Red

Things in the jungle have been, well, a jungle. I’ve been lax about Project Blog It for many weeks now, but am trying to get back to it. As the year wraps up today, I hope everyone can look back with satisfaction, and ahead with optimism.

Project Blog It


On 14 Dec. 2008 I ran a marathon. I ran this marathon in a bright, new, red shirt bought specifically for the event. I’ve never been a fan of the color red (unlike Minerva). I own very few things that are red. In fact, I can only think of two red items that I own, and one of those items is my red marathon shirt.

So I’m left asking myself why I chose a red shirt to run in. I don’t have a clear answer, but perhaps I needed something different to mark a new achievement. Something different to mark something I had never done before. The marathon was a project I wanted to do. It was my own goal, and as such, was much more mental than physical (if you can believe that). And as a mental project, it was also internal. My choice of a red shirt, something I would likely never have worn, was external, a visible marker of something new in me.

I began 2008 by running my first distance race. Within the first three weeks of the new year, I hit a milestone birthday, which I marked with a half marathon. As the year progressed, I continued running, working towards new distance goals, and I also worked toward new personal goals of being more of the person I really want to be. I close the year having completed a marathon, and I did it in a red shirt.

In preparing for the marathon, I trained for six months. I began running in the sweltering Texas summer, and I finished running in the windy, damp, and cold Texas winter. I rose every day at 5:00 AM to run in the dark during the week. On Saturday mornings I rose at 4:30 AM to meet my running team for longer and longer training runs. I attended training seminars. I spent money on high-tech running gear. I monitored and logged my times, distances, and splits. I watched my carb/protein ratios, and obsessed about my hydration. I read running magazines. These are activities I continue pursuing even post-marathon.

I was the nerdy and hopelessly uncoordinated kid who couldn’t do a lay-up with a basketball, the kid who couldn’t hit a baseball with a bat, the kid who couldn’t throw a football with a spiral. Rather than participate in sports that I had no natural talent for, I preferred to spend time with books.

Now, in my forties, after months of training, sore muscles, and blackened toes, training that I continue even having achieved my goal, after all of that, is it possible that I’m actually an athlete?



Please check the blogs listed on the right for companion pieces to this week's prompt.

Next week's prompt: Cold

Words

Over the last two weeks things in the jungle have been, well, a jungle. Shmonkey took a couple of weeks off but is back again. Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving holiday.

Project Blog It

“What are words for, when no one listens anymore?”
Missing Persons

Word are the very heart of my thinking. They structure and organize my thoughts. They form the fundamental basis of language. And without language, without words, what are we? I’m sure it might be possible to conceive of a way of communicating and expressing without words. But we, as humans, need our words. I may express something with how I order my face or how I move my body, but I can only understand such expressions via words. My thinking is mediated entirely by language. Those voices in my head aren’t insanity, but my thoughts being thought, speaking to me in the silent language I hear only in my mind. And it’s a conversation of words.


Please check the blogs listed on the right for companion pieces to this week's prompt.

Next week's prompt: Red.

Camaro

Project Blog It

Camaro was from a border town. It didn’t matter which side of the border. In the US, everyone assumed he was from the other side. In Mexico, everyone assumed he was American, or at least a lucky emigrant.

His language was the language of the border, neither pure English, nor pure Spanish, as if either of these languages could ever have a pure form. Camaro’s border language was slightly accented in both English and Spanish. He spoke those languages perfectly, natively, but with the notes and tones that gave away his border status. It was those subtleties of pronunciation that labeled him as someone from the other side, never someone from here, never someone who belonged.

The other people of the border, people like Camaro, spoke in the same way. Looked and lived the same way; people who ate frijoles as often as they ate potatoes. They were people of nowhere, neither here nor there. Only knowing themselves what their addresses were, addresses that stopped at their zip codes, not extending beyond to the abstract idea of nation.

Camaro knew the border was a line, a political designation marking the boundary between one world and another. But the border, as lived by Camaro, was much more fluid. Not a fine line that marked this side from that side. Not a line that when crossed with a mere step meant the movement between languages, cultures, opportunities, and possibilities. Camaro saw the border as a much wider expanse than a simple line. And he wondered how wide the border was. In not belonging on either side, his border existence transcended nations. He was a man without a country, subject to no one, until it came time to pay taxes, and then both sides wanted him. But he wondered how far either north or south one would have to go before belonging. Where does the border really exist? At what point would he be regarded as one with the others, as one who is home?


Please check the blogs listed on the right for companion pieces to this week's prompt.

Next week's prompt: Words.

Let's go get our damn equal rights!

Solstice

Project Blog It

The solstices are both my favorite and my dreaded days of the year. The summer solstice, when the sun crosses the Tropic of Cancer, marks the longest day of the year in our hemisphere, the day when we experience maximum daylight, the official start of summer, and my favorite day of the year.

The winter solstice, when the sun crosses the Tropic of Capricorn, marks the exact opposite, the shortest day of the year. The day we experience maximum darkness, the official start of winter, and my least favorite day of the year.

Sunlight is important to me. It makes me happy, brings me joy, and makes me feel good. I love long long days that start early in the morning and last until long past evening. The summer solstice is the pinnacle of such days. It is the moment from which I can look forward and see the long, bright, warm summer months ahead of me. It is a moment of pure bliss when I feel like there is so much time ahead of me, and there really is. It is the moment I think about, months from then, looking back, and wishing it hadn’t all passed by so quickly, wishing that I still had some more time—but on the solstice, I really do have all of that time.

As the days are nearing there shortest time and we approach the winter solstice, I’m starting to feel that sense of longing, even anguish, for warmth and daylight. But on thinking about solstices, I wonder if perhaps I’ve gotten it wrong. Yes, the summer solstice remains my favorite day of the year, but that day also marks a turning point. It marks the point after which the days begin to shorten. And in the same way, though the winter solstice marks the shortest and darkest day, it also marks the point at which the days begin to lengthen. Yes, it will take months for the sun to cross the equator bringing me more light than darkness, but after the winter solstice, we’ve turned a corner and begin to move back towards warmth and light. Likely the coldest days of the year remain ahead of us, but the countdown to those long sunny days I love so much has begun.

It seems the dark and the light go hand-in-hand together, one with the other, in balance, unity, and harmony. And I guess that’s as it should be.


Please check the blogs listed on the right for companion pieces to this week's prompt.

Next week's prompt: Bitchin Camaro.

Treat

Project Blog It

Apologies for the tardiness of this week's post.


A treat is a fleeting indulgence. Something given or received as a reward, but not always a reward for an accomplishment. To be a treat, the reward must be temporary—the momentary pleasure of chocolate that makes the calories and blood sugar spike worth it. Even treats that result in concrete rewards, unnecessary or costly items that are purchased, are temporary, for the pleasure they bring as treats is short-lived in comparison to the life of a new pair of shoes or a car. These items last, but we become accustomed to them. They soon cease to excite us in the way that reminds us of the accomplishment they were meant to mark. We may still enjoy and appreciate the item for its lifespan, but the immediacy of the sense of being rewarded flies away.

Treats are delights. Momentary pleasures that bring us joy and well-being. They remove us from the challenges of being, if only for a moment.



Please check the blogs listed on the right for companion pieces to this week's prompt.


Next week's prompt: Solstice.

Fright

Project Blog It

I suppose it seems appropriate, or perhaps cliché, to write on fright on Halloween. So rather than focus on fright per say, I want to write about fear, something I’ve been thinking about for the past couple of days.

Fear, I think, is never actually fear of anything other than the unknown. There is no real direct object of fear. Insofar as something that we truly believe to cause fear in ourselves is not real, which is certainly open for debate. Instead, I think what we really fear is only the abstract idea of something we do not, or cannot know. It is the unknown that is the object of fear.

We fear death because we do not know what death means for us, or even for those closest to us. We think we know, but really we cannot know.

We might fear snakes or spiders, but really it’s not fear. Rather it’s a sense of creepiness and discomfort.

We might fear heights, but such a fear is more likely the fear of not knowing what it would be like to fall—the fear of not knowing what it’s like to not be in control of ourselves.

My fears derive from the unknown parts of who I am and who I will become. I was a certain kind of person at one time, and kind of person that I valued greatly. I have long hoped that that person will find a way of emerging again, but I do not know if that will happen, and that frightens me. This is not to say that I am unhappy with the person I am today. I am, in fact, very happy. At the same time, I do have ambitions and goals, and I worry that situations, circumstances, and freely made choices have worked against those goals. I do not know though, and therein lies the locus of my fear.

Happy Halloween, everybody.

Please check the blogs listed on the right for companion pieces to this week's prompt.

Next week's prompt: Treat.