Leather Tramping

I'm getting lost in the wild of Minnesota. I'll be traveling on my own two feet with nothing but the supplies on my back, a canoe, and two other souls. This is the closest I'll get to experiencing what it's like to be a leather tramp. I'll be MIA for about a week. So until then, I leave you with this famous quote from Christopher McCandless.

"Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped from Atlanta. Thou shalt not return, 'cause "the West is the best." And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage. Ten days and nights of freight trains and hitchhiking bring him to the Great White North. No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild." 

-Alexander Supertramp, May 1992

Daydream

I'm counting down the final hours of the trip to Minnesota. Brutality greeted me today with a teasing smile. It's sad to witness apathy as a common trait among people and I often feel sympathy for them for carrying this characteristic. I imagine to myself what would happen if I just let the wild take me as it's own. I would blend green with nature and be freed of obligations, society, and the meanness of others. The sweet imagery makes me smile. It would be such a great way to escape it all, to turn my back on what society feels is acceptable and open my arms to what is solid.

"Don't wake me, I plan on sleeping in."

There's just something about rainy mornings that make me feel at ease. It might be the gray haze cast against closed blinds making the atmosphere so completely perfect for napping. It could be the sound of gentle pitter patters of water droplets hitting the concrete through an open patio door. Or perhaps the distant rumbling of thunder. Whatever it may be, it brings a sort of heaviness to my body. A cozy heaviness that just successfully persuades you to stay in bed all day. And then when the pattering and rumbling ends, and the sun reaches its dimmed, yellow hand through the blinds- I suddenly feel energized, ready for the day. I am whatever the weather brings me.

A World Worn

Radiant seas salty and pure
tainted with night-
hug the fine edges of the earth
expanding from Her tears
And crisp air is a ghoul-
and he gobbles it up with greed
leaving soot in our mouths
Pain: sawing, metal pain She feels
All Her fallen children lay
in the back of a rusty old truck
And Her poor, precious creatures:
live in plastic packages
and run to continue existing
She holds an anguish unbearable to carry-
a rage as dangerous as a lightning storm-
and regret as deep as a wound
We were given a beloved gift
Entrusted with a glorious privilege
But we utilized it's properties
for our own gain
And now our world is worn and dying
Every minute it ages a decade
And when Her realm finally collapses-
It will be Mother Nature
to pick up the pieces once again

Pothole

I've gotten this far and my writer's block is beginning to push me back into doubting my writing skills once again. I need something. Anything. Anything at all that will enable me to spew ink on a blank page.

Breathing Again

I'm feeling content in this nap hazed room. Finally content with where my life is choosing to go. Though not completely at peace with where every aspect of it is going, but appeased enough to breathe that enormous sigh of relief. I sit and wonder to myself how much things will change for us when August rolls around. I've forgotten how it used to be long ago. Perhaps it won't be so terrible since we've experienced it before- the distance, the less time we can share together. But it's just something that I'll have to cope with. It will be difficult, like pulling apart two leeches accidently stuck together, but it will be possible. I just hope that where everything is going now leads to something good. I don't think I can take the weight of any more discouragement. It had once piled on so much that I was almost immobile.

This Here is My Bucket List

I'll be adding.


[ ] Figure out what you want to do with your life.
[x] Get your own apartment.
[x] Find a job where you're not treated like a retard.
[x] Visit the Beer Nuts Factory
[ ] Get a dog for said apartment.
[ ] Get married and have an outdoor wedding with a zombie wedding cake.
[ ] Go to Ireland with some really cool people.
[x] Smoke a cigar with my Dad.
[ ] Visit the House on the Rock.
[x] Go to a Bon Iver concert.
[x] Experience actual happiness.
[ ] Travel a lot.
[x] Go hardcore camping.
[ ] Pay off my Cobalt.
[x] Find and experience love.
[x] Become a good writer.
[x] Drink with my Mom.
[ ] Get over my fear of public speaking.
[ ] Visit the "Magic Bus" in Alaska.
[ ] Eventually own a house with vines growing on it.
[ ] Go camping frequently.
[ ] Go hiking frequently.
[ ] Figure out who you are.
[ ] Become a mother.
[ ] Go to an Antlers concert.
[ ] Learn how to tie shoes correctly.
[ ] Publish one of my poems.
[ ] Read more often.
[ ] Lose 15 pounds.

Gray Areas

Searching high and low for the right words but always finding the wrong ones. I speak in riddles and I over analyze everything. And as every syllable leaves my lips- I regret it all again. This is just my way of getting your attention, so please don't take it the wrong way. You need to know that I, more than often, surrender to my thoughts. It's usually a strange, jumbled place pondering about the possibilities. If you try to invade this world, use caution. It's a delicate little place I only know. It's precious and easily harmed due to past occurrences. I am a wounded songbird slowly recovering for flight and song once again. I need a patient and trying heart. I'm so certain that it's you.

Untitled

I'm sitting on an island surrounded by the new summer, under the fresh pine trees. The pond encircles, smelling green. And the geese and their goslings all nod a hello as they pass. I sit and wait for him.

Reality At Its Finest

I don't believe the sun had ever shined brighter. We endured ongoing waves of rain and bouts of cold weather for weeks, but on this particular day the sun decided to make an appearance. It's glow was kind and welcoming, like an old friend popping in for a visit. I had the windows rolled down in my car and my favorite CD playing in the stereo. My music danced with the music of passing cars, and I knew that everyone around me was in tremendously good spirits as I was because of the beautiful weather. I thought it was the perfect day for the sun to drop by, for it being Mother's Day. The sun might as well be the mother of this world, looking after the natural beauty she had given us. 

I made my way down probably the largest hill in Lemont, passing by the many tall churches. I had only just started driving up the bridge on my way to Woodridge when it happened. I didn't witness it myself, but I didn't need to. The sounds themselves were enough to tell me exactly what I could have seen just moments earlier. The screeching of rubber against concrete. The piercing sound that reminded me of a train colliding with something. Then the eternal caterwaul of a car alarm. The cars in front of me rolled to a dead stop and immediately a double line was forming. A few people who had their cars stopped on the bridge in the left lane exited them and ran toward the scene. On the other side of the bridge, I saw a young girl in a red dress with black tights on and no shoes on her feet clamber out of her destroyed vehicle. It looked like some kind of beast had taken its giant, clawed hand and ripped off the entire left side of her car. She was shuffling very slowly towards the center of the bridge, to what I wasn't sure, with both hands shakily covering her mouth in shock. I could hear her sorrowful cries over her ongoing car alarm. Occasionally the cars in front of me would move inch by inch to move into the right lane. I was on the lowest part of the bridge, and as I inched forward, part of the scene that had just happened was coming into view from underneath a parked van in front of me. I put a lead foot on the brake immediately. My stomach began churning in all kinds of ways- and I began to feel ill. 

The only thing I could see was a single mangled, booted leg lying on the concrete. The van blocked whoever the leg belonged to. As I grew nearer and nearer to the scene, I saw a woman civilian jump out of her car on the other side of the bridge and run over to the hysterical girl in the red dress and put an arm around her shoulder, leading her away from her scrapped car for safety reasons. I could see a pink fluid running from the car down the bridge. The man the woman civilian was driving with carried a navy blue sweater and I thought to myself for a moment that maybe it was going to be used to cover the possible corpse that was lying on the concrete. I felt my heart dive into my stomach and it took every ounce of strength I had to force my foot on the gas pedal to keep moving slowly with traffic, all the while getting closer to the scene. 

The pile of shredded motorcycle was the next picture that came into view. It occurred to me now just how fresh this calamity was. There were no sounds of sirens emitting from any direction. No police cars. No ambulances. There were just the spectators and the helpful civilians. They were the ones taking care of the scene. I swear there was a bird fluttering its wings in my chest, and my anxiety was at an all time high. I didn't want to see what came around the bend. But I knew I had no choice. My eyes were fixed on what was before the van in front of me even though I didn't want to look. I moved forward the last few inches, passing the van and moving very slowly until I rolled to a complete stop. Only five feet away, I set my wide eyes on a conscious young man lying on his right side and holding completely still. He wore a black leather jacket and faded old blue jeans- and looked remarkably fine except for his mangled right leg.

"Hey man, can you come over here?" I heard him call one of the civilians at the scene. There was a huge wave of relief that came over me. The boy was awake and talking. He was fine and I didn't have to worry anymore. I was completely overjoyed, but I couldn't shake the adrenaline running through my veins, making my whole body shake. I put on my blinker and made my slow merge into the right lane to bypass all the parked cars. I stopped suddenly next to two middle-aged men climbing back into their silver corvette.

"Is he okay?" I asked them, the obvious worry littering my face. I already knew their answer because I had already seen it for myself. Something in me just had to ask.

"He's fine, we just called 911." The driver replied. I sighed.

"Good, that's great. I'm so glad." I told them. They nodded and I proceeded to drive away down the bridge. All the way on my sunny drive to Woodridge, I could only think about what I had just witnessed. I wondered to myself just how come things like that happen on such good days. A beautiful Mother's Day. Then I thought about the young man's mother and how worried sick she must feel. I picked out the silver lining in this somehow. I'm just glad that a mother didn't lose her son on this gorgeous Mother's Day.

"Now I'm riding all over this island looking for something to open my eyes."

And I found it! The clouds have parted, birds are singing, music is sweet, the violent hurricane within my head has quit its raging, I have been lifted for all the world to see that I am not a failure, I do not give up, and I have a plan! I have a future! It's as crystal clear as my vision was as I was a child, near and reachable, plausible, and exciting! There is hope, the sweet dream is there. Come August, I begin the part of my life that died and is now renewed.

For The Sake of Cheesecake

So a few days ago, I asked Greg what I should write about next. Judging by the title of this post, you can probably guess what he said. Just a few minutes ago, I asked my sister what I should write about next. She said the same thing, probably just to be hilarious. Which it was. So here's my first ever writing about food.

"We had lived in an old country house on the top of a hill surrounded by blankets of wildflowers." The old woman began. She shifted in that newly furnished rocking chair, trying to find a comfortable position. It just wasn't the same as her rickety one. The ancient quilted blanket her mother had made her long ago covered her bony legs. A child who looked about seven or eight years old sat Indian style in front of the woman, listening intently. Her long, ebony hair stuck out in every direction and fell over her large green eyes.

"In the days when I was a young girl, my brothers and I knew very little of the reality that went on outside our childish games. My mother was especially keen on making sure that our childhood stayed as pure as it could with what was going on in the world. When we couldn't have dinner some nights or when she and father often argued about financial budgets, she usually came up with some witty and exciting reasoning behind our troubles. Or she would focus our minds on something else, like a game. But anyway," the wrinkly woman said, shifting yet again in that rocking chair, "That is not what this story is about. That's what every story from old people like me is always about. Their past struggles. No, this story is about cheesecake. The best cheesecake ever created." At the sound of the word, the little girl's eyes widened to two great green pools and she licked her lips.

"Ah yes, the best cheesecake ever created." The woman reiterated, sitting back now in her rocking chair as she pulled out those filed memories. "Every Sunday after church, my family would go the food market to pick up as many supplies as they could with six dollars. My two brothers always went with my father with half of the six dollars to pick up either dog food for our border collie or feed for the cow or the chickens. My mother and I usually went to buy canned goods or meat for this week’s meals. One particular Sunday, my mother noticed that she had some extra money after buying our food for the week. She told me to wait with the groceries at the front of the market while she went to browse the aisles once again. She came back with two plastic bags filled with ingredients I had never seen before. She told me it was a surprise. I shrugged and so we were on our way. When we got back home, greeted by a yipping Bentley, my brothers and father went out to the barn to feed the animals while my mother and I unloaded the groceries. Then mother began to make something with the mysterious ingredients. I snuck a peek around her arm but she caught me. She gave me a sunny smile and told me to go help my brothers. I pouted and ventured out into the blankets of flowers barefoot like always and met up with them halfway to the barn. Somewhere in the distance I could hear father chopping firewood. I told them what mother was up to and they couldn't guess what it was she was making. So the three of us tip-"

"BINGOOOO!" A shaky, pruny-sounding voice called only a few feet away. The boring room with its plain mint green walls came back into view, closing in fast. The old woman, dismayed that her reverie had been broken, glared over at the multiple circle tables with elderly people around them.

"You mind keeping it down, Clark? I'm trying to tell a story here. It's normally quiet in these nursing homes, in case your Alzheimer's made you forget." The old man chuckled.

"Sorry Charlotte, I'll keep it down."

"What happened next, Granny?" The little girl asked quietly, fidgeting from anticipation.

"Oh yes," Charlotte continued, "The three of us tip toed back to the country house and peered into the kitchen window. Mother glanced over at us and raised an eyebrow so we ducked our heads as quickly as we could. We sat on the worn wooden porch, discussing in whispers of what mother could be making. Walter, the youngest, had jokingly suggested 'brraaainnnnsss' because our mother was secretly a zombie. Jebb, the oldest, didn't suggest anything because he thought it was going to be like every other normal dish we've received. And I, the middle child, knew it was going to be something marvelous. Time had passed quicker than we had realized. The sun reached the tops of the forest's tree line when mother called us in for dinner. We all sat at our appropriate seats around the table with Bentley beginning to scavenge at our feet before we even started eating. Dinner was our normal feast of bread and butter, slices of ham, and corn with peas. My brothers and I scarfed down our food lightning fast. Father only commented on our strange behavior while mother smiled sweetly to herself. When we all had finished, mother cleared off the table and replaced our dinner with a single white china plate with a metal lid on top. My brothers and I leaned in towards the plate with our mouths watering and our eyes buggy, waiting for the unveiling. I looked across the table at Walter, who was half closing his eyes just in case it really was brains. With one fell swoop, mother revealed the most perfect pastry that ever existed. It was circular and had a light yellow crème color to it. On top, there were slices of strawberries all over, like lights on a Christmas tree. But nothing was more breath taking than the smell. All I could come up with at the time to describe it was sweet smelling cheese, with a milky scent thrown in, combined with the aroma of the freshest strawberries my nose had ever experienced. Mother suddenly broke our lust for the strange pastry and told us to sit back in our chairs because our faces were nearly buried in it. We asked her what it was and she called it cheesecake. She explained how easy it was to make and I could hear the happiness ringing in her voice as she spoke." The old woman sighed at her memories replaying through her mind like a grainy film.

"Did it taste good?" The little girl asked.

"It tasted wonderful." Charlotte said, grinning to herself, "But the story doesn't end there." The old woman began rocking slowly in her rocking chair, no creaking sounds emitting from it like it should. She gave a small chuckle.

"Well, my mother made cheesecake every Sunday after dinner from then on. It became sort of a family tradition. Walter, Jebb, and I . . . mischievous in our young ages, made a game out of trying to swipe the cheesecake before dinner and gobbling it all up. We would try everything to get our hands on that beautiful pastry. It ranged from things like distracting our mother to creating some wacky diversion. Our mother was always one step ahead of us though, catching us before we could take it. She never got upset with us; she thought our futile attempts were humorous. But one day we actually did it. Walter ran inside the kitchen one Sunday afternoon with waterfalls running down his cheeks. He told mother how Jebb had pushed him into a bush and he had cut a single finger. Mother took him into the bathroom to clean him up just as Jebb and I flew into the kitchen like ghosts and stole the cheesecake from its usual spot on the counter. We sprinted through the flower blankets, Jebb holding onto the plate for dear life until his foot suddenly caught a tree root and the plate went soaring into the air. I ran with all my might to try and catch it, but when I turned and reached my arms out, the plate no longer had its metal lid and it was inches from my face. It was a direct hit, and I plopped on a flower bed. Bentley came out of nowhere and proceeded to licking the remains of our fallen cheesecake off the china plate. I wasn't upset that I was covered head to toe in cheesecake. I just did what Bentley did and grabbed globs of it off my face and stuffed it into my mouth happily. Jebb was crushing flowers as he rolled around over taken by laughter. Mother stood out on the porch smiling with a gaping Walter standing beside her. That night, we thought maybe it was better to bear the anticipation and just wait for the greatness that was my mother's famous cheesecake."