Inside My Closet

Im sure you read the title and thought that I would write about what is inside my actual closet, but… no, this is not going to be that type of a blog. When I mention closet I am talking about the figurative closet in my mind where I shove my unresolved thoughts. Its quiet the mess in there, but still organized.

Everyone has some sort of space in their house such as a closet, unused room, (chair?), which they use as an emergency place to put things at a moments notice in order to get things out of the way for the moment. Well, in a way it is the same with me and my thoughts. Usually I like to think things through. If I do not have an answer, or if the specific thought might be one which I have interest in but still am not able to fully understanding at the moment, I put it inside a closet in my mind. In there the thoughts are usually awakened by moments of epiphany that trigger back to them. I do not give the same value to all my thoughts, nor do I keep them all free roaming in there. Some thoughts I lock away in small boxes and usually hide the key.

There are always moments in life that will pose questions that we try over and over to answer. The truth is the more we try to answer these thoughts the more we get lost in its never ending line of infinity which is created by our imagination not wanting to accept a simple reality which we have not allowed in our minds. Unfortunately this is where many people get consumed by the desperate want for an answer. Sadness eats up inside, grief, pain. They fall into a revolving past. Life is no more in the present. They function on automatic pilot. Like a swollen finger, they become sensitive to every bump along the path. Everything seams to have a deeper meaning, yet it is nothing that awakens them to the present, but somehow ties them to a past of “bliss” they once lived; or so they believe. Well, this was me.

You see, inside on of those tightly sealed boxes in my closet I have thoughts of questions I wasn’t able to ever find an answer. And because I realized I must live in the present, I sealed the box and hid the key. The only thing is, I also know where said “key” is at. Now, many people have certain things that may remind them of those thoughts they wish to never revisit. For me, I hide my “key” in music. The choice of how we decide to open those thoughts are also up to us.

While studying for my degree in music, I took a few classes in music history. In one of these classes we studied about operas. One of the things which I found interesting was the many renditions of the same play you can find. There are those which people try to produce which they believe are as close to the original as possible. They study years and to the best of their abilities bring to the audience a reflection of the first ever performance of said opera. Then there are the modernists. Here we can find really drastic interpretive renditions of the same opera in ways which sometimes leave one questioning what is really going on. This can be the same with thoughts. These thoughts, which I must admit I let out once in a while, can be presented in the same types of forms as these operas. You can either think about them in the same context as in the time they entered your mind, or you can duplicate the feelings by choosing to remember what happened all the while being immune to the fact that it was all because of…. wait, paus real quick…

Before I keep going let have a moment of truth here and confess that most of the times these thoughts have entered our minds because of someone. Not something; someone. I also believe that once we can admit that we are then fully able to make our peace with that thought.

Coming back… we can be immune to the fact that these thoughts have entered our minds because of someone for we have already made our peace with that. So all we have left now is the pain. Can we ever get rid of this pain?

Pain is something that we can most likely resolve. In other words, yes, we probably can get rid of it, but talking about my closet and the way I see these thoughts, I can say that I do not. I use these thought as a map in my life; reminding me where I came from and keeping thankful to be where I am today. One of the way I publicly, yet discreetly use these feelings is in my music; in my art. Now, don’t get me wrong. I do not always do this, as it can get pretty emotional, but when I want to convey a story with meaning, I open my box and find the fit which I can produce to make the story mind; because in some way, shape, or form, music is never alive unless you make it yours. And what better way then have your own story to tell which can go hand in hand with the meaning behind the piece.

So, there I stand, just me and my violin. I close my eye, and allow for a moment in time, those feelings to flood my mind and flow through sound. I have to admit I am not the best there is. I have high aims to always improve my playing. It is a talent in progress; always being thankful to the one who I owe it all to. I can practice all I want, I can rebuild a stronger foundation of technique, improve my intonation, but if I can not find a way to relate to the piece, or have my audience feel the story, not just hear it, I cannot say I have been successful. And all of this would have been useless. So where does it all start? Well, first the talent of course, but secondly, and most importantly, it comes from that little box inside my closet.

Days bring experiences. Experiences bring memories. Memories bring either joy or sadness, or what in our day and age we may at times refer to as “the feels”. And those “feels” can be thrown away, or turned into something beautiful. It is not the self pity, the wondering why it has happened to me which consumes me when I relive these feelings. It is the “beauty” and “overcoming”, the love and the sadness which I channel to my audience. So, I pass these feelings to them all and let them interpret it the way they individually choose. These are one of the many “feels” I keep hidden.

What inside your “closet”?

(Somewhere, Germany. 2017)

Partial Recapitulation

Years come and years go. Usually I’ll have something “smart” to say after that phrase, but I’m out of words.

I haven’t been active on my blog for a while now. But even so sooo much has happened. Living by my theory of life being a “beautiful chaos” I must say I stand true to my belief. This year started in an awesome way and is ending in a way I cannot complain. I can say I am personally at a different place in my life then I would have even thought I would be then. But that’s not why you guys are here reading this, so enough about me. Let’s get to it.

Have you ever met someone at a point of your life when you thought they were just some random person that you might never see again? You are currently at a point in your life where things are confusing. Where you are struggling through a currently relationship difficulty and you meet someone who calls your attention, still you fight not to do anything about it because you know better. Anyway, all this happens so far away so you are almost sure that nothing will become of it. Somehow this person doesn’t really leave your mind. Even though you have ignored them and fooled yourself on believing that the memory of them is gone, it hasn’t left. You have gone back home, you have fixed your relationship issues.

Over a short period of time later: you have graduated from college, you have found a good job, but now… now you are single. Things have finally gone the way you were always hoping they would’t. Deep inside you know the possibilities of this outcome were high, you gambled, and you lost. You lost a relationship, but most of all you lost a great friendship which was before that. You manage to finally get over it after prior lessons, but you know that you do not wish for the same to repeat. So, you come to a conclusion of what it truly is you think you want. You want to get to know someone over a long period of time before you make up your mind about them; exclusively, and thats where it hits you.

The memory of that person you met half a year ago floats to the surface of your mind; her face, her voice, things that attract you in a way that you believe compliments you. So, you reach out. Skipping and erasing everything I just wrote, you guys end up trying something that you both are not exactly on the same page. After all this “knowing exactly what you want” kakamaka, you end up screwing up that. What exactly? Well, something that wasn’t yet was because words mean too much to you, and the boundaries you drew with them were theoretically broken and you through a fit out of rage, confusion, irritation.

There you sit, alone, just you and your thoughts. What has this year brought for you?

Oh Yeah, I’ve grown up. (sigh)

Stubborn Soul

What is it to fall? What is it to get up? 

New Years resolutions, what’s does this mean to you? Does it mean to set a new goal or goals to accomplish this year? What happens when you have achieved it, say if you have the first three months?

I use to be a New Years resolutioner. I use to. For the past few years I noticed that no matter how many goals I might set myself I will not always accomplish them when I want to. This is the ugly truth of life. A New Years resolution is, for me, too high of an expectation that might just set a person up for disappointment if not achieved. 

Life is, or should be, a steady ladder upwards. You learn at a steady pace. This does not mean we do not make mistakes. Those are unavoidable, still, what is life without them? Getting back up and pushing forward is what it’s all about. 

Last year I have probably learned the most because of all the heavy falls. Some lessons are still in progress and spilling into this year, some have been sealed away. So, what is this year about? 

Keep pushing forward is my goal, not only this year but every year. Climbing that ladder and not by stepping over people but lending them a hand should be our every goal. There is a good chance that when you fall, someone will be there for you as you have, and if not… What then? Will you be that “stubborn soul” to get up and set toward the mark or will you slide down? 

 The biggest goals you accomplish are not the ones you set yourself infront of the whole world, they are the ones you accomplish when no one is watching. 

Walk, run, fly, crawl, fall, get back up, wherever you do push forward. Push forward not worrying if the world notices you or not, but do it for you. This is life. 

Live and learn, fall but always rise. 

  
(Washington D.C., 2015) 

Picture by my good friend Junior Baiense. 

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“Today, I Will.”

Who knows you better then you? 

Yes you reading this rite now

You are the only one who knows you best

Yet, more then you do, you don’t

Still every morning you look into the mirror and you tell yourself “Today I Will”

As quick as yesterday has flown by 

Today becomes yesterday

You lay on your bed at night and stare into the black above

As if looking for an answer to life

The failures of the day overshadow the good

The people you have let down

The chances you missed to be who you really wanted

You question why, how, when, maybe?..

Yet all these questions drown out the fact that you were you

You tried, you failed 

Still, you try desperately to find an anchor to the choices you made

As a ship tossed in the stormy ocean of life

You feel as if all is lost

The questions to the every act you made drown out every “rock” that holds you firm

You become lost in the black created by your own making

The smiles you have had quickly vanish

The people you have helped seem to disappear

The only thing remaining are the answerd

How, when, maybe?…

You toss and turn

Reliving every decision made

In panic, you try to count the times you have felt sure

One, two, maybe three?..

Before you can get to four, your mind now exhausted from the day, submit to the desperate cry of rest coming from your every cell

You wake up in the morning

The thoughts of last night try to invade your mildly rested mind

Yet you get up

You walk to the mirror

You give yourself a splash and stare into the eyes you have repeated over and over

As if failure has never been a thought in your mind

You grab onto the single thread of hope

You tell yourself once again

Today I will learn from tomorrow

Today I will build on the foundations of yesterday

Today I will forgive myself for actions I could not explain

Today I will look forward and let go of what holds me back

Today I will strive with the best of me

Today I will let go of the uncertainty of yesterday and press into the uncertainty of the future

Today, I will.

  
(Photographic capsules, 2015)

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The Best of Me

Have you ever wondered what it would be to do the things you are finding yourself courently incapable of?

Going through life, each one of us finds something which we wish we had the capability of doing. For me, the ability to speak that which I cannot.

We wish so hard to be able to speak words that could fully cover the aspects of the thought you wish someone would see. And often you are hardly able to cover a mere tenth of a tenth of what you really wish to convey. To make up for the inability, a ton of useless, aimless words flood out and quickly cover you making a thumbnail of someone you are not. The image stays in the mind of others and you are quickly categorized as someone you are not.

Thoughts that are kept in the mind are fully alive, yet after the mishap of a faulty executive line of explanation, they die only to turn into a ghost of forgotten images you weren’t able to portray, haunting you, reminding you of the chances you ruined.

Time doesn’t forgive. Opportunities at times are only once in a life time. People tend only to have very few open doors to the same person, once they are closed, you are lucky enough to peer through the window of the life of one who once you shared all. The ghost of the thoughts the live on to haunt come again and again to thrust you down. Will you then get up?

The strength to get up is almost fogged by the feeling of an incapable “me”. To even try to be who you always wished to be, is dissolved by the “acid” of an hipnotyzing, ruined end. Yet a glimmer still lingers in the sideline of the peripheral sight. The glimmer stands up on the bleachers of the heart and cheers you on as if you were winning the fight you have yet to begin. The smile you have forgotten you had flashes infront of you, but the sight of a ruined present has rushed in to fill your view. Yet you have a desision to make.

The desision to get up and press forward triggers the single, yet live strand left to your mind, and the fight begins. Not as quick as we wish for, the struggle is real, we fight each day to be the one we set out to be. We only look back to ask forgiveness of those we have hurt and turn to press on.

Will you be brave to get up and stare life in the eyes and let it know that there is nothing less you will give it but “The Best of Me”.

(Blurred Swiss lights. 2015)

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“Someone That Night Did Pray for Me”

Alone in the darkness of my soul
I fell into the grasp of the wicked side in me
The pain and anger did take its toll
And I the demon did let go

Lashing out as if the end was near
The edge of words I did set free
Let loose, let go, I did it for the world to hear
And it did hurt the one who meant the world to me

No not just one, and not just two
I mainly damaged my own puffed self
But here I am writing to You
The one I set aside on a shelf

Oh Dear God, can you hear me please
I am ashamed of who I am
I close my eyes just to open with no peace
Only to find that to myself I’ve been a scam

Yet here I was in the depth of rage
Broke the grip that held me back
Closed the door to the pleading voice
And opened my soul to feel the black

I walked a length not far away,
I felt the breeze hit on my face
As if there was no heat that day
And all was quickly out of place

Here I stood in utter distraught
The screams of another not far away
Not a whisper of peace in mind was caught
For there was only one word I could say

Yet in the deepest of my pain
I went back to brake ones shattered world
I let loose as a summer rain
And all the sharpened words I hurled

I tossed them here and tossed them there
I couldn’t care what came out the least
Yet she took me in and stroke my hair
She lied so that I would feel the least

I never did believe in lies
No not even the ones they call white
Yet for another’s far broken heart
For one white lie I now would fight

While I was thinking of that one word
Someone knelt and prayed for me:
‘Oh dear God, please watch for Jeff,
let him get home with the protection from thee.’

I who profess to believe in you
Did not care to ask of thee
Yet someone that night
Did pray for me.

I’m poor at words. Being able to truly write is not something easy. The above is not written over a period of hours, it just happens. At times it takes situations in life to bring out what we try so hard to do when all is good. Yet, true inspiration does not lie in everything we see. It’s usually that one thing, that one person that makes us believe in the possibilities of the impossible. 

I have done things I’m not proud of, but even then I am not able to fully explain how I feel. I wish to have the words, but most times the words that come out of my mouth are irrelevant about the few I have inside. 

I wish to be a better me, I wish to be what I know I can achieve, yet I am afraid of who I am. It’s a burden to know that being who you are can cause damages it should not. To care when you shouldn’t (“over-care”), to care when it hurts, to act as no one should because you have fallen captive to the feeling of despair, is no way anyone should act. 

The line of distinction between care and let live must be drawn. To respect a life is far more important than to constantly shadow it with what one likes to call care. 

Live and let live. One day, someday that person might see what you are unable to reveal of what you wish them to know. Maybe one day they will see that the terrible side that has been drawn out is a cry of dispair from a torn scar into the one who you are trying so hard to hide. Yet, there is no excuse. 

Love life, love others; live and let live. 

(Somewhere in Europe, 2015)

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