With these recollections I felt lifted up and broken down, sometimes in the same breath.

Over the years I've had an army of scars carved into me, but no scar is more beautiful than the one I cut into myself from spending three years alone.

Part of my library once upon a time. My brain . . . now.

Titans Among Us

There are titans among us. Though, they are few and far between.

Each day I search for them - these titanic people, my dearest hidden friends. I look for them during magical, self-made pilgrimages in new places thousands of miles away from home. My searching is not exclusive to such places, far and beyond. I look for the titans among us in my own town, in my own region. I will look for them for as long as I breathe, wherever I breathe. And, in the eras between meeting a titanic person, I slog on - as if to crawl through an angry landscape thronged with spires of broken glass and jagged slivers of filthy metal. And, despite the terror of such vacant eras filled with profound loneliness, I do - in fact - meet a titan on occasion. I am incredibly lucky to have some as my friends; they are people made of diamonds.

These titans - they walk as we do. They bleed as we do. They laugh and cry as we do. They love as we do. They even struggle as we do - for no person can be a titan without being vulnerable. Unabashedly displayed scars are their armor, each blemish a jewel, each mistake a sturdy platform on which to build. Titans wield blades of truth with immense heart and courage and those who wish to perpetuate the facade that this world is a paradise made for liars are helpless to avoid the acuity of their sharpened edges. Even the most powerful of liars eventually buckle under these harbingers of truth. But, make no mistake, even titans contain some deceit. After all, they would not know the anatomy of a liar if an untruth had never fallen from their own lips.

The titans among us walk quietly and deliberately through crowds, often unseen and often unsung. But I see them with clear eyes and an open heart. I sing their anthems, too, for they are my own; I sing them loud because my life depends on it. I can feel the truth radiate off of the titans among us. If only their knowledge could better seep into those who need to open their eyes, those who arrest themselves with ignorance. It would not be a lie if I told you how I cry for the ignorant - as much as I do for myself, I suppose, in light of all that I still do not know. I have several powerful shortcomings and when they rise up, threatening to lead me astray from a plight more righteous, I look to a titan for guidance - and often bemoan their absence.

I realize now that I desperately need more titans in my life, that those who call themselves "unicorns" and "aliens" are no longer steadfast or brave enough. And, while people of this ilk hold their own, they do not have the heart of a titan, they do not possess the courage to go the distance, and - gravely so - they balk at loving with appropriate high-caliber sacrifices. With all I can muster I do appreciate how aliens and unicorns can think differently. They do, in fact, possess this talent, but it is usually squandered when an occasion for their sacrifice arises. More often than not, they take the easy path, they abandon their different thinking and return to their desires and their mania.

There are some people who would argue with great vehemence, opposing my talk of appropriate sacrifice. Some will say I spend too much of myself in service of others - sometimes, they'd be right. Others will argue further, saying their wants must be indulged, that they will sacrifice only if these desires are met first. In my mind, however, this belies the definition of sacrifice. I believe this course of yielding abundance first before sacrifice shows little to no courage at all, for how can one show true courage unless their actions stem from deficit? It isn't very brave to sacrifice from a position of abundance. These lost unicorns and aliens will continue to argue, making the claim that selfishness is a virtue . . . yet, the result will be authentic, genuine love slipping through their fingers. They will miss chance after chance after chance to embrace true love, for they will spend too much time embracing themselves.

Self-love is only a virtue if it provides compassion to others, not if it is a force that causes unnecessary suffering. This statement . . . isn't really that profound, nor is it novel. It's actually quite a simple and ancient notion . . . and anyone with an ounce of courage knows its worth, especially when heartfelt action arises from it.

Yes, there are titans among us. They put themselves in harm's way in the name of genuine love. They gladly exhibit their scars. They breathe humility back into the world. And because of their mistakes, titans know the difference between right and wrong, morality is issued from their lips with each breath. Each puff of air from a titan's lungs is a soldier, a sentinel who guards against trespasses and exposes the unjust with the simple act of telling the truth.

Not once in my life have I met true titan who did not possess this docket of courage. And, if you think yourself a person of this high caliber, I implore you to look down and within. If no pool of warm blood continually rests at your feet or soaks your clothes from the perpetual sacrifice, then you are no titan of mine.

You know who you are.

That Blue Cleaner Ain't So Blue Anymore

I just got done kneeling. I'm not exactly sure what possessed me to kneel on my beautiful hardwood floor for ten minutes. It just occurred to me suddenly - as if I would learn something, just like when my best friend in high school blindfolded himself for a day to see what it was like. I wish he wasn't dead so I could call him up to ask what he learned from that exercise . . . because I shamefully don't remember the results.

I can't exactly say I learned anything from the kneeling. Maybe I'm supposed to do it for an hour. Maybe it was a dumb idea to begin with.

The moment preceding this act pulled a particular word out of thin air and shoved it indiscriminately into my head. This happens to me a lot. Some word or another jumps into my brain and I can't shake it unless I do something about it, hence the kneeling I guess. The word was "contrition."

Contrition. Sincere penitence or remorse.

It seems to me the ego gets in the way a lot. It is a roadblock on the path to beautiful truth. It is a childproof cap over a healthy dose of humility. It is a veil, hiding the appropriate eyes of contrition. It is sticky plaque on the neurons of valuable morals. It is an erratic emotion that keeps us in conflict. The ego simply gets in the way.

The ego is often frightened, at arms, weary of the possibility its identity will be ripped to shreds. We fuss and moan over those who confront us, threatening to remove our identities and replace them with their own.

And . . . really . . . the way I see it, there's no need for such fussing. I want the confrontation. I want my identity to be challenged, for, what is more noble than facing the challenges that make us better than what we were on the previous day? I want my mind to change. I want others to have a platform to tell me I'm screwing up. And I want the dialogue that should follow, which would knock the wind out of my weaknesses.

Yet, many of us continue to lie to ourselves so as to protect our egos, which, it seems to me, would be better left to fluid evolution rather than being stuck in stubborn, rote, destructive paradigms.

I spend a lot of time considering the many things I've done wrong. And there are many. I'm constantly asking myself the questions:  How could I have done this or that better? How can I better exhibit compassion? I actually probably spend too much time on these questions, which often gives rise to an awful feeling of murder when someone else doesn't ask these questions enough. People who do little or no self-reflecting completely baffle me. Those who use mirrors as a tool for more narcissistic ends instead of as a constant litmus test to measure their humility are indeed lost in a dreadful wilderness. They lack true emotional fortitude. Their heads are full of half-truths. Their friends are wafer-thin. Their lives are remiss.

From going to my knees for ten minutes I find myself writing these words, considering what contrition I may need to feel and what of this sincerity I may need to show in order to remain humble. My mirror is admittedly tarnished with some lies of my own, but probably less than some. This thought makes me consider those homeless people who wander the streets with a rag and an unmarked bottle of blue window cleaner, offering to clean the car windows of people who can afford cars. I suppose it's no wonder that a person lacking privilege is perhaps a symbol of humility in that they offer to clean the windows of those who have the means to do it themselves, but choose not to maximize their sight out of laziness. I imagine those who have dirty car windows are also the people who have equally tarnished mirrors.

We need more humble people to clean off the mirrors of those in need, those who can't see their true reflection. That bright blue liquid cleaner has turned red from thieving too much blood. I miss the clean, calming, careful blue.

And this humility comes from elsewhere too, not just from people willing to confront with the clean truth. It arrives also from the harshness of life. Suffering offers us a hand mirror each time is rears its ugly head. And whether or not we choose to look at ourselves in the proffered looking glass determines our character, and it shows us who we are to become . . . for better or for worse.

What will you choose when handed a looking glass? Will you cast it to the ground, breaking your chance for self-reflection into a thousand pieces? Will you hide it away to look at humility later? Or will you be brave and stare at the harsh truth of your own weaknesses?

I didn't realize it, but when I went to my knees earlier I was in front of the large, built-in mirror in my living room. At the time, I suppose I was self-reflecting, but didn't even know it . . . until this very second.

I'm so glad I finally went to the store to buy some new blue cleaner. With the red gone I can see myself so much better now.