Second Wind

Hello fellow bloggers:

Wow- it has been a while since my last post. Sorry that I have not been the faithful blogger I once was. I got married a couple weeks ago, and blogging had to sit on the bench for pressing wedding plans instead. The wedding went really well, and Jason and I are both relieved that we are married! and not engaged! any more.

I will post some pics and such of the wedding, but I wanted to drop a quick note saying, ‘I’m Back!’

Sometimes I feel like my cat is my curfew enforcer. After hanging out with Jason or friends, I come home late at night expecting to enjoy a nice deep slumber. I walk up to my house, open the door, and there she is… A brown and tan tabby cat staring at me with a matriarch stare that says, ‘where have you been all night?’ She is usually sitting on the arm of our chair in my living room, or right next to the television, just looking at me with this stern stare. It is the kind of stare that a mother would give a child if they went past curfew. The look on her face is a combination of exhaustion, worry, relief, and wonder where I was all night. I almost feel myself wanting to verbally justify where I was all night, but the bottom line is that my cat is a cat. So what does any good owner do in this situation? I pat her on the head, tell her good night, and enjoy the slumber I was thinking about upon my arrival to my home.

_{Bethany Christian Services is hosting a free viewing of the movie Bella. The event will be held on October 24, 2007. If anybody would like to attend, contact me and I can give you a ticket.}

_{Below is a blurb about the content of the film:}

_{Winner of the 2006 Toronto Film Festival, Bella is a beautiful story about love, life, and relationships in the face of the unexpected. An independent drama written and directed by Alejandro Monteverde, the story of Bella centers on a former soccer star (Eduardo Verastegui) and a young waitress (Emmy Award Winner Tammy Blanchard) who share one unforgettable day in New York City that changes their lives forever.}

_{“Bella is a truly rare and uplifting film, and we know that you will enjoy and long remember this beautiful story. Thank you for supporting this great movie, and for all that you do in support of adoption.”}

_{Tom Atwood NCFA}

My cousin Jason broke this news to me while checking my email just a minute ago. I can not believe it. The face of Husker football changes again.

Good Luck TO!

Tonight I have to attended drivers school do to the fact that I turned Right on Red to many times.

Bothersome…

I feel like my driving violation is so minimal to have to attend classes. I was not speeding, I was not driving recklessly, I just turned Right on Red when there was a sign informing me that I could not. To my credit it was a small sign, during dusk, and it was hard to see.

The Country Of Marriage

I.
I dream of you walking at night along the streams
of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs
of birds opening around you as you walk.
You are holding in your body the dark seed of my sleep.

II.
This comes after silence. Was it something I said
that bound me to you, some mere promise
or, worse, the fear of loneliness and death?
A man lost in the woods in the dark, I stood
still and said nothing. And then there rose in me,
like the earth’s empowering brew rising
in root and branch, the words of a dream of you
I did not know I had dreamed. I was a wanderer
who feels the solace of his native land
under his feet again and moving in his blood.
I went on, blind and faithful. Where I stepped
my track was there to steady me. It was no abyss
that lay before me, but only the level ground.

III.
Sometimes our life reminds me
of a forest in which there is a graceful clearing
and in that opening a house,
an orchard and garden,
comfortable shades, and flowers
red and yellow in the sun, a pattern
made in the light for the light to return to.
The forest is mostly dark, its ways
to be made anew day after day, the dark
richer than the light and more blessed,
provided we stay brave
enough to keep on going in.

IV.
How many times have I come to you out of my head
with joy, if ever a man was,
for to approach you I have given up the light
and all directions. I come to you
lost, wholly trusting as a man who goes
into the forest unarmed. It is as though I descend
slowly earthward out of the air. I rest in peace
in you, when I arrive at last.

V.
Our bond is no little economy based on the exchange
of my love and work for yours, so much for so much
of an expendable fund. We don’t know what its limits are–
that puts us in the dark. We are more together
than we know, how else could we keep on discovering
we are more together than we thought?
You are the known way leading always to the unknown,
and you are the known place to which the unknown is always
leading me back. More blessed in you than I know,
I possess nothing worthy to give you, nothing
not belittled by my saying that I possess it.
Even an hour of love is a moral predicament, a blessing
a man may be hard up to be worthy of. He can only
accept it, as a plant accepts from all the bounty of the light
enough to live, and then accepts the dark,
passing unencumbered back to the earth, as I
have fallen tine and again from the great strength
of my desire, helpless, into your arms.

VI.
What I am learning to give you is my death
to set you free of me, and me from myself
into the dark and the new light. Like the water
of a deep stream, love is always too much. We
did not make it. Though we drink till we burst
we cannot have it all, or want it all.
In its abundance it survives our thirst.
In the evening we come down to the shore
to drink our fill, and sleep, while it
flows through the regions of the dark.
It does not hold us, except we keep returning
to its rich waters thirsty. We enter,
willing to die, into the commonwealth of its joy.

VII.
I give you what is unbounded, passing from dark to dark,
containing darkness: a night of rain, an early morning.
I give you the life I have let live for the love of you:
a clump of orange-blooming weeds beside the road,
the young orchard waiting in the snow, our own life
that we have planted in the ground, as I
have planted mine in you. I give you my love for all
beautiful and honest women that you gather to yourself
again and again, and satisfy–and this poem,
no more mine than any man’s who has loved a woman.

Poem: www.poemhunter.com
Photo: www.nndb.com

Steve, Jen, Jason and I were having some picture fun on Steve and Jen’s computer. (It has a sweet camera installed in it) Any rate, Steve set it on this funkey seting and this is how the photograph turned out.

My goodness, I have not blogged in a while. My friend Brook is coming into town and she emailed me this today and felt like it needed to be shared. Brook has to be one of the funniest people alive.

Enclosed is Brook’s email:

2 days searching for flights
1 paniced attempt to call Lou, hoping she would check her messages
1.5 boxes of kleenex
1 credit card payment of $176.30
1 flight scheduling mishap
1 phone call to southwest airlines
Lou singing to me twice on the phone: Priceless

This Ode is for my dear friend Michelle who lent me her Harry Potter DVD’s for 2 years.
(Almost half my time living in STL)

THANKS MICHELLE!!!!!

I am not talking about hot wings. I am talking my personal self as I sit here on this muggy couch, breathing muggy air, thinking about going to sleep in my muggy bed…wondering why, I did not heed my father wisdom in the air filter department. Because my personal home feels like the Amazon rain forest. If anyone has any tropical plants that need caring for, I would be happy to offer up my home for that purpose. Other then that, this is just misery that serve no purpose except to teach me to change my air filter.

FYI: Air filters that are not changed after a period of three years do go ahead and melt all over the blower which in that time will stop blowing, producing a hot house.

IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU!