Category Archives: Insight

Relief

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Ezra plunged his head down.  After the initial roar of the water and ice settled, the sounds of their voices, of their laughter, faded into the soft rattle of the ice cubes tapping against the walls of the steel sink.

The water was bracing, yet refreshing. He closed his eyes and held himself there as he worked to push everything from his head. It was too much.

A very faint, soft ringing rose up into his head as the body started to react to the time it had gone without a fresh breath. His hands gripped the edge of the sink for a bit of stability. He forced his head down to where his forehead rested gently on the sink floor. Another cold tap of relief greeted him when his skin touched the metal.

He thought about pulling out, taking another breath and plunging back in again, but he didn’t want to break this string of relief. In the water, there was nothing but the water. Outside of the water, at the point where the water now lapped against his neck, the world lay ready to pounce, to kick him again when he was down.

For this moment, for as long as he could hold his breath, he was safe, sober, alone, awake and in some sort of sense, home.

Icon

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Tobias clicked through pages and pages of old photos of Marilyn Monroe.

He couldn’t say for sure if he ‘liked’ her or the photos, or even that he ‘enjoyed’ looking at them, at least not the way others seemed to look at them. It was probably more accurate to say he was drawn to them as an odd curiosity.

Yes, she seemed to be a naturally beautiful woman, a representative of what may seem like an antiquated definition of beauty, rooted in a time where beauty was less prone to artificial maintenance and enhancement.

And he was not a fan per se. He couldn’t recall one of her movies that he may have watched end to end. He didn’t read much about her or follow the random tidbits of information that may pop up about her in the news. The anniversary of her death is likely the most common, along with persistent lore and rumor. He didn’t discuss her or defend her. He just looked.

His intentions were not voyeuristic or base. He didn’t study her form or seek fuel for fantasy. Rather, it was her face that drew him to her.

Her time was different from his, so the information he had access to, the fragmented bits and pieces that he pulled together formed a persona in his head of a sort of sad soul. It was harder to see in movies, because people who are directed represented more of that direction than of their own self, but the photos…

Her eyes drew him in. Matched with her smile, he moved from image to image seeing the joy and the history of the moment, and yet, if he looked closely, there lie a tinge of sadness, perhaps a touch of loneliness behind the glitz and the glamour.

Yes, it could be his own thoughts and ideas projected onto those moments that may taint them to some degree, but while Marilyn offered some of the most compelling examples, he saw it in other places too. Faces tell stories. Smiles hide pain. Glances betray joy.  He’d seen it a thousand times, his grandmother, his sister, the Marquet family photo of 1993.

That was the gift of photos. Even that which we try to hide, and hide well, can be captured, and even if only a hint of it is caught and frozen it can reveal the truth of ourselves.

Claimed

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Billy pulled the bag from the freezer. As he looked down, his brow furrowed.

“What the hell,” he muttered to himself while inspecting the bag further.  He yelled out, “Jason?”

“What?” Jason bumbled down the stairs to the kitchen where Billy stood with a puzzled look plastered on his face and a bag of frozen hot dogs in his hands. “Those are mine.”

“Yeah,” I gathered Billy said. “Am I seeing these right? Do they all say, ‘Exclusive Property of Jason Schwartzman’ on them?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Each one individually?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?” Billy asked.

“They’re mine.”

“I get that. It’s clearly indicated on each and every hot dog that they’re yours. How did you do that?”

“With a Sharpie®. I started with a plain one, but then I switched to the fine point. That made it much easier?”

“Why?”

“Duh, the fine point is not as thick, so the letters look better.”

“Why did you use a Sharpie® at all?”

“Well, I figured they would work best, they‘re permanent and non-toxic.”

“No. Why did you feel the need to write on the hot dogs at all?”

“They’re mine.”

“Right, fine. They’re yours. I’ll get to that in a second, but wouldn’t it have been easier just to write on the bag?”

“Well…I didn’t want you to get confused.”

“What, in case some hot dogs I might have somewhere decide to infiltrate your bag somehow and we can’t tell them apart?”

“You don’t eat hot dogs.”

“Which makes this even more bizarre.”

“But yet, here you are in the kitchen hold my bag of hot dogs.”

“Do you really think I wanted to eat your hot dogs? I was looking for something else. I saw these and I clearly remember thinking, ‘What the hell?’”

“I don’t see how it’s so bizarre. You write your name on stuff so I don’t get confused. You have a carton of eggs in there you marked as yours.”

“Right, but you have your eggs and I didn’t go through and mark each one the “Exclusive Property of William Jennings Cooper.’”

“Of course, not.”

“You see my point then?”

“Yeah, you prefer ‘Billy.’”

Photo

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He stared at it for a long time.

There before him, his likeness stood frozen for all eternity in a pose that indicated a pinnacle moment, but one he could scarcely remember. It was obviously a clear enough moment for the one who posted it and important enough to them to make them raise it of from the deep-sea of all things past and forgotten to shine under the new light of the modern future.

Was that even him, he wondered.

He didn’t feel he looked like that anymore. He probably didn’t think like that anymore and if he did, he hoped his thinking, and his behavior was a bit more refined.

And what was his obligation to this resurgence of the past? Did he need to explain it? Embrace it? Support it? Deny it? Was there a need to defend this person and these actions – whatever they were? Or was the better choice to ignore it as if it had never come up. Was it really so big a deal as even this amount of consideration?

Still here stared.

That younger face was foreign to him. Those settings, that time seemed connected to him, sort of, but by a very, very thin thread, and so distant that it might have been easy to deny that was him and to make a strong case in support of that. A doppelganger perhaps.
He spent a long time looking at the face, the eyes. Where did that boy go?

Was he a better person now? Did he do enough of the right things between that time and now? And when the current version of himself is forced to recall this time, will he be able to look back on this time and think well of the time that passed? Did he progress? Did he grow? Did he take care of his people? Did he learn enough and do enough to be well prepared to leave the world a tiny bit better than he found it?

An open letter to Mark Burnett

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Java typed with determination and focus, as she was prone to do in these situations:

An open letter to Mark Burnett –

Dear mark Burnett:

I don’t know you. Chances are I never will.  I understand you are the reason the show ‘Survivor’ exists. Good for you. I enjoyed watching the first season, but after that, it just got all “same old, same old,” me.

Last night, I had a dream where I was climbing a mountain. At the top of the mountain, you sat in a giant golden chair with bright light all around you making it appear as if you were glowing in regal splendor. There was a line of people waiting to see you. It was Free Idea Thursday. One day of every week, you allowed the little people of the planet a chance to have an audience with you to share their ideas and thoughts about your programs.

You had all the people whose ideas you like carried away on chariots, while the ones you didn’t found themselves mysteriously flung from the mountain by an invisible force.  Screaming.

As with all dreams, the moment it was my turn and I began to speak, while shielding my eyes from your glory…I woke up.

So, because I believe I was destined for your magical chariot ride, here is my idea.

Scandalous Survivor.

Taste that for a moment before you fling me from the mountain.

You gather up all the people who are currently embroiled in scandal and controversy and let them fight for their survival in the very harshest of conditions. These people seem to be skilled liars, keen manipulators, deeply motivated by self-preservation, self-promotion, ego, cash and power. I’d be shocked if their hubris would allow them to decline.

I can sense your interest. Ponder the wonder of possibility as I share with you some thoughts about the cast.

  • Anthony Weiner – too obvious?
  • Eliot Spitzer
  • Michele Bachmann
  • Bob Filner
  • Dick Cheney
  • David Rivera
  • Laura Richardson
  • Tom Delay
  • Maybe that guy who was leading BP at the time of that giant oil spill just to mix it up

The list is virtually endless.

I’ll leave you now and I’ll let you stew on that one for a bit. I’m sure it won’t take long for you to imagine the possibilities. Your skill at bringing the wondrously dysfunctional to our TV screens will certainly help you mold this nugget of inspiration into ratings gold.

Be well. Eat lots of fruit. Oh, and I do enjoy Shark Tank.

– Java

Loneliness

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She awoke in the morning,
from a night of restless dreams,
where a faceless body screams out – you’re alive!

Then she stares at the mirror,
taking stock of body aches,
rubbing at the circles near her eyes.

And she welcomes the coffee,
something warm to fill her up,
once his hand but now this cup, oh why?

She retrieves the paper,
looking out into the sky,
wishing for another day to say goodbye.

–

When she clears the table,
the reporter on TV,
says another normal day has gone by.

And the light turns to darkness,
she runs her fingers through her hair,
one more hand of solitaire, oh my.

As she steps to the bedroom,
She says a silent solemn prayer,
to any angels who may care – oh please!

Stop this endless cycle.
All my work down here is done.
Take me home to the other part of me.