I’ve been absent lately. Completely. No Exceptions. No excuses. Absent. I have called no one. I have emailed no one. I have forgotten things (birthdays, specifically, but not just) that I should have remembered. Totally and completely and numbingly withdrawn. I’ve been cranky and irritable. Crass. Ineffectual. I’ve been working. Working on the present and not the present state of mind. I have a plan. I have a goal. I haven’t had one of those in a long time. I want to get outta here. But not just now. Not yet. This is not a crazy, spontaneous, cut and run, just fly kind of a plan. This is a calculated, carefully drafted, pack up life and move across the ground kind of a plan. This is a hold your cards to your chest and be patient… choose your moment kind of a plan. And it’s all coming together.

So there are apologies to be made. Lots of them. But they’ll have to wait, cuz I’m not outta the woods yet. If I apologize now, I’ll just have to do it again later. Be patient. You know where I am. I miss my friends in painful ways. But if I stop now, I’ll have to start all over.

I’m building something again. I’ve learned a lot about how to build things by building the kitchen. There’s always the vision when you’re there. It’s hard to see that vision overlaid on the current state of things and know how to turn one into the other. The process goes something like this: I want all new cabinets in the kitchen. But first I have to install them… but first I have to build them, but first I have to cut all of the wood, but first I have to measure all of the wood, but first I have to get rid of the old ones… etc.

And that’s the plan. To be able to see the end product and work backwards until you are where you are. Then the next step is clear. I can see that now. I wasn’t able to before. All I saw was the unacceptable state of where I am, and the impossibility of getting to a remote, fantastic wonder; and I could be nothing but depressed about being here and not there. Do you know what the best part of my cabinets is? The part that’s in my head. The part that knows I made it. If I walked into the perfect kitchen, I’d say, “WOW”, but secretly I wouldn’t think that it was anything special. With enough money, any numb-nut can have the perfect kitchen; but what’s the point if the one who cooks there doesn’t think it’s anything special? So it’s okay that I’m not in the perfect life right now. It’s okay that I’m still in the demo phase of the old one. It’s even okay that I have to sit quietly for a while with no interruptions and draw up my plans. Cuz it’s gonna be good. Even if it takes a really long time to get there…. Even if everyone around me wonders what the hell I’m doing… or why I’m wasting so much time, when I could just take short-cuts…. Can’t. Cuz this is the only way it’s gonna be good. I’m not going live with a pre-fabricated kitchen in a pre-fabricated life and be happy having something that looks good even though it’s built like shit and is going to fall down around my ears inside of fifteen years. Cuz while it might take me that long just to finish building my own, it’ll be solid and beautiful and something very special to me.

There's something about the rocks that crunch under my boots, and the smells that change from woods to meadow; from shade to sunshine; from cool to hot and desperately dry.... The visual has less to do with it than you might think; because even if the path is so precarious and the footing so unsure that it demands my visual attention, the sound and the smell are there... coaxing, drawing, prying out frustrations, anxieties, claustrophobic insecurities... slowly. It's a physical process more than a mental one. At first the legs are stiff and clumsy and the body seems to want to give up before I've even left the parking lot. Then the legs begin to burn and there isn't enough air and I'm drinking too much water. [crunch, crunch] After an impossibly long time I can feel the muscles in my back and legs and arms and neck begin to relax and move more freely. [crunch, crunch] My mind begins to wander up and down and in and out of the past and the future; the real and the imaginary, spinning and weaving until it's all blurry and any attempt at conversation reflects my tiny little attention span and my inability to focus on anything remotely related to reality. [crunch, crunch] The body has gone numb. Stop briefly and look up. The path is a single line of rocks and dirt; a tightrope in a labyrinth of trees. No branches, no foliage... just the long, slender trunks of pine; standing, each on it's own, with clear spaces in between. Chalky, gray skeletons of the pines' fallen brethren lie among the stones. [smell] ... and on. [crunch, crunch, crunch] fatigue sets in. Turn left at "Too Long Trail". ... ... ... Legs continue moving because they must. There is nothing left but to surrender.

I think Beth is right on this one. I don’t want to do something for a living that I’m passionate about. Been there. Done that. I was in love with an occupation of sorts and allowed it to consume me for almost twenty years. The awakening from that has been slow and painful. I have to look back now and tally up all of the missed opportunities and severely neglected states of being… I couldn’t do, I couldn’t be anything other than what I was. No time. So now I have to figure out how to make it up to myself. And while I don’t, for a second, regret the experience of living my life AS something, I don’t want it anymore; I think I never will again. It’s important to me to be able to come home from work and BE at home. I don’t want to think about what I do all the time. I want to leave work at work so that I can play. [“Well,” you say, “If you loved your job enough, work would BE play.”] Yes and no. True you would madly love what you were doing, but to be passionate about something is to drive yourself towards an unattainable perfection, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, except that it’s work, not play. And you can’t let it go, and you can’t say “oh well” or “good enough”, and you can’t rest… because it’s not just a job, it’s who you are, and it will never be good enough.

Am I an unfortunate person because I’ve given up the chase? You might think so. And that’s fine. But if you do think so, then you don’t know what it’s like to go camping and have the entire experience lost on you because your mind is elsewhere. Only recently do I feel like I am fully present in my experiences. Only now can I go for a hike without mentally justifying my absence from the field by thinking, “Hiking is good exercise. I’m staying in shape. This will help my game. I’ll come back here later and run this trail.”

Don’t get me wrong. It’s important to like your job. Hell, it’s ½ of your waking life… it would be good to like it. But the bottom line is, if I loved it, it would be ALL of my waking life, and that’s unacceptable; because there’s too much that I LIKE to do, that I don’t want to ignore anymore for the sake of something that I LOVE to do.

I’ve been promoted. I’ll have a title and everything. They might even print up business cards for me that say “Estimating and Marketing Coordinator” underneath my name… (… as if there exists, at the end of every name, and invisible = sign. The equation is not complete unless something follows; a statement not fully expressed; a question unanswered… … … a definition.) I am unclear what my new function will be. This may be more of a lateral move than a “promotion”, but I will have an office. This pleases me. I’ve seen it. It’s big. Really big… with walls and everything… not pre-fab, fabric-covered, snap in place partitions, but real walls. I’ll have my own phone line and can dispense with the now-conditioned, official sounding, receptionist phone greeting. There will be two computers in my office. One for all of my menial database cleansing and organizing bullshit, and one dedicated to the 3D-AutoCAD 2000 program that I will be sent to school to learn. (Ok, so maybe it isn’t such a lateral move.) I will also be changing locations, which will reduce my morning commute by 20 minutes. This also pleases me. I will actually have time, during my required one hour off for lunch, to go home, heat up last night’s leftovers, and smack a few wiffle-golf-balls. The dog is getting pretty good about fetching them without chewing them up too badly.

“The International Criminal Court of Justice at the Hauge handles only cases between states, not individuals”… “…to try persons charged with genocide or other crimes of similar gravity…” “It is hoped that those who would incite a genocide; embark on a campaign of ethnic cleansing; murder, rape and brutalize civilians caught in an armed conflict; or use children for barbarous medical experiments will no longer find willing helpers.” ~ United Nations website

“… to ensure that no ruler, no state, no junta and no army anywhere can abuse human rights with impunity…” – Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary General

“The Bush administration strongly opposes the court on the grounds that it could subject American personnel to politically motivated prosecutions abroad. More than 9,000 American peacekeepers are now stationed in nine countries overseas.
The court closes a gap in international law as the first permanent tribunal dedicated to trying individuals responsible for the most horrific crimes, including genocide and crimes against humanity.”

What is the Bush administration saying? That we have 9,000 American “peacekeepers” who are probably guilty of such crimes, and we don’t want them to be prosecuted? “Politically motivated prosecutions”!?! Is the U.S. really so hated that a court comprised of 70 different countries will try and convict, by majority ruling, innocent U.S. citizens of “heinous crimes against humanity”? The ICC is an international lawmaking body….

"The court is going to be making international law in the future, and it would be better for the United States to be a leader and a participant, rather than an idle observer," said [Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut's] spokesman, Tom Lenard.