The Singer and the Song

The song begins with rainfall…lightly drizzling while rumbling thunder progresses slowly into the distance. A piano tinkles minor keys in the background, adding mystery to the somber night.

The volume of the piano builds as the rain fades away. The thunder wanes into a low rumble…nearly non-existent, but the repercussions can be felt for miles.

A soulful voice joins the tinkling piano, adding lamenting lyrics of a spent and banished love and the painful dream of searching for them again and again and again…

Their voice unlocks a distant memory of loves both lost and found.

A wandering bass line cuts through the sadness. A quartet of strings picks up the tempo and adds a jolt of reality and resolve to the lover’s woe. The singer pours their life blood into every line, cutting the listener to the bone and soul. The painful story must be told.

Slowly the voices of a harmonious choir join the fray as a lighted stage appears in the background, their voices moving to crescendo in unison with the lonely singer, building on the melancholy yet adding a tinge of hope.

They add resolve to the singer’s wounded soul, compelling them to rise again in search of a new love...one that will bring them back to life and fill their empty hearts with joy again.

The rising cacophony of sounds reach their glorious peak, growing louder and louder until they are almost unbearable to the ears…then….

Silence

In the spotlight a violin quivers a low tremolo as the jilted singer lowers their head in surrender. Deep in their soul they know their lover is gone forever. No more to be in their arms. They must make peace with their loss and move on.

The choir stares at them from behind, eyes and faces fixed as they wait for the singer’s final words. The singer delivers the last line with remnants of hope dripping from their lips, melting their frozen heart.

After a penitent and patient pause, the crowd stands and cheers the broken soul, applaud mixing with tears of remembrance for lost loves, broken dreams, and hope for the future.

The stage grows dark.

The curtain closes.

But the song goes on and on and on…

The Man Who Lived

There once was man who was born. Yes, that is how they all arrive I know you are thinking. But this man was special in his nothingness and in the plainness of his arrival. The town doesn’t matter, but like most towns, and like the man, it was always at a crossroads.

For the man grew up and took on his shoulders the weight of the world. He didn’t have to take it on. But he chose it as a punishment to himself and to prove that he could bear the weight. It would have been much easier to let it lie. To let others pick it up. “But what fun is that?” he thought.

Life should have been easy. Money was scarce but love was never far away. Part of him knew he was smart, but then again why did he always feel so dumb? Such is the way of the overthinking child. Never dumb but never smart enough to figure out how to fit in. How to be nothing more than a nuisance in the eyes of those who felt they had it all together. So he moved forward through the world… when it would have been so much easier to go around it.

It is a quandary to be different in a world of cookiecutter personalities, jocks and prom queens and those who hide their wealth while flaunting their privilege. The man was exhausted by his 20s but there was no time to slow down. He wanted to move far away from the crossroads. To a place where everyone is awkward and most are proud of it. Where people of all nationalities and languages converge and dusty books and endowments stoke the fires of knowledge.

The man finished his hurdle of intelligence and then settled into a pathway the world told him to follow. For the man knew that after college it is customary to marry, start a family and build up a new base of knowledge uncluttered by dusty philosophies, one that is hedged on the supernatural and where all things are possible through faith, except changing the core of who he was when the lights were out and he groaned through his unsettled dreams. A soft glowing ember of enlightenment remained alive, but barely blinking and hidden from the view of the world. But some noticed.

The man finally came to realize his place in the world. To see his reflection in the mirror of his own accomplishments, to never push himself down or allow others to make him small in their eyes, and to find his way through the weeds and vines of self-doubt and anxiety to emerge on the other side, scraped and bloody but better for the journey. He finally came to that place where his light began to glow. And glow it did.

“Why did it take so long?” He wondered why he did not know his worth years ago. Now he not only felt loved, but knew he deserved a love that was unbridled by ego, one as firm and steady as a mountain. That love became his anchor. Looking for love above or below would never serve him again. He realized that the glowing ember was not only the light that spurred him on to new adventures every few years and led his way through the darkness, but it was also a glowing ember that rekindled a fire of love that would never go out. That would consume him until his dying breath.

The man lived. And regret, sorrow, and the smallness of others could no longer harm him. He was enough. He was alive.

 

The Turbulent Summer of 2024

The summer of 2024 was tough. I felt like my time as a professor had come to an end. The program I helped build was handed off to new leadership and I was starting (or re-starting) a career as a K-12 science teacher. I contemplated retirement, but the numbers did not add up. So I took the dive back into education, and I am so glad I did. The journals (and excerpts from journals) below trace the days of my turbulent summer and give you glimpse of the struggles I had. I originally hand-wrote them, so I picked out a few of the entries I could read and those I felt like the reader could relate to. I may write something similar about my summer of 2026 as I retire from Texas, become a Louisiana resident, and transition back into academia in the fall of 2026.

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June 8, 2024

How do you know when you have done your job at a place and it is time to move on? It sounds simplistic, but you just know.

Doors close and don’t reopen.

Connections break that cannot be unbroken.

You feel the job you came there to do has not necessarily been completed, but you have done all that is in your power to do.

Is it easy? Absolutely not!

But it is necessary and sometimes it is best to rip the band-aid off than to watch it fester and grow stagnant out of your view.

Some broken things are not fixable, and even if a feeble attempt is made, you will never look at them the same again. That broken coffee cup may be glued back together, but you always see the crack and remember when it was dropped. Yes, it still holds coffee, but it is not the same cup. Neither are you the same

Yet through the pain, there is solace in knowing an end date to your time. Knowing when that burden is lifted and new work begins.

Did you do all that you could have done? There is no answer to that question, but you at least acknowledge that you “fought the good fight.”

Close the door, do not look back, and gently walk into your future.

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Excerpt from June 9, 2024

…Nothing can change the impression some have had on me. Nor would I want to forget those friends and memories I have made.

We are always better for having others’ impressions on us, and we leave our share of marks on their souls…

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Excerpt from June 13, 2024

I like the space before – the time before you start a new venture.

At that time there are limitless possibilities in our forward view.

…Right now I am neither a success nor a failure. I am in that glorious limbo of basking in hopefulness. It is the calm before the storm. Just before sunrise.

But I know I cannot stay there – time pushes me to act. To pull the trigger. To execute the plan.

That is when the true purpose is fulfilled and the clock starts ticking again. The future begins now.

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June 28, 2024

Do we really long for transformation, or do we just pay it lip service?

I have read all the biographies, and I see their metamorphoses, but do I just think – “good for them!”?

Do I really believe that I can change into something I am not? It would be so easy to stay in the chrysalis with warmth and an abundant food supply and never change into the butterfly.

But the larva has no choice but to change or it will die – stasis is not an option.

So the question arises – what will I change into? I know it takes time, and when I emerge it will be awkward. I must grow into my wings; inhabit them before I can fly.

There is more self-doubt to come – but I must push through it.

To stay the same means certain death.

I am ready to fly.

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Excerpt from July 24, 2024 (Note the foreshadowing)

…I can’t help but feel like the past 11 years have been a fever dream.

I presented in England, Portland, and a number of different cities through ASTE, and at least 4 visits to Washington D.C.

I faced my giants, and the perils of higher education and actually completed the tenure process. How many school teachers can say they did that and then return to the K-12 arena?

I feel blessed to have seen it all and there is always a possibility that I will return to it. But for now I am coming back to my first love of teaching, and excited to actually try and practice what I have preached to my preservice teachers for the past 11 years.

Time to learn, and relearn, how to be a teacher. I want to learn from my much younger peers and also be a mentor when I can and distribute a bit of the wisdom I have accumulated in all my years in the profession.

A Story as Old as Time

In the beginning…

I was no more than a lump of clay in the hands of a cruel potter. Shaped and reshaped and destroyed only to be rebuilt again and again.

As time progressed…

My life took form and started to resemble something real and familiar and unique, but still unrecognizable. Not yet art, but primed with potential, and by value practically worthless.

Yet life continued…

I made the most of what the universe gave me, though limited in functional skills, I summoned every ounce of tenacity and hope and steadfastness - finally tasting the fruits of my success until my back was tired from the strain of it all.

But once again…

I found that the universe did not care if I won or lost, but it was always there to give me the push that I needed, always intertwined with pain and struggle and messiness.

At once I discovered…

There is a peace in the ruthlessness of the world. The darkness is a constant that never leaves us, try as we might to grasp for hope and peace and unconditional love, they are in short supply; we starve for the possibility of their existence.

Then I made peace…

With all my foibles and shortcomings and peculiarities and realized that I am flesh and bone and skin that treads the same path with billionaires and paupers alike. Try as they might to avoid it, their fates are eternally intertwined with ours.

In the End…

I discovered that I am not a great man, but a man who does great things, and a great many things. All those misguided adventures have molded me into that elusive work of art that I longed to see completed - fired and polished and on display for all to judge.

Rhyme (or Reason)

Sometimes I am a World War II decoder hunched over an intricate machine hoping to translate the mysterious codes into something that makes sense. If I am the enemy, why can’t I figure out my own plans?

Other times I am a sorcerer hovering over a pile of tea leaves, interpreting the splotches and stains like a Rorschach test. I need stronger glasses or I will lose the patterns. Is that a puppy?

But most of the time I look to the sky for the writing that I know will appear or the hand of doom etching my fate in the thick clouds. Can the mystery be locked in those grand and ominous puffs of water vapor?

We see what we want to see. We interpret what we think the universe wants us to know and where it wants us to go. Most of the time we are wrong. Does the universe even notice us over the hum of chaotic existence?

Lately it is best not to expect anything. To leave it to the wind or the gods or to something more powerful than myself. The burden is much too great for me to carry on my weary back. Were we ever meant to carry it alone?

The wheels turn and we peel day after day off the calendar, hoping time may give us just a glimpse of wonder, exhilaration, or confusion. Anything beats the humdrum predictability of our daily duties. Do we even hope for catastrophe, drama, or anger to make us feel something…anything?

Sometimes we are lulled into experiencing the mundane and dreariness of repetition, habit, and programmed simulations. Maybe there are those who thrive on that way of life, but I can’t stay there long. If we are patient, wouldn’t the certainty of reality change our mindsets and jolt us out of our slumber in due time?

Feel your lungs expanding. Count the rise and fall of your chest. Translate the thumps of your heart like Morse code. You are a miracle in a curious, fleshy container. You are the bringer of change and the master of the everyday. Take another breath and enjoy that one as well. Cherish each ‘what comes next’ moment as it passes by you. When should I schedule my next disaster?