Crying to Ben Folds

Thursday morning. 8:49 am.  Stop and go traffic.

A song starts playing on your iPod, the intro unfamiliar, yet the voice so clearly penetrates layer after layer of your subconscious and strikes the center of your heart. Kill shot. You know exactly what this is.

This is a Ben Folds ballad. Doesn't matter which one, they're all good.

Briefly, your mind darts back to that one conversation around the dinner table you had with two of your closest friends when Ben Folds happened to come up in conversation.  "I'm not going to lie," you remember starting, "The man makes me bawl like a baby sometimes."

"Oh... I know," Your friend nods her head in agreement, then looks up sheepishly, "Sometimes, I just lie awake at night with my headphones.  And I don't even know why, I just start crying. I have nothing to cry about, but it always happens when I'm listening to Ben Folds."

Words cannot even describe the warmth that spread all over when you realized you were not the only one who experienced emotional trauma at the hands of a Ben Folds ballad.

As your mind turns over that memory, you find yourself thinking, "Don't start crying."

But it is too late.

Suddenly the words come crashing over you.

"I love you more than any man has loved before.
I love you more than all the stars up in the sky.
I think that we should settle down and live happily forever after
What do you think of that?" (One Down, Ben Folds.)

Boom. Water works.

Why?

Isolated, the lyrics aren't even that great.  Just reading them off the screen sounds a little lame, but gosh.  It's all in the set-up folks.  Preceding and following these lines is a song purely about meeting a lyric deadline, and complaining about whiny musicians in today's music industry.  Suddenly these lines hit you like a brick wall out of nowhere and it knocks you so far over that you have no choice but to burst into tears.

Or that's all that I was left with, anyway.

Needless to say, any morning started by a case of the cries while moments away from arriving at work is never really a good morning.  To top it off, a migraine has been a-brewin' all day long in this silly head of mine, so most of my workday was spent cradling my forehead in my left hand, feeling my temple throb in the most unholy of manners, while turning off all the lights in the office with my right hand because they are too damn bright and that is most annoying.

Brighter than the office track lighting, however, is the inevitable change that is coagulating on the horizon. Yes. Coagulating.

Suddenly, I'm being forced to actually plan my life farther than 6 months down the road and I'm learning some things about my decisions that have surprised me.  I don't want to give a lot away, right now, so forgive my vagueness- just know that it's a good sort of surprise.  It's kind of like finding something you didn't know you'd lost, but now that you've found it, you realized you've been missing it terribly all along, "Oh, there you are."

Still, the winds of change are starting to twist and turn and there's always that feeling of loosing your footing. I think, in a way, I'm looking forward to loosing my footing for a little while.

I can feel my identity starting to move forward into a new phase of life, and I'm running, breathless, to keep up with it.

There are still a few constants, however.  People that will always stand beside you, during every horizon of coagulation. I've been reflecting a lot over the past week about these people in my life and I can say right now that it's hard to find the words to express my gratitude for having them by my side.

They're the kind of people who know you better than you know yourself.  When you're tapping your foot idly, they know that you're frustrated about something because it's impossible for you to sit still when you're frustrated.  Then they confront you about it, and you vehemently deny it, and stop moving your foot- all the while not realizing your fingers have started tapping involuntarily in place of your foot.  With a gentle smile, they motion to your hands. Oof.  Point proven.

They're the kind of people who grab your hands on days when you are at your lowest level of self worth, and they force you to look into their eyes, while they proceed to tell you exactly why it is that you are special, and why you should love yourself better, the way they love you.

They're the kind of people who no matter how far away they are, you can feel immediately close to them by just spending an afternoon on the phone with them while researching international volunteer programs.  You don't even have to talk to each other. They're just there, at the other end of the phone, and you draw comfort from that.

They're the kind of people who love you enough to tell you the hard things, the gritty things, the things you don't want to hear, but you need to hear.  They're not afraid to kick your ass when it needs to be kicked.  Those are the people you need in your life.  Of course, if you're as lucky as I am, they'll kick your ass and offer you homemade cookies or lemon cake at the same time, because they love you and they don't want to see you hurting.

I've been blessed with a happy few individuals who have been there for me in immeasurable ways for the past four or five years. They have stood with me through the silt and the sludge of turbulent teenage years, and they have allowed me to walk beside them during their toughest moments, as well.

History is not something to be taken lightly, you know?  When you have years and years of memories compiled with people that you love, treasure that.  Take care of it.  Be good to it, because there's nothing worse than having to start over.  There's nothing worse than loosing those people because you've taken them for granted, or you've assumed that everything in your relationship is hunky-dory when it's really not, because they could be falling apart.  You could be the straw that breaks the camel's back, and their world could be moving on without you.

They're the kind of people you love so much, that a silly song on the radio or a commercial on TV can catapult you into an emotional roller coaster of soaring joy and overwhelming love-that-is-so-deep-it-hurts because it reminded you of them, and their impact and their presence in your life.  Hold onto those people.

I plan on holding on so tight to mine.

My kind of people who will listen to Ben Folds with me on repeat and not only forgive, but accept my silent waves of tears caused by a silly adoration of a Southern pianist with a gift for sass and poetry.

Which, to bring this completely full circle, I just have to add that on my way home from work tonight I found myself crying, again, to Ben Folds, but to a different song this time.  Thus, for the second time today, I found myself crying to Ben Folds, and that, honestly, has to be a new record.

For those of you who have been there for me, rock-bottom and sky-high, thank you.  I love you.

Always.

Flighty Little Birds, Jagged Around the Edges

I have this candle that smells like one of my most favorite people in the world.

I'm not sure how it's possible that this came to be.  One day, about a month ago, I was milling around Sesame and Lilies, the home decor store I used to work at when I lived in Cannon Beach, and I picked up a large candle in a grey, hobnail jar. I brought it to my nose.  I wondered for a moment what "Ambergrass" was supposed to smell like, and then I took a whiff.

Instantly, familiarity washed over me.  I knew that scent very well.  It smelled like wishes, right before they are granted.  It was the same smell that used to follow me around while grocery shopping, or riding in that car.  It smelled like being held in a warm, tight hug.  It smelled mildly like peaches, but earthier than that.  It was the same smell that accompanied the voice which soundtracked my Summer, to quote that crazy-good Boys Like Girls song from 4 years ago.

I don't know if I bought the candle because the smell reminded me of this person, or if I bought the candle because the familiarity of the smell was comforting- but somehow, it ended up coming home with me that day.

And right now it's perched next to me, lit.  One small beam of light to combat a world of darkness.

Lovers,  sometimes we forget how precious life is.

Sometimes, we forget that death is a constant and inescapable part of our lives.

One of my dearest friends, Natalie Trust, writes about this very topic in her blog.  It's titled, "Death's Waiting Room," and you can read it here. Please do so.

Lovers, there is a story behind all of this to share- but it is not mine to tell.  And so I will not tell it today. But I will write a few vague sentences- even if just for the sake of personal catharsis.

There are many thoughts in my brain that do not align in a logical pattern.  Mostly they are whirring around like flighty little birds, jagged around the edges.  They are afraid to settle in one place for too long, because they might become stagnant.  They might become flightless, and by loosing their wings, they might grow even more scarred.

Memory, that rose-tinted creature, flies from one branch to another restlessly bringing up images and nostalgia with every fluttered movement- Fact, that cold-hearted mistress screeches from the tops of her tiny little lungs unforgivable curses as she flies in endless circles- Hope, that bedraggled white dove, coos softly in the midst of the squalor.  Often her voice is overpowered- but it is still present. Her patient heart is still beating steadily.

What do you do when someone you've always known as a permanent fixture in your life suddenly becomes frighteningly temporary?

All I have floating around in my brain are words- and words are so blatantly empty today.

Words have the power to break people- and yet, rarely do they actually possess the power to bring comfort.  Where is the comfort to be found in a violently angry murderess that lives and grows within our very bloodstreams?  Where is the hope to be found in a pungent blackness that devours from the inside out?

My words are muted, today.  My arms are tired from wrestling with angels, like Jacob in the book of Genesis.

My heart is heavy. This small hammock of tragedy in which I sit today is cradling me so carefully, so effortlessly.  I wonder if I could just lie back and let it carry me, how far would we travel together?

It's strange, watching your beloveds go through the motions of realizing they might loose someone beloved to them. It makes that person, while still a familiar, cherished, loved and more-than-welcomed part of your own life, all that more special and precious to you.

I realized today just how sacred every breath is.

Sacred. 

Every breath.

Human life is the most priceless thing on this planet, my own best friend reminded me today.  How careless of me to have forgotten.

Through it all, I continue to ask my Heavenly Father where He is in all of this.

Father, God.  Where are you?

I know your sovereignty.  I know your omniscience.  I just don't have the Kingdom eyes to see your plan; I am made of bone and sinew and my weak heart is full of doubt and I lack understanding.

Still, Lord- I stand.  Just as all of those around me and all of those involved and all of those grieving alongside each other tonight are standing.  In the light and hope of our God and Savior- knowing that He is also standing for us.  Knowing that He is not absent, or removed, or uncaring, unfeeling.

Knowing that He is full of healing, and mercy and miracles and undying love for each one of His earthly children, and that His heart is also breaking under the extreme weight of this recent news.

How blessed are we.

To have a Savior who's heart breaks over the tragedies which befall His prized children. To know that not only does He have all control of the situation, but He also understands and comprehends exactly how these tragedies make us feel.

He is breath-taking, and we are all made in His image.  When I envision the face which this tragedy belongs to, I see the beautiful Imago Dei bursting forth from those grace-filled features, clothed in dignity and righteousness.

So tonight, the tears may fall.

But the Almighty is still good.

This grief-laden hammock is comfortable, but it is not permanent.

Tomorrow is a new day, and for those of us who live to see the morning light- there will be so many moments in which to give thanks throughout the day.  Don't let the opportunity to thank God for the sacredness of breath pass you by.

I love you.  I love you.  I love you.

"With a gun barrel between your teeth, you speak only in vowels."

This post is for my dear friend, Allen.

Happy Birthday, kindred soul.  I know I promised this to you eons ago- I sincerely hope I do it justice, since we've both talked it up enough by now for it to potentially move mountains and siphon rivers, end world hunger and... Make a lot of soap.

I also hope it beats the 1984 collectible Star Wars plastic cup I bought you last year. (I think it was '84.  I have a horrible memory for these things.)

Love you so much.  Here's to many more years of mind-blowing scripts and the conversations they spark for hours on end.  And also, many more years of Beatles lyrics trivia.  "No-one, i think, is in my tree, I mean, it must be high or low- that is, you can't, you know, tune in- but it's alright, that is, I think it's not too bad."



Over a year ago, now, Allen introduced me to my very first encounter with the pop culture enigma, Fight Club.

Amused, he sat across the room from me on the opposite couch, beside a gurgling tank which housed two oversexed box turtles, and he watched my eyes grow wide, glued to the screen, and my hands as they tightly clenched the pillow I was holding- I was alive with wonder and inspiration.  He just sat there, privy to my creative undoing and he smiled, knowing full well that someday I would come to alternately loving him and hating him for introducing me to this cosmic and earth-shattering film.

Never had I ever seen anything before quite like this brutally, chemically, forcefully poignant revelation on the human psyche and its' electric thirst to escape the jaded fatigue within which we inevitably find ourselves situated.

I.

Was.

UN-EARTHED.

And paralyzingly impacted.  I wanted to scream so loudly- and I wanted to write one-million words that started with the same letter.  I was exhausted. I wanted to sleep.  I wanted to launch headfirst into the Ocean and keep swimming until the adrenaline wore off.

From that moment on, I knew something very crucial had happened there that night.  I became aware. I'm not sure I can really describe it in any other way.

From the introduction of Marla Singer,  "Marla, you big tourist.... The little scratch on the roof of your mouth  that would heal if only you could stop tonguing it, but you can't."

to the ultimation of the sync between Tyler Durden and the insomniac Jack, I had reached an uncharted island of awareness.  I had plateaued into a heightened sense of clarity; and yet, instead of catapulting me in a peaceful, Ghandi-like state, that same heightened breed of clarity only fostered a deep unsettling and frustration within my tense frame. I was as un-Ghandi-like as Attila the Hun.

I was frustrated because I knew that it had changed me.  But I didn't know how it had changed me. And because of that,  I knew that I wouldn't be getting any sleep that night, and I really hate loosing sleep over anything.

"If you wake up at a different time and in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?"

"On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero."

"I don't want to die without any scars."

These three sentences alone could take me days to unpack. I think the thing I love most about Fight Club is that every time I re-watch it, or re-read the book, all-too-familiar lines will pop out of the background like tiny, machine-gun pellets, wounding and changing me in a different way than they did before. It's like every time I watch it, I'm experiencing it again for the very first time.

I wouldn't want to die without any scars, either- and I think the scariest thing about this movie and how much it moved me, was the way I found myself identifying with the characters. I mean, there's so much truth to Tyler Durden's arrogant, jaded cynicism, isn't there?

Nobody wants to die unscathed. Wound us.  Change us.  Hurt us.  Knock us off our feet.  Make us feel alive again.

It's disgusting, and despicable, the way that self-destruction is deified in this story.  It's horrific, but it's intriguing all the same.  I felt like vomiting.  I didn't dare take my eyes off the screen for one, single moment. I couldn't move. I didn't want to move.

"A generation of men raised by women. I'm wondering if another woman is the answer we really need."

Fight Club is no friend of the female sex.  I can't tell you how many times I felt like I should be bitterly (and righteously) offended by its blatant sexism.  And yet, you read the statement above and you can't help but think:  "Yeah.  Where did all the fathers go?" For me, this aspect of the movie was like, inception, dude.  I didn't realize I felt that way until I saw the movie, and then I realized this seed of dissension and turbulence had been planted there long, long ago. I was only beginning to unravel the threads of discord and chaos.  The movie was far from over.

"Fight club wasn't about winning or losing.  It wasn't about words.  The hysterical shouting was in tongues, like at a Pentecostal church. When the fight was over, nothing was solved, but nothing mattered."

Is it terrible that I wanted to feel that?  Even if only for a moment.  The sheer brutality took me by force.  It all seemed so glamorously instinctual- I mean, it was overwhelmingly Hollywoodized, I knew that- but I didn't feel like Hollywood was lying to me, either.  I kind of felt this nirvana-esque ambiguity to it.

The primal idea of fighting to feel one's own worth.  Not prove one's worth, no.  Fight Club never was a competition.  It wasn't a sport.  These guys were self-healing their lifelong traumas.  The era of prescription drugs was over.  Self- medication had taken over in it's basest form.

"I got right in everyone's hostile little face.  Yes, these are bruises from fighting. I'm comfortable with them.  I am enlightened."

See what I mean?  And for a moment, a dangerously scandalous moment, I toyed over whether or not I wanted that, too.  Enlightenment.  Gosh, that's so enticing, isn't it?  I almost believed it.  I stand before you today, in full admittance and bearing no shame in the fact, that I almost believed it was possible.  That Fight Club in itself was a probable answer to a lot of society's problems.

Is that possible?

"Ancient peoples found their clothes got cleaner if they washed them at a certain spot in the river.  Why? Because, human sacrifices were once made on the hills above this river.  Year after year, bodies burnt.  Rain fell.  Water seeped through the wood ashes to become lye.  The lye combined with the melted fat of the bodies, till a thick white soapy discharge crept into the river.   The first soap was made from the ashes of heroes.  Like the first monkeys shot into space. Without sacrificing, without death, we would have nothing."

.... And then, ladies and gentlemen: the chemical burn scene.

"The pain you're feeling is premature enlightenment.  This is the greatest moment of your life and you're off somewhere, missing it.  Shut up.  Our fathers were our models for God.  And, if our fathers bailed, what does that tell us about God? Listen to me.  You have to consider the possibility that God doesn't like you, he never wanted you.  In all probability, He hates you.  This is not the worst thing that can happen... We are God's unwanted children, with no special place and no special attention, and so be it.  You can go to the sink and run water over your hand.  Look at me.  Or you can use vinegar to neutralize the burn, but first you have to give up.  First, you have to know that someday, you are going. to. die.  Until you know that, you will be useless."

Now, I don't for one second believe the above statement.  I'm sorry, I know disclaimers can sometimes ruin really good writing, but I feel like I have to make the distinction here.  I don't believe that God hates anyone.
I don't believe that God sees anyone of us as "unwanted."

Regardless of my disclaimer, this is pretty brilliant writing in and of itself, I have to say.  It's all in the way the sentences are built.  Ground-up.  The good, old-fashioned way. First you start with an idea, and then you build off that with an example- followed by a consideration, and then you unpack the consideration and build another level of seemingly persuasive credibility.  And then you finish with a slam-bam power-packed sentence that really leaves the witness reeling in a world of cyanide and spirituality.  This is a fiction writer's porn-like demographic. This is a literary ultimatum.

I've probably watched this chemical burn scene about 6 times in my life, and each time I get chills.  Still, after all this time, I'm not really sure I can explain why I get these chills.

"We are the middle children of history, with no purpose or place.  We have no great war, or great depression.  The great war is a spiritual war.  The great depression is our lives.  We were raised by television to believe that we'd be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars- but we won't.  And we're learning that fact.  And we're very, very pissed off. We are the quiet young men who listen until it's time to decide."

I think, deep down, in the very core of every human being, is a tiny little facet of radicalism.  We as a human race are born to revolutionize.  That's what we've been doing since the dawn of time, right?  Fire, the wheel, electricity, plumbing,submarines, rocket launches, nuclear war, cloning devices. We organize to revolutionize.   We revolutionize to radicalize.  It's been abused, and easily so. I'm not encouraging it.  I'm just revealing it.

I just think it stands to reason that there's a switch within all of us that can be radically flipped over one thing or another in our lives.  Maybe in unconventional ways, maybe it doesn't have to be political radicalism, or religious radicalism.  It could be the radical decision to quit social networking.  You could refuse to be a part of the United Postal System. You could stop eating gluten.

"Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessel's life.  His breakfast will taste better than any meal he has ever eaten."

Warped- but you get it, don't you?  It's about taking things for granted. Shouldn't every breakfast be the best meal we've ever eaten, just because we're alive? Shouldn't life continue upwards and forwards in a nebulous reach for the expansive, elusive future?

And then, Fight Club begins to spiral out of control.

Vandalism becomes rampant.  The commissioner's held under threat of castration, "The people you're after are everyone you depend on. We do your laundry, cook your food and serve you dinner.  We guard you while you sleep. We drive your ambulances. Do not fuck with us."

Jack almost kills the Angel Face character in hand-to-hand-combat.

"I felt like putting a bullet between the eyes of every Panda that wouldn't screw to save it's species.  I wanted to open the dump valves on oil tankers and smother all the French beaches I'd never see.  I felt like destroying something beautiful."

And even though I knew it was all going horribly, horribly wrong- I hated myself for finding such a terrestrial sort of poetry about it all. That cliche, about finding "beauty in the breakdown?"

  That is Fight Club.  It's a beautiful, disgusting, unforgettable, poignant, violently unforgivable breakdown.

It's a revolutionary idea which could never be accomplished in a pure manner- because man would inevitably screw it up every single time.

It's like world peace- the most desirable and beautiful concept in the entire existence of humanity, but as long as man is in control, we will never, ever, EVER attain world peace. It's impossible. We cannot handle such purity. We will stain it.  Our fingers are smudged with tar and asphalt.

It's a  conundrum.

"This does not belong to us.  We are not the leaders. We are not special.  We are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.  We are all part of the same compost heap."

And then, after a confrontation, a struggle, a diffusion and an acrid argument between Marla and Jack, several very large explosions and one ringing gunshot later- it's all over.

The credits roll.

Tyler and Jack are one and the same.  The clues are written all over the story-line.

And how do you feel?

How did I feel?

To be totally honest, I'm still trying to figure out how Fight Club makes me feel.  I'm still contemplating and discovering new facets and eccentricities of the psychological warfare this movie has brought to my life.

I think it's abundantly extremist.  I think Tyler Durden is the ultimation of a very lonely, very entitled and unhappy man's cry for help in all the wrong places.

Do I think Jack was a victim of temporary insanity?

No.

I don't for one second believe that Jack was a victim of mental instability.  I don't think Jack was a victim of a consumer, materialistic society by-producing spoiled, angry children in mass quantities like a meat packaging plant, or the Apple Inc. factory.

I think Jack was human.  I think Jack was weak.  He was the tiny, frail match that ignited a spark- and Tyler was a tank of gasoline thrown in to keep the fire burning.

I think the movie in some aspects is ridiculous and overdone.  I sometimes think to myself as I watch it, "Chuck Palahniuk was trying too hard to make a point."

At other times, I wring my hands over the fact that I don't have the same grappling hold on the English language that Chuck P. has.  And I do honestly think that Fight Club has defined an entire generation of misfit, IKEA-addicted nobodies who are dead tired of all the endless drudgery which the middle working-class has to offer.

I don't doubt that for a moment.

What does this movie mean to me?

Everything.   This movie and this book and this entire franchise means everything.  It's a reminder of who not to be, and how to strive for excellence all at once.

It's the single, solitary, most revealing and challenging fictional movie I've ever watched on a deeply personal level.

I'm not sure if that means I have an entire host of demons that I struggle with that I wasn't even aware of, or if it just means I share a sympathetic bond with writers and people like Chuck P.

I understand their messages.  I get where they're coming from.  I validate their disaffection and disillusionment. Their frailty is compacted within their social martyrdom. I can respect that.

And I owe all of this dogma and life criterion to Allen Barber.  Who knew from the very beginning that I was the kind of soul who would love this movie, and how it changes people. He could sense the Fight-Club-Lovin' Vibes all over me.

So he gave me a gift that day.

A gift that, occasionally, can actually be a pretty big curse, too, but a gift which, altogether I couldn't imagine my life without.

So thank you, Allen.  Here it is, 11:24 PM on 6/19/2013.  Just moments before your 25th birthday.

I hope this year is a blessing for you, dear friend.

Happiest of birthdays.

May the force be with you, you rebel-alliance-tattoo-bearing-friend-of-mine, you.

(funny note, I almost wrote, "may the odds be ever in your favor," just because.  I really have no idea why.  I just thought you might appreciate the fact that apparently I'm starting to quote The Hunger Games for no valid reason. Mmmkay. Night-night.)