bad haircuts (for a laugh)

turning a page



i don't know if anyone else out there is much of a journal-er, but i am. i have been ever since high school. sure, i've seen seasons of inactivity in my journaling just as i've had periods of writing everyday, or even more than once a day. but the big picture is that i have been keeping a journal for about the last 15 years, and i have thousands of pages to show for it.

journaling has certainly changed over time for me. as i go back and look at those first journals, when i was in high school, you will see that i was mostly writing about girl problems, you'll see trevor's name in there a great deal, and mia's. and once i got to college i wrote a bit more carefully, choosing words with a great deal of thought. i realize now that college was a really verbal time for me, a time in which i fell in love with words.

after college i didn't write so regularly for a long time until the last few years, really once i got into seminary and started opening up to the idea of image and word. then, the way i journaled changed completely. i began to write and collage in the pages of my journal. in short, i discovered my right brain.

anyway, i am finishing a journal today. if anyone journals alot, they can understand the significance of this moment: there is just something really satisfying about finishing a journal. i carry it with me almost everywhere i go, and it has been with me for quite a while. so, in a way, its like saying goodbye to a good friend. i've been flipping through those pages, and scratching out my inky ideas for so long that it feels connected to me, indelibly a part of me. so, on this day, i thought i would just give you a few samples of what i have written therein. by the way, the collage above is called 'almost there.'

may 2005
clang clang clang.
99 different soundwaves crashing,
climbing in my brain.

june 2005
i know if feels like these words are weapons
and sometimes they'll cut your heart,
but its something that we're speaking the same language
seems to me a good place to start.

october 2005
so i wander around the wasteland of my mind, looking here and there for a thought or two...
nope, can't find any. oh well. guess i'll write anyway....

words -
so many shaped sounds
splashed and scarred on the walls,
machine gun shot in any direction,
shown by empty shells on the ground.
but this, this is more than random acts of fear.
this is the poetry,
the words of God;
the scrape of bow and string,
the golden horizon burst by the rising sun.

november 2005
its autumn. the terrain is splotched with color. orange is the new green. even underfoot its a crunchy caliope of color. ahhh, autumn. and today is vintage fall: crisp air, bright blue sky fully decorated with hanging half-moon, blustery with little dost of color randomly flying around. its perfect: my favorite time of year. its good to be alive.

i am covered in things
suffocated and stuffed
i am dollar bill flat
under the weight of so much stuff.
i am surrounded by
neckties and cds,
choking on kitsch.
i am trapped by my possessions,
but even more perplexed
by my desire for more.
my list grows longer
as my heart grows emptier
and my house grows stuffier.

december 2005
advent,
a new and colder dawn. crisp pink heaven hangs over my horizon.
even here. even now there is a new and better chance
for starting over,
for waiting, watching.
good lord, what are we waiting for?
when my ears and clogged with digital noise
and my eyes are covered in an assault of color,
you appear in the shadows
under this advent. shhh...
i begin to see
scratched out on a pink canvas
your whisper becomes clear -
a glimmer of hope!
there is something here
worth hearing:
under the heavens and before the horizon
is advent,
a new and sweeter dawn.

on my way to new york city on the train:
its morning. there is still snow between all the tracks, making them appear to me like a kind of black and white ladder to the city. clack clack clack! there are noises and vibrations everywhere! its a very noisy climb to new york. but i sit still, in a northeasterly direction, watching the jersey towns go flying by, all stained by industry, colored by graffiti, and transformed by ethnic and economic diversity. its a sociological ride, this one, through suburb and urban flight and ghetto. still clacking, there are still more bricks, more doors, more windows, more...just more. i thank you, God, for this amazing world, and i am sorry for how we have bullied it around into edifice and orafice. we have built beyond babel. confused construction can only conclude in collapse. clack clack clack.

december is dwindling away. the air is laden with consonants, and as i trudge through, i am nearly drowned in long and short vowel sounds. syncopated syllables are situated between every silence. with all these words we swim in, its hard to find any splendor. stuck in all this nonsensical sound, we choke for too many words shoved in our ears. are there any beautiful words left to say? is there something profound that's still worth saying? or does something bear repeating? like, "love on another..."

january 2006
time. i don't know if its cogs and springs or a moving stream, rapid in rough in some spots, spilling over softened rocks, and still and steady, almost stagnant in certain others. or maybe its more like a balled-up peice of paper, wrinkled and full of odd shaped spaces. i know it is there - i can feel its movement like the wind. but i don't know where it goes or how quickly. i don't sense its shape, or how it fits in this space. it seriously seems fluid, waving and fluctuating, with ebb and flow. some days its a storm: a war on me. but others it is only a cool breeze, and sometimes so still you want to shake it loose from the trees like a stray kitten. yes. i want to shake time. i want to wrestle with it, wander through its wrinkles, float on its flow, feel its force on my face. if i have time, i will do this and more.

okay. that's enough. welcome to my life and my heart. i've got to go shake time out of the trees and start a new journal! talk to you soon!

almost there,
greg.