Top Bunk

“I said thank you, I said thank you!” the boy screeched as he thrashed in his bunk. Harlow pulled the covers over his head, trying to drown out the sound, but Charlie’s night terrors made it impossible. Harlow didn’t ask about them, and Charlie didn’t tell.

Nobody talked about the marks on Charlie’s arms the next day. Some hardships are meant to be carried in a mutually agreed-upon silence, even if that secret is bought with screams. Some things weren’t meant to be shared at camp- or at all. That summer, Harlow learned more lessons than flint-tipped archery and open-water kayaking.

Secrets have a funny way of binding opposites. Outside of that mired summer camp environment, you wouldn’t have caught Charlie and Harlow together. The music prodigy and a lacrosse captain. Not exactly the expected pair for a rough and tumble friendship, but when the days started by trumpet and ended with campfire, anything is possible.

Seven

She doesn’t look behind her— she just closes her hand like a toy machine claw a couple times expecting me to grab it.

A grown up kid with an acme bomb laugh.

She mimics my unconscious noises and follows my altered patterns when I notice. We sound like discount beatboxers.

Lightning in a bottle wouldn’t capture her electricity.

The constant wonder behind brown inlaid eyes.

Ray Valentine

Desiccated spider carcass with legs sticking through the storm grate.

Eyebrow tweezers lodged in the eyeball of a cadaver. A mangled poem written in bloody cursive. The words circle the body— stretching thin where the blood began to run out.

A run of nightmares to balance Ray Valentine between sleep deprived and white knuckled. The case for the Springwater Slasher had yet to pull any major leads and each new victim felt like a direct taunt from the killer.

Ray let the beads of moisture collect on his beer as he stared down Gladstone. An unusually wide street for southeast, it didn’t fit with the surrounding area, unless you skipped over Reed College and counted East Moreland. Which he didn’t.

Whoever ran this sick operation couldn’t stay hidden forever. It’s impossible for people to keep a secret. Even if they’re the only ones to know it. Sooner or later, the killer would want recognition. And Ray would be happy to give it to them— along with a pair of cuffs and the longest sentence he could beg out of a judge. He stopped by the bluff overlooking Oaks Bottom. A mess of birds took to the skies as muddy water below laid parallel to the theme park. It’s a wonder he wasn’t dragged out here more for cases. An amusement park next to wetlands begged for trouble.

Village Lane

Stuck on a narrow village road bordered by driftwood houses, rebar fences, rusted aluminum roofs, and red rice fields.

At a stand-off with an extended van carrying elders from the nursing home.

The taxi drivers often tell me about the former beauties of Tsu Tsu—the ones now with raven talons where crow’s feet would be. Kindly smiles and sun tanned skin. You can read the close touch of nature on the people here. Something of a rugged vitality— even in the hunched and withered. A knowledge of the seasons in both harvest and life.

I work at a school where all the classroom windows face the ocean. There’s an ever present natural beauty that turns even the grimmest days around. I’ll stop and watch the white capped waves crash over the rocks at the edge of the bay and think “it’s three times as beautiful as I see it right now,” knowing in time it’ll sparkle with the edge of nostalgia.

Winter & Mundane Appreciation

I honestly believed that winter was being skirted. The temperatures had been unreasonably warm, and we were almost to the end of January, but almost isn’t there. So, as we start the last March towards February, the temperatures have dropped, the winds have picked up, and the layers have tripled.

I’ve been trying to move a little more because the lethargy from the cold can be brutal. It starts in the morning where crawling out from under the covers seems dangerous. You go from bear in hibernation to abandoned arctic explorer pretty quickly. So I pop up to turn the hot water heater on for a cup of tea or coffee and I turn the Aircon on and pull a sweater over as my mind starts Its role for the day.

It’s still the first month of the new year, but I find myself making rough outlines of what I should be doing for my return in July. I’ve looked up coaching courses, used cars, apartments. All practical aspects to return that speaks of stability. But then, of course, I have moments where I look up working visas in Australia, or imagine saying fuck it and trying to backpack through Italy or something.

There’s a balance of wanting to go back to things that you know are fulfilling and comfortable, and the juxtaposition to more ventures into the unknown.

I think time and time again people are endlessly capable of misconstruing what makes them feel fulfilled. Myself included. There’s this draw to excitement and mystery and a whole bevy of Hollywood emotions. This exists in the same way that you frontload happiness to the achievement of a goal. It’s always after you’ve done something and not in the process of— so I try to remind myself that the times in which I felt the greatest passion and fulfillment, and also anxiety and difficulty have been remarkably mundane by the measure of novelty, but immense in reward.

I know a great value of mine is being able to possess the freedom to decide. Whether that’s how I decide my time or how I spend my efforts or money or affection the fact that it’s mine is important. I’d argue that for most people, this is a huge importance.

So, in that regard, I think about how all the novel, awesome, cool things I’ve done, but I’ve done them alone, or for no real reason have paled in comparison to simple things like teaching someone how to shoot a basketball or change a car tire, or how to make a punnet square.

In the realm of the mundane, i’d count the writing projects I’ve done for the past couple years. There’s not a underlying goal behind any of them other than filling my own day with some creativity. I am not in the pursuit of an end goal, I’m practicing a way of life. I’d still like to accomplish something external be on my own website in terms of publication, but I know that’s not at the top of my to do list if I’m not actively working towards it. But I do try to remember that the writing and creative expression is not for nothing when you can track the expansion of thought and character in the mini journals and notes and various scribbles and voice messages I have created.

I even think about the amount of books that I buy and read in a year. Because it’s a lot. I read somewhere between 150 and 200 books a year. I fell asleep every night, reading my Kindle with its light turned low. I wake up every morning and I put that same candle in my school bag and know that I’ll read for at least 30 minutes to an hour at school. I know that I’ll go on Internet searches to find new series an authors to plunder. That now they’re sits somewhere around 500 books in the Kindle and a couple on my tiny little bookshelf here and many back in Portland.

I think about the importance of that amount of reading and exposure to other peoples efforts and creativity. I try to remind myself to not hold my own efforts in comparison, when I’m not doing the same things to present works as a finished product as the people I read do. And then I remind myself to do some thing I do even more rarely, which is actually read some of the stuff I’ve written. Believe it or not, but for someone who reads a fuck ton it is a bear for me to read my own work. Probably because if I’m reading it, I know I will end up revising it, and I have been notoriously adverse to revision because that’s where the actual work is done (outside of getting your ass in the chair).

But for now, on this cold and windy day on my purportedly sub-tropical island, I’m going to finish up a Tom Holt book and then cook some chicken and attend to matters of bureaucracy. How about that for exciting?

Pathways

The thing you can’t risk is the navigator. Not in the desert. Igo knew the tales of parties that strayed from the worn stone paths that cut through the shifting sands. He sat huddled around fires where the echoes of ghosts would reach out from the flames as if to hold on to their direction.

You can’t lose the navigator in the desert.

But there’s nothing so potent a curse as the fervent hope that something won’t happen. So on the sixth day as they crossed under the orange tinted moon that marked their storybook trail, fate intervened.

Out in the embrace of the sands, Igo knew the others hadn’t found his key yet. The reason he begged them to journey out here. The reward of a sand dragon hardly countered the risk. Too smart by half, a sand dragon can go months without a proper meal. Igo’s mentor, Galith, had told Igo about a sand dragon that tracked a man for three years as he crossed the sands. A horrible fear to face a creature more patient than yourself— horrible still to face something smarter. But the heft of glory weighed heavier on souls then the weight of coin, so Igo didn’t enter the sands alone. Hardly anyone ever did.

Sand dragon for a sky boat— even the gods would have laughed at that deal. Igo wasn’t looking to barter, so he loaded up crates he kept covered from the burning winds and away from the others. Wouldn’t do if the other men got jumpy.

Blacksmiths know how to find the edges to all things. Even those that don’t want to be found. The ones others believe impossible to be found. They’re not unlike sculptors, Igo thought. They saw the lines in the mass. Revelation to those that learned to see. Or for those born with the gift, as Igo had been. As his mother before him and back through their line. It’s how his family found the stone road through the heart of the sands. It’s why he couldn’t stop now. Not when he needed to see beyond the edge of the lines. Beyond the edge of the sands and what his people believed to be endless.

Storm

I walked to the convenient store. More out of boredom than desire. It’s a stormy night with winds so strong I have fears of being swept away.

Serious doubts in my judgement to leave the apartment— but nine thirty on a Saturday night reached a boiling point where the only option was on the other side of my front door.

The rain fell heavy like snow as the walkway light illuminated it against the black sky. The first savage gust of wind hit me at the top of the fourth floor as I stood in the dark. I almost turned back before a guy turned the corner and nearly gave me a heart attack. I muttered “sorry” a Bob of the head and was moving past him down the stairs before I could consider heading back inside. Inertia sent me on my way and I duly obliged.

I drew my hood up and dropped the brim over the edge of my hat as I passed by the first stretch of woods.

All I could think was a figure bursting out of the tree line in a dead sprint. I lowered my hood to welcome the rain. It washed away the thoughts of any phantom sprinters. But I didn’t get comfortable enough to pull it back up until I was at the bottom of the hill a quarter mile away.

Out in front of the hospital a flap snapped in the wind. Drawing my attention to the shadows it flew in.

All my fears manifested in the clank of the metal ties and rope as they slammed against the flagpole.

It’s terrifying how storms can strip you of your age. They toss you back to childhood with a howling winds.  Something in the air casts longer shadows— making the promise of safety that morning makes a distant thing. All the long seconds on Christmas Eve can’t compare to those spent huddled under a blanket on the fiercest of stormy nights.

A grand haul of two tall boys were the reward of my efforts of slogging it down the hill and back up again. Forty minutes in the storm and only the efforts of former coaching gear kept me sheltered from the worst of the wet.

I’d been in a state of boredom that redeemed itself by the focus it lends. Idle turned cogent as I found myself starting this piece via dictation as I struggled through the storm.

I’ve been struggling lately— feeling adrift as a wash of memories spring up.

The turn of February has always been a dark period in my years. An exquisite teacher, the month of February, a far greater instigator of niche studies than January.

Maybe it’s the catharsis of walking through a shit heap night of weather. Maybe it’s this swirling mess of memories that’s slipping one by one from an unseen lacuna.

Or maybe it’s just the physical effort waking my body back up after a sedentary day.

Whatever it is, it’ll pass like the storm. Like all storms. Like all seasons.

And on restless nights when we’d best stayed tucked in blankets and far away from the imaginary monsters that lurk at the edge of our vision, we’ll stroll into the night— just to prove that we can.

Coffee Beans

A slurry of ice and coffee— the Frappuccino friday’s where my dad would bring one or two back and split it amongst the four of us at home. I remember the bitter tang of the coffee with the undercut of sugar.

Outside of those Friday’s, I’d occasionally steal sips of the lattes my parents would make. My mom topped the latte foam with cinnamon sugar.

The croaked call of the milk frother doubled as a rooster call on the weekends. I’d wake up to that sound and pad downstairs to peek in the pink Tulip bakery box and start the days slowly nibbling on a raspberry jam-filled sugar cookie.

Ceylon

Cup of Ceylon tea with a dash of milk. Two mini Kit Kats. Breakfast of those unwilling to face the morning cold head on.

Snoozing my six forty five a.m. alarm that I have no business setting if I’m crawling into bed at half past midnight.

A dream that slips by my sleep weakened fingers. The snap of a drowsy face with a matching coffee mug to send to my siblings before shuffling into the shower to stand in atonement for ten minutes as the steam scoured all laggard remains from my movements.

The slowest of mornings as the taxi rumbles down the construction pinched road to the southern tip of the island.

Bike Treads

Watching the third season of True Detective after catching the first episode of “Night Country” and the opening scene of the kids riding down the street with playing cards reminded me of my youth. Clipped playing cards to the rear tire of my bike. Sounding like a faux motorcycle. Peugeot race bike bought for a steal at a yard sale. Wooden clothes pins holding the cards in place. The cards made my bike feel like I’d transported to a different life— a small bit of magic.

My cousins owned dirt bikes growing up. I’d always beg them for a ride and they were usually good enough to oblige.

An uncle on the other side of the family had brain damage from a bad motorcycle accident. I never met him— but I’d heard how he changed. Odd to think of connections to people you’ve never met.

I’ve only ridden dirt bikes outside of a small joyride on my friend’s Kawasaki in a half-finished suburb. First time I’d really rode dirt bikes on my own was in middle school.

I’d visited Blakely island twice in the San Juan’s with another childhood friend, Bobby. We rode dirt bikes through the private island. His uncle had been the caretaker of the island for the past ten years. We rode on a track by the house before splitting to the runway to do a couple laps down there.

When we returned to the clearing— right before we entered a massive tree fell across the track where we’d been riding. A case of good timing. I remember the shock of it. It felt like a joke to see it fall where we would have been riding— and only hadn’t been because we’d wanted to go make a ruckus on the airstrip.

On the way up to Blakely island we had to pass through Seattle. We were almost into the downtown stretch on I-5 when I looked up to see a small truck fly across four lanes from the left to barely make the exit. Another case of danger crossing like a fly across your face. Felt like luck rode shotgun that trip. If I’m honest, I’ve felt like it’s rode next to me my whole life.

Malton Gate

Some men you can see the hate in their eyes.

Whatever childhood fears and pain rot into that fevered pulse that powered dark hearts. A fetid air followed men like these. Sludge in their steps and ever downward spirals marked their journeys.

Some were born that way and some were made. But neither stayed my hand if they stepped in my way. Mercy is not meant for men such as those.

The third regiment of Malton stayed strong for a full decade before the walls were breached. The regulars were able to keep their discipline after the lord’s son, Finn, delivered an early warning. The fen hadn’t been seen in years, but that didn’t stop them from spilling over the walls that afternoon. A bloody day that gave birth to a bloodier night as betrayal led the gates to be opened.

Aye, hate lives in the eyes of certain men. But for the betrayed— any manner of revenge is accepted. So, as a lost epic from sunken halls called forth from the echoes of times, so too did a baleful light gleam from the eyes of the once fallen and betrayed, so too will sunken warriors return to do battle with the fen and their mortal agents.

Mundane Magic

As I slipped between sleep and light consciousness— the music from my headphones threaded my thoughts together. Like the first real hit as a teenager, I had an incredulous moment that I was listening to music through headphones not attached to wires.

That through a mechanism I don’t understand the stored memory of a song is transmitted to the headphones. A capture of a moment so far away and long ago from where I physically was combined with my existence if only for the duration of the track.

I thought about phone calls. Connecting with friends across the world instantly. A magic we make mundane by forgetting to see it for what it is. We imagine it by belonging to our daily life that it loses all majesty. All the bright shine of innovation. Just like complaining about the snacks while flying. We look for faults because we can’t exist in a permanent state of wonder.

Spots on the Mind

I’ve been remembering spots of my childhood through ghost smells. Imagined whiffs of wet grass and cold mud. Standing on the field at Willamette park as the fog bank passed over. The smattering of geese shit across the field and the sweet stained silver shin guards bearing a faded Diadora logo.

I remember the scent of thyme and bay leaves as a tomato base beef stew bubbled in the white and blue paisley crockpot in the kitchen.

I remember the spiced vapors of incense that filled my room as I read through stories on my computer. Leaning back in the my grey desk chair that so desperately wanted to be a recliner.

After I venture past the scents that my brain evokes— I find myself peering in at moments I’d forgotten.

Walking along Clinton street as I typed out messages on a Kyocera prepaid phone. Texting my first official girlfriend and wondering if I’d referee enough soccer games on the weekend to pay for the monthly bill. I’d have to go to the Rite Aid on 39th— walking past Richmond elementary and it’s often desolate field. Past Loprinzi’s gym where real bodybuilders slinked in and out of. I’d buy my scratch off phone cards and top up my account. Doing all that so I could talk to a girl I didn’t have the courage to kiss even after she said “yes” to being my girlfriend.

It takes a special sort of anxiety to not snag a kiss after that. Somewhere in my oft meandering teenage brain I didn’t believe everything that unfolded.

I took some ballroom dance classes— learned swing, foxtrot, the Charleston, salsa, the tango, how to waltz and more from this ruddy faced woman named Madam Rouge. She had a hell of an energy to her— strong and stocky, she had no trouble tossing me around during examples (nor did she have any problem with any of the other three boys in our group).

But back to faltering confidence and first attempts— I had managed to charm one of the girls that also joined the class. Kelly was sweet and shy. Easily the most two footed of the dancers in the room. But we enjoyed each others company before dance practice started— and I began to leave school a little early to pick her up from her all girl’s high school so we could walk to practice together.

Before we’d gotten to the official part— I’d decided if I was going to ask someone out I had to do it in style. I wanted it to be memorable— and a younger version of me didn’t know the difference between presence and presents.

So, I got us some food from a Thai restaurant (recurring theme in my personal life— both single and dating) and added in some fortune cookies (which are not at all a Thai thing). Inside one of the fortune cookies was a little note I’d written— “Kelly, will you go out with me?” She laughed in shock and then said yes. Both stoked and petrified at doing something that felt semi-permanent (to my teenage brain) I think my embrace was a hurried hug— if there was one at all. I remember seeing half moon stains under her arms and was glad I wasn’t alone in being nervous.

When the class ended and summer popped around the corner, the issue of Kelly living out in Happy Valley, neither of us owning cars, and her family being religious and completely unaware of me gave me a quick decision to end things.

So on Clinton street with my prepaid Kyocera I called her and apologized that I wouldn’t be able to see her and that we should end things.

I was relieved and mortified at the same time. Lacking in courage to see how it could play out— but also not compelled by a deep desire, so relatively honest with myself.

That was my sophomore year of high school and it wouldn’t be until the fall of my senior year that I’d make out with someone (jumping past kisses I’d received during spin the bottle games).

I wish I’d spent a little more time dancing— or continued to learn ballroom after. I think I went to a second session, or maybe I meant to and never did. Those memories don’t come to mind. Unlike old phones, older fears, and the gradual growth of confidence and self awareness.

Rust

Just above the canal lay the steps of staircases so rusted you could snap them like saltines. There’s an air of finality to the buildings— the town itself. The population leans heavily towards white hair and slow gaits. An age is passing after an age has passed.

This island contains the most officially recognized shrines for any area in the whole of Kyushu. Even on idle walks you can pass offering sites that have sat for centuries.

Living on an island that’s being forgotten piece by piece. Little pockets of life that hold out against the oncoming red hues and brittle breakdown. The moldy, forgotten rooms and lost stories from villages and towns no longer inhabited. Family homes abandoned and the migration of history to greener pastures.

I have to remind myself to appreciate the wild bouquet of colors that stretch the sky into something larger than life. To appreciate the dwindling days for this venture— as if they’re a handful of fresh picked raspberries at the end of the harvest.

A Love of Stained Paper & Fresh Grass

I ran down the steep hill curling down from the high school towards town. Talib Kwali was thumping in my ears as I thought about the stretch between then and now. My sister and I talked about gift giving and she mentioned the giant balderdash game she gave me on my  eighteenth birthday and realized “whoops, this isn’t a gift for a young man.”

I had thought I would have been moody, but she said I was jovial. I wondered how often I’ve looked back and remembered darker days than what they actually were. And which ones were darker than I imagined.

But as my knees protested during my descent down the hill I started laughing. I imagined talking with that eighteen year old. Too many things set to come to advise for. I’d have given him a bear hug and told him to buckle up— because the ride was about to be ridiculous.

I wouldn’t change anything. Surely some things could have played out better, but I wouldn’t have learned the lessons I have. I wouldn’t be this version of me.

I don’t think you have to suffer to grow. But there are costs to experiences. Roads taken and not. It’s especially true of the stuff you try to run from. The desires inside you that clamor to see the light of day, but in your fear of failure or the world, you stuff it deep down. Locked in a crayon scrawled box marked “big dream” and refuse to open it. That’s where the trouble is. Because that dream isn’t some inanimate thing— it’s a living part of you. And each refusal to meet it eye to eye takes you deeper into troubled water.

For myself I’ve had two big dreams— one a little more nebulous than the other.

First, I’ve wanted to be a writer. Now the vein of this is a little muddled, because as of right now, I am a writer. Certainly not anything beyond a self published one/- and certainly a little lazier in my edits and revisions than a professional writer would be. But I’m relatively prolific for a guy that writes wack a doodle stories in his phone notes and puts them on a website called “Hamjackal.”

My biggest struggle here is not wanting to push further into the publishing world. Not wanting to bend my ideas for anyone else. It could just be a fear of acceptance/ rejection. Because once you deliver there’s an onus to keep on delivering. As of now, there aren’t any overbearing expectations on my writing. Hell, for the 2,500 page views in 2023, I received maybe ten messages about anything I wrote? But if you do need this and would ever like to comment or message me about stories please fire away!

The second dream is a little different. My entire life can be boiled down to a love of stories and soccer. Even better when they’re combined. As a young buck I wanted to be a professional player, but even then I knew I didn’t have the drive or skill to make the leap beyond talented amateur. But I did have a burning love that led me to consuming all the soccer info I came across. Matches, movies, documentaries, books, magazines. I have piles of Four Four Two in my house. My favorite part being the dream XI former players and coaches would make.

But for someone that loves the game to a near encyclopedic level, I didn’t know how to jump to the next stage after it became clear competitive playing days would soon be over.

My traditional response to fear is to freeze and then break it by charging at whatever scares the fuck out of me.

So that’s how I figured out the next step.

I had started playing the Football Manager game during high school after reading a ridiculous amount of career stories on forums. Such a soccer fanatic that I was reading accounts of simulated games/ careers.

The game itself can be a headache to navigate. The depth of detail is daunting— especially when all you want to do when you start is see your side score goals. Instead you’re dealing with a half-talented goalkeeper is the reserves complaint about how they deserve a new contract even though they’ve shipped ten goals in the last three games they’ve played in.

No worries if none of that catches your fancy, but it’s part and parcel of the game and the level of devotion some people showed to their saves (and teams) was astonishing. So much so that I’d read stories about the players who’d gone on to get their coaching badges to do it in real life. Not as ridiculous when you learn some of the top managers in the world have played the game.  But funny nonetheless especially since it’s what spurred me to go and get my first coaching license.

To paraphrase Blink 182 I was “eighteen without a clue or a fucking explanation,” as I began my coaching odyssey.

The course itself slotted me with a bunch of older guys and one girl my own age who played for the Oregon State team.

In terms of being vocal or clear in instruction, I bombed. My practice lesson was a muddled disaster, but I got through the course and received my first license. Which I promptly went on to not use for three years.

It wasn’t until I was working at the Starbucks on 39th and Sandy in Northeast when the varsity coach came in to get coffee and we caught up (having played in his program). He had just switched over to the girls program and was looking for a JV2 coach, so I seized my opportunity and let him know I was licensed and interested. Within three weeks I was out on the sidelines watching tryouts start.

I still have a photo from that day as I rocked some coiffed hair, sunglasses, a blue v neck, and a bag of nerves as I hoped I wouldn’t be spotted for the fraud I felt I was.

There’s nothing like coaching where I feel consistently in a state of learning. No other vocation where I’ve struggled to even start because of my fears I wouldn’t be good enough.

In short, it’s the dream that terrifies me more than anything else. And probably why I’ve dodged it for years as I’ve galavanted through college, the western side of America, and now Japan. I had to show myself that even with all the other options, coaching was “the thing.” And I’ll be damned if it isn’t.

From the community of coaches and players, to the parents and fans, soccer is the place where I feel alternately most at home and the least.

Most coaches I’ve met have been high level players. Due to circumstance and skill, that’s not the path I traveled. Instead, I’ve had a more eclectic background that I bring to the game. And when it comes to players that struggle, I wager I understand them on a level that perennial winners can’t. I know what it is to lose the connection to the game. To be confronted by thoughts and realities that you might not be good enough— and then finding your way through by deciding for yourself was “good enough” will actually mean. What the shape of your efforts will provide for you outside of the field. Time and time again I told players that this game is a game— but it can also be a place to build parts of yourself that will carry you in other areas of your life.

It’s alright to not win a state title or score the most goals in a season. It’s alright to not be the starter or star player.

These things are alright when you try your best. When you can look at your efforts and know you’ve wrung every ounce of energy and skill out of them that you could.

It’s more important to build your sense of self your confidence in who you are and how you handle challenges. It’s more important to fear your fears and anxieties- and learn that it’s just as important to rest as it is to push yourself.

I fucking love this game— and what it can add to life. Because it’s a game— it’s supposed to be a thing of joy. Of course, a place of challenge and achievement, of pain and agony, of effort. But through it all— there should be a joy that you get to spend time on a pitch kicking around a ball. That you’re joined by like minded people— and as you step out from the game you take with you the understanding that life itself is not so different— and all the challenges you’ve faced on the field you can face off of it.

I don’t know exactly how it’ll be when I return to Portland to jump back into coaching. But I know I’ll be rocking with at least three of my favorite coaches and that alone is a gift that I’m truly grateful for.

Funny to travel halfway across the world and the thing you want to get back to is standing on a sideline trying to sort your players in a high press (or something along those lines).

Dreams change and evolve— especially when you meet them face to face and allow them the space to grow.

I’ll never be a professional player and hell, I might not even become a professional coach, but at least with one I know I’m going to give it my best shot.

Kitchen Thoughts

I’ve been forgetting how old I actually am lately. I keep having moments where I go, “well, I am thirty.” And then remember that I’m still twenty-nine years old. Or if I were even younger, I’d say I’m twenty-nine and a half years old. Squeezing every inch out of these accumulated days I can.

When I was in my teens, I always imagined I was a year or two ahead of where I actually was (warranted or not). But during my early twenties that mind set fell away. Especially once I hit twenty one and all the great milestones had seemingly been achieved.

Now I’m standing in my tiny kitchen cooking chicken and wondering the optimal method for delivering the best tasting chicken breast. I’m sipping cheap Chilean white wine out of a green sake glass with cranes on it and laughing about how I’m finally in the overseas adventure I always imagined, but here I am poking at this chicken wondering which other ways I could cook it. A wonderful dose of the mundane in the midst of an experience that stands apart from everything else I’ve ever done.

I got to talk with two of my favorite people today and it was a blue bird day with the sun setting high up like a regent at court.

I’ve been listening to soul music all day and twice I’ve had to stop and think about the tragic demise of both Otis Redding and Sam Cooke. You hear their voices and imagine they sang forever. An endless catalogue of music to accompany those incredible talents. But it’s not the case. Twenty four years old for Sam Cooke and Twenty seven years old for Otis Redding. It makes me wonder if their families and friends listen to their music to preserve their legacies, or if it’s too hard to bear. Even after all this time.

Little Things

The new year is a poignant time for many people. Even with its arbitrary function, it serves as a distinctive turning point in our segments of time.

This year I’ve been reflecting on the fullness of life. The deviation from backloading my dreams and ambitions, rather, realizing that it has to be done in this moment if it is to be done at all.

In the same vein, I’ve been appreciating the bevy of experiences I’ve had over in Japan. I can’t say I’ve been short of learning moments— highs and lows alike. It’s moments like walking up that stupid fucking hill on the way to my apartment that I can reflect on how much happened this past year, as I stagger out of breath looking like a baked ham.

It’s been particularly funny how serendipity has shined its bright little face in my darker moments. The sheer improbability of moments like meeting a random islander in a tiny snack bar and their kid had gone to college in your hometown. Or whatever else I’m reaching for but can’t remember clearly right now. It jolts the soul awake like a kiss from an eager hummingbird.

I caught myself thinking of Frank today. An older man I worked with as a custodian down at Southern Oregon University. It’s been nearly a decade since then— which is a wild thing to consider. But Frank, for the short time I knew him, left an incredible impact on me. Even if it wasn’t what he intended. While working through the western side of the new dorms, he remarked that he had never felt like he’d found his place in society. That for whatever reason, he’d never really fit. To this day, it’s one of the most heartbreaking admissions I’ve heard. Doubly so as I had been twenty years old listening to a man in his fifties. I didn’t have much to say to that— I think it was more important to listen than reply. But on a deep level, I had understood what he was saying. And before Southern Oregon and the following years, I’d have been tempted to say the same.

I’ve had passing waves of melancholy in my life. Some taller than others as they crash over me. But ultimately, I always shoot back up to the surface. They can seem immense, terrible things, these waves. They crash down and the world is swallowed up. You are swallowed up. And all that’s left is some measure of confused darkness.

I’d found early on that my stubborn side lent itself to escaping the waves. I’d find the smallest speck of brightness and follow it— damned if I wasn’t going to leverage it against the consuming dark.

But not everyone does. Or, rather, some eventually find it too much to keep searching for that speck.

I had changed jobs and returned to being a barista again when I had another former coworker let me know that Frank had passed away three weeks after I’d left the job. She described it in a secretive manner, which led me to believe Frank had taken his own life. The comments he’d made, the solitary lifestyle, and the growing distance from his daughter seemed like weights he couldn’t shake.

Years after, I’d gone to an intuitive at the behest of my boss (who had the most wonderfully eclectic tastes of anyone I’ve ever met). I’d consider myself a skeptic who deep down would love to see a definable moment of magic (although maybe that’s the thing with magic— it’s the undefinable where it’s found). But as I sat on that couch and listened to the women tell me to take everything she said with a “grain of salt” I did my best to relax.

She said some general curiosities to start. But the session took a turn when she mentioned there was a man who was watching over me. She said it was someone I had worked with. Had the heart of a child and had enjoyed life in a simple manner. That all he was doing was watching on as I had my adventures to give a thumbs up and say “keep at it.” Initially I had been pretty confused because up to that point I hadn’t worked with any older men (that I could recall). And I hadn’t ever told anyone about Frank. But then it came back like a snapped rubber band. Frank of Southern Oregon. With his trailer out in the woods, his two stroke dirt bike and love of burritos. I remembered all right.

Even if the intuitive can be disregarded for her reading— I’d say the remembrance of a man who believed he never belonged has its own merit.

It’s on those walks back from the grocery store— up that stubborn hill and all it’s incline that I think occasionally of Frank, a thumbs up, and a reminder to enjoy the little things.

Cronin

Billy Cronin isn’t a name many people remember.

Why would you? It’s not like he became a superhero. He was just a kid that got caught in a lightning storm. In real life, that means death, not superpowers.

But Billy had a habit of sidling the edges between probable and impossible and somehow walked out of that storm unscathed when he should have looked like a cooked rooster.

Some people are lucky like that.

Although you’d never want the type of luck Billy had.

The Cronin family was known for eccentric behavior in the town of New Haven. Each generation seemed to spawn another impossible character. Some families have a knack for it. Not that you’d want it.