I Don't Know

I haven't written in a few weeks. Mostly because I have been at home in Nebraska. I spent a few days with my sister in Omaha and then a few in Friend with my mom.

While I was home, I started noticing a confidence building in myself. Something that didn't have anything to do with my accomplishments or successes. It was just a confidence in me, as an individual.

I don't know where I will be a year from today. I don't know what I will be doing six months from now. I don't even know what mid-May, only two months away, will bring for me. But I am comfortable with that ambiguity in a way I've never been before.

I was sitting at a table in the bar my mom owns with several of her regular customers drinking cheap beer and discussing whatever came to mind. Conversation turned to me and what I am planning to do with my life just as it usually does when I am home.

I confidently looked them in the eyes and said that I really wasn't sure.

"Do you have any ideas?" they asked.

"Well, yes. I have some ideas, but I just don't know what I will do," I responded.

The middle aged members of our small community just looked at me like I was silly. They weren't really sure what to say or do, so they nodded their heads and changed the topic. (Then again, almost everything I do leaves them with a bit of a puzzled look.)

I, on the other hand, have never felt more confident about an answer. I'm not scared. Not scared of the future at least, or of the unpredictable.

I am slightly surprised by my confidence.

Alive and Well

So damn easy to say that life's so hard

Everybody's got their share of battle scars
As for me I'd like to thank my lucky stars that
I'm alive and well

It'd be easy to add up all the pain
And all the dreams you've sat and watch go up in flames
Dwell on the wreckage as it smolders in the rain
But not me... I'm alive

These are lyrics from one of the few country songs I actually really like. I heard it a couple of months ago while I was riding with my mom. The lyrics aren't half bad advice but the haunting melody is what really gets me. Check out the video below.

A ride on the Roosevelt Island Tramway

I went for a ride on the tram before it closed for renovations. It was a great way to spend a snowy afternoon!

Finally feeling a bit like Spring...

Cold Spring
By Lawrence Raab

The last few gray sheets of snow are gone,

winter’s scraps and leavings lowered

to a common level. A sudden jolt

of weather pushed us outside, and now

this larger world once again belongs to us.

I stand at the edge of it, beside the house,

listening to the stream we haven’t heard

since fall, and I imagine one day thinking

back to this hour and blaming myself

for my worries, my foolishness, today’s choices

having become the accomplished

facts of change, accepted

or forgotten. The woods are a mangle

of lines, yet delicate, yet precise,

when I take the time to look closely.

If I’m not happy it must be my own fault.

At the edge of the lawn my wife

bends down to uncover a flower, then another.

The first splurge of crocuses.

And for a moment the sweep and shudder

of the wind seems indistinguishable

from the steady furl of water

just beyond her.