June 2, 2009
Or so I thought.
The next day I departed for the office with cheesecake in hand. The fact that it was five years since the first day I drove through the gates as an employee was pure coincidence. My performance evaluation being scheduled for that day fell into the same category. The boss rated me well; not highest because of how clear it is that I have things to learn in this new job, but well enough. I think she's pretty sure I'm in over my head too.
When the day ended I paid a visit to a friend in the VAB. Months of classes and travel had kept me away from conversation and what is easily my favourite building in the world. I stayed that night well longer than planned and drove home to fail at relaxing with my drink for the second time in a row.
Tonight I have it. I can already feel my fingers going numb. And it's just amaretto.
Sometimes I think the changes that were made on me are taking years off my life. It was one of those days where I actually found myself thinking, "They don't pay me enough for this crap. I'm moving to the Bahamas." And I know it wasn't all bad and that some of the steps I made show I'm learning and growing, but I have to wonder if the side effects are worth it.
And then I step back for a moment from wondering why they did this to me and accept the truth. If it happened to me now, its because I need to go through the growing pains so I'm ready for something that is coming later. I will be better for this. It's all part of the '09 warning label. I'm hating every minute of it, but I press on.
And then I drive out of my office racing the clock ticking down to when the SCA lands with Atlantis delicately perched atop it. I watch the mated aircraft fly past me and roll into view behind the trees minutes later. I drive home that night watching KSC sit quietly as darkness approaches. The VAB and RPSF are open. The crawler is resting beside a new mobile launcher under construction. Further in the background new lightning towers flicker on a launchpad waiting patiently to see the future. Behind me Atlantis is home safe.
It only takes half a second to process all of the images and begin shaking my head. Me - little stumbling, clueless me - is driving through the middle of all of that. "What on Earth am I doing here," I have to wonder. Yet even with the uncertainty it was the best moment of my day. It's part of what will push me to go back tomorrow to tilt at windmills and try to convince myself that the battle is going to be worth it.
But I'm still not sold the effort will turn out anywhere near as successful as that cheesecake...
Captured At:2209
June 6, 2009
Climb on Two by Two
My charge for the evening was a summer intern turned employee slowly soaking up the sights Kennedy Space Center has to offer. The pink color of his area card required that somebody accompany him through the operational areas where most of the action takes place. He wanted to see the orbiter hanging in the VAB transfer aisle and lifted - an operation that would reinforce that "action" is a term used loosely at the space center. Much of the operational work occurs at a snail's pace, launch being the obvious exception.My penchant for sharing combined with my own awe and willingness to wait around for hours to experience it made me the natural guide. That September evening we stood sweating on a 10th floor catwalk as Endeavour crept to the highest point it would see for months. When it reached its holding point at the end of the work shift we rode the elevator back to the ground floor with smiles on our faces.
Yet after everything we had just seen the only words that seemed to flow naturally past my lips were, "I want ice cream..." It was an impossibility for that hour of the night, so we parted ways in agreement that we would make good on that plan another day. We would remind each other of the open-ended commitment many times for the remainder of the year and into the next one, but nothing would ever come of it.
This week we agreed we would finally make good on the promise. It became the one point of light at the end of a very dark start to June.
Tuesday's evening of amaretto and aggrevation dissolved into a two hour walk/sitdown/rant with my mentor the following moning. The complaints were the same as always, yet it seems each cycle becomes more intense and my ability to cope with the frustrations decreases to the point of near instant explosion. Thursday didn't fare much better, most of my anger directed (and rightly so, he says) at him.
We ended that day with a dose of being real that I dearly miss from my interactions with people. My inexperience may have me a few steps further down a path to collapse, but I'm not on it alone. Even if they can do nothing, somebody is listening. Then I hear words I've said to calm myself echoed back as items being used by others for strength and see that we're pulling each other along. The end goal seems lower than most we'd set, but sometimes surviving is the best you can hope for.
All of that gets to disappear for a little while when Friday brings to life a simple plan 9 months in the making. We sit outside the ice cream shop watching the people and chatting about whatevers seems to present itself. I initiate a visit to the toy store where we wander and play until they annouce that it's time to close. I learn I can hula hoop and I pick up a few new Spanish words. I fail at the juggling lesson but seem to convey the basics of throwing an American football. We finish the night with a random trip to the planetarium where we gaze at the moon, Saturn, and clusters of stars.
Reunited with Loki for the drive home I realized how ideal an evening it was. After a week of looking at myself and hating who I saw I got to spend a few hours with the parts of me I enjoy the most. And I know that if it hadn't been for the friend I got to have with me, I never would have done any of it.
I don't expect an honest conversation or a few hours of playing to change me, but I do feel thankful for the fleeting reminders this week that other people aren't always a source of the pain I often associate with them. People need each other. The right one at the right time, even if it's only for a moment, makes all the difference in the world.
Captured At:1308
June 9, 2009
Here I am six months later having survived every bump in the road thus far, but still sporting the bruises to prove them. And it seems extremely ironic to me that as my 27th year winds to an end I am again in Virginia. This time the TV has become my portal to a more recent home as Orlando cheers for their team to rule the court. My friend lives about half an hour away, but there will be no phone calls or visits. Those are the choices I made and, though not agreed with, I know they will be honored.
Truth be told, it has added an extra dimension of awkwardness to this trip. I never considered how being here would feel. "Weird" is the only word I have been able to find.
I am continually amazed at how entangled life is. A man may not be able to cross the same river twice, yet somehow elements of the original condition can resculpt themselves to create a remarkable familiarity. We live with our decisions and they seem more than willing to make certain we know that. Their methods are completely unbearable without the comfort that comes from acting with wisdom, yet Right will never be easy.
I don't know, I guess I'm just looking at life again and trying to understand all the while knowing that I never actually will. It's a frustrating condition I have suffered from my entire life. Why focus on impossible things? Why not devote the mental capacity I was given to something that could actually be accomplished?
So I'll climb into this king size bed, turn off the lights in my smoke-soaked hotel room and ponder irony as the 10th rapidly approaches. I keep getting older, but nothing ever really changes. Maybe that's why I've vanished for three of the last four years. At least when I wake up something more than a digit is different.
Captured At:1137
June 13, 2009
Art Mirrors Life
This morning I awoke frantic from a dream in which some friends and I were leaving late to watch the shuttle launch. We had 45 minutes to get to the Cape from what was supposed to be my house and, after fighting to find my camera, I was flipping out that we seemed to be driving the opposite direction of where we needed to be.
In reality it was 530am - the hour I'd hoped to be arriving, not just rolling out of bed. I rushed through a shower and gave into my email addiction before racing out the door. It's a good thing I did; the launch had been scrubbed about 20 minutes after I went to sleep. Being awake, showered and dressed that early I could come up with no activity more fitting than to go watch the sunrise.
Originally I had thought I would write some about that time on the beach - what it was like, where my mind wandered, what I thought life might be trying to teach me in those moments - but I've elected not to. There's potentially something far more telling in where I'm about to go instead.
After I returned home and sat down at my desk with breakfast I felt so inspired by the sunrise I had seen that I pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil. Generally I don't even attempt such things. The results confirmed why.
I say that my primary school-aged thoughts of being an artist were changed due to the discovery that the profession required talent, but that statement is only partially correct. The sketches below fell out of the notebook I began my sunrise picture on. At the very least, I think they offer evidence that I did graduate from stick figures.
This first scene appeared as I sat in a conference room at the Clear Lake Hilton. It started from the top and worked its way down to create a world within a world. I could imagine walking down that little road among the stalagmites gazing in awe at both them and the stalactitic ceiling.
The next doodle came from that same meeting. The paper had a compass watermark that provided the basic shape, but the shading and the planet in the center were all my own invention. B-612 is the Little Prince's planet. Interestingly enough, "Home" was neither there nor Earth. The location on the bottom was made up.
This one is on the back of an insert from the weekly church bulletin. The pose of the figure was most striking. It was clear he had just sort of collapsed there beneath the stars in surrender and something about his state really spoke to me.
This one also came from the back of a church bulletin. I think I kept it for the sand dunes.
The next one was done at work. It was years ago, but I remember being overcome with an urge to flip open a notebook on my desk and let my pencil go. The perspective is off, likely because I changed my viewing angle during the composition of the sketch.
This little guy I really like. He's so happy and his fruity home didn't turn out too bad either. God, on the other hand, probably wished he'd gotten half as much of my attention that evening as I gave this goofy worm.
And this creature, to me, is amazing. He showed up during a home group meeting as they conversed about things that (once again) I just couldn't seem to relate to. Strong, sad, mysterious, wise...he just sprang to life for me.
So, if the marks of potential exist, what's the real reason I essentially gave up on art? I could never get the final product to be anything close to what I had envisioned. I got frustrated not just from seeing how much more talented other people were, but from having visions I was simply unable to execute.
I have this lovely memory of the sunrise. Low, dark clouds hovering over the horizon with only a single tall formation that resembled a dragon to my eyes. The neon pink sun moved beside beside him, an orb of crescendoing brilliance as it broke free of the haze. I remember how soft pink sun tinted the water until it was high enough that its transition to orange was complete. I remember the moment the ocean changed color beneath it. Simply beautiful.
And the drawing? Well...
It's awful. I've seen 8 year olds do better.
So what's the difference between this embarrassing abuse of graphite and the exhibit that preceded it? All of those pictures drew themselves. I'm not kidding in this. I scribbled a couple lines and let them grow into whatever they wanted. It was a whole other plane of thought or, more appropriately, lack of it. But when I began with a defined idea of what I believed the picture should look like I failed.
As I looked at these drawings in total I realized something: my life suffers from a similar affliction. I have this vision of what it should look like yet I fail at any attempted implementation to make the pieces of it a reality. My greatest successes have always been the things my head isn't in the way of; the things I let go and let create themselves. Trying too hard and caring too much about the outcome always ends in disaster.
I can see the influence of this lesson even though I never before recognized it as a contributor to the being that is me. It consists of many flavours, some to savour and others to expel. One can try too hard and care too much, but one must also not swing so far in the other direction that nothing becomes worth doing.
The past several weeks have reinforced the fact that I am battling against my mind. It needs to be opened and freed from the notions keeping it chained to the ground. I don't want to look at my life and feel the same way about it that I
do about my morning sketch. This canvas is supposed to be so much more
than it has become; of that fact I have always been certain.
That mental state that lets me create the words and images I get lost in, that's the one I need to find and maintain. Unless I can do so my full potential - my purpose, my mission, my destiny - will continue to elude me.
Captured At:2108
June 14, 2009
The Message
Rows of long tables filled two-thirds of the small wooden room. I sat behind one of them as part of a crowd leaning over their books in search of enlightenment. The answers would be found between the pages for all who had the eyes to receive them, but mine failed to focus on the text. Instead they scanned walls devoid of windows and peers who remarkably all had the same appearance in their hunched positions. The clothing they wore was pale and colorless - tunics a shade too bright to be gray but too muted to be white - and without decoration. The manner in which they propped up their heads had left their eyes completely hidden by the palms of their hands. The style of their straight, dusty brown hair suggested a youth that could not be confirmed without a glimpse of facial features they never revealed.Teacher seldom spoke. She stood at the front of the room watching, pacing, waiting - for what I didn't know. I estimated she was in her 50s from the stubborn flecks of black peppering her short grey hair. Though small in stature her stance projected incredible strength and her face told of a peaceful wisdom within. She remained on our level instead of the section of floor raised two small steps behind her. This altar of sorts was also without decoration. No podium, no desk, no chairs. It was the most Spartan classroom I had ever seen.
Despite the sparse conditions the entire room seemed saturated with that same peace Teacher carried. If I looked hard enough I could see it resting on the shoulders of every other person my gaze fell on, yet my own body shivered from the lack of it. My chest began churning harder at this realization as my mind swirled to understand it. The storm within was building.
Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder pull my body in close. Within that half embrace I heard the low, soft, almost scratchy sound of the voice I knew to be Teacher's. "It's the ring."
The message she relayed froze me for a moment. Without ever looking at my hand I instinctively ran my thumb against the bottom of my finger to be certain it had not disappeared. I knew many feared the gift had enslaved me; not because of any true power it held, but because of what they believed I had channeled into the shiny object.
"It can't be! I walked away from it! I just left it there, untouched for weeks without a thought!" But the pleading insistence that it didn't own me was never verbalized. The fear that it was about to be taken away for all of the wrong reasons never made it past my lips. I could understand if the claim had been correct, but it wasn't. Hadn't I proven that?
Instantly the room disappeared. I slowly backed away from where Teacher stood to see a great gathering of clouds behind her. I could feel the frustration they flowed toward me, not for my defiance but for my blindness.
"No. It is because you have forgotten."
Just as suddenly as the room had disappeared I was then left alone to ponder words more gentle and sad than angry. That simple silver hoop had been given as the more permanent version of a string tied around a finger. It became so permanent, in fact, that the thing it was supposed to remind me to do was gone. Yes, the cold and the unrest were because I had forgotten. And until I remembered - not just in word but actually carried it out in deed - my life couldn't change.
And that's when I woke up.
Captured At:1337
June 20, 2009
Growing Up Isn't Always Easy
The week of my birthday I was in Hampton, Virginia meeting with the team at Langley that I inherited in February's surprise re-org. For the first time I wasn't on travel for somebody else's meeting; this one was all mine and I was supposed to be the one with a plan. The thought certainly gave me pause and I would leave every evening wondering if the time was truly being used well.Back at KSC on Monday morning I sat down compiling everything possible related to the trip. The next morning I spent three hours talking everything through and closing out actions with my mentor. I felt bad pouncing on him like that on his first day back after vacation, but the honest truth is that it felt great. For the first time since I'd been given the new responsibilities I felt like I was somewhat on top of things. Four long, painful months and I was finally finding my footing.
The feeling wasn't allowed to last long. By the time we left to work an event at the visitor's complex that evening evidence of more bumpy patches sprung up. I work my tail off and I know it. I do the absolute best I possibly can, but the world I live in is far too disorganized in spots to give any hint that progress has actually been made.
That night I snuck off through the abandoned park to make a traditional stop. I go every time I visit, but the advice I once received to stop at the wall on those days when I'm frustrated beyond words was certainly applicable. Never before had we spent a few moments together with the sky that shade or the park that empty.
The angle on the wall as I looked up from the crouched position I had assumed to tie my shoe made it seem even more enormous there in front of me. I shook my head as I skimmed the names glowing within it. I talked to it, more for me than out of any belief that I would be heard. Somebody had done the absolute best they could for those people and it didn't matter. So why keep pushing? Why keep fighting through it all if it just doesn't matter?
But then I looked at how much black there still was; how many names that memorial could accommodate that just weren't there. Somebody did their best for those people too and it DID matter. Now maybe nothing I do is that critical, but my sense of right and my sense of responsibility have to count for something. They do make a difference. I have to believe it even if I can't see it.
In general I try not to talk about what the changes in my job really meant. I ask questions about the situation not in hopes of being puffed up, but because I want to make sure I see things for what they really are. Is it appropriate for me to feel as stressed and tugged and out of my league as I do? Is it accurate when I say that people are making some pretty huge demands of me? Is my present position as abnormal as I believe or am I unaware of how common it is because I haven't been around long enough to know so?
The effects of it all on me have been somewhat significant also. There were reasons I would have said "no" if somebody had asked me about the change first and it appears I'm running up against every one of them. Reality is ugly and the growing pains remain unpleasant. I ask for help every way I know how, but it is slow and infrequent in coming. I'm not even sure the help I need exists. But I do know I have to keep going. People have put their trust and confidence in me. I will either rise to the occasion or collapse trying.
I just hope I don't feel like I'm on the second side of that coin for too much longer...
Captured At:2236
June 23, 2009
It seemed like we had vanished immediately after the meeting broke up. My champion claimed a small victory, but I wasn't so sure. I had known in the beginning that I wasn't fit for battle and I think I only proved my weakness. But it's my job now to fight, and so it goes...
My talent for sleeping on airplanes failed me on the journey west. I would have loved nothing more than to escape and rest and let my mind be still. That stillness never came. The iPod shuffled two versions of #41 in succession and my mind began to wander. I found myself having conversations and writing emails in my head that I knew would never see a world that wasn't confined to the interior of my skull. I feel like I have so much to say sometimes, yet when I attempt to speak nothing comes out.
I wonder about all of those things I never say. What makes them important enough to win my thoughts? What makes them unimportant enough to disregard? Why, if I'm so convinced that my words truly do amount to nothing, do I feel so compelled to want to share them? Why am I laying here in a rented bed with my eyelids half closed punching out strings I'm fairly certain have no true value? There must be madness in it.
And yet somewhere there is significance. These things wouldn't exist otherwise.
But my mind isn't sharp enough to churn over those sorts of ideas anymore today. It's still recovering from awakening with a weight like it had been bludgeoned. It's losing interest in its attempts to make sense of a day it wasn't aware enough to process. It's flitting back to some of the words that did get sent and shriveling up faster. One can only handle so much.
Captured At:2357
June 26, 2009
just sort of rambling...
John Mayer is singing "Neon" through my laptop speakers. I'm instantly flashed back to my last year of college when the lyric "who knows how long, how long, how long she can go before she burns away" was an accurate picture of my life. In some ways very little has changed. In others everything has.It appears that whatever forces compelled me to devote my days to hustling around a college campus still compel me in my work today. Looking at the schedule ahead I see that July is gone before it is even upon me. I will see northern California for the first time. Three days after my return I will see Istanbul. Two days after that return I will be passed out on my favourite Big Red Couch relaxing during breaks in as we meet in the beach house one more time. My schedule isn't defined beyond that point, but I see suggestions that it will fill in fast enough.
It's really a double-edged sword, this life I lead. Without the travel I would be wasting my days away, with the travel I can never quite get into the routine of a normal life. Sometimes I have to wonder if there is still an element of running away in it all.
Of course "normal" is a word I have never been fond of. I have found that too much in life is relative to make any assumptions as to what something is actually going to be.
But as I start to wander this trip down memory lane - lamenting in part for people and places long lost - I think the cycle of hustling and crashing is my "normal". And a frustrating one at that. Without the guise of being busy, without some consistent activity not of my making to occupy my time, I am unhappy. Yet I simultaneously see emptiness and an incredible lack of meaning in the breakneck pace with which I execute my tasks.
So I kill myself by day trying move forward under the insane expectations placed upon my shoulders and by night I just don't care enough to move anymore. Neither span of my hours is living, and that knowledge makes every step a bit more despised.
Which is, perhaps, why the travel is my saving grace. Two days in Houston did me an incredible amount of good even though I knew things had fallen out of whack back home. Today as I did my best to undo whatever damage managed to happen within 12 hours of my touchdown on Texan soil, I actually felt like somehow it was still all okay. It's nice to have that much-missed feeling back. Even if it only lasts for a little while, I'm glad to know it can still come around.
And with that slight change in the wind I find I can dream again for a little while. I can let the optimist dying to win get a little more breathing time before truth boxes her up once more. The impossible can be sad at times, but that emotion has a completely different flavour on this side of the stick.
I didn't want to sit down tonight and write something angry or frustrated or carrying the sort of tone my entire being has been prone to these past couple of weeks. My words aren't sad; they are honest and spoken from a very middle-of-the-road sort of spot. All may not be well, but somewhere some piece of it will be. Life, even at its worst, is still worth it. I may not always feel that way, but I know in my heart it is true. That has to count for something.
Captured At:2250
June 30, 2009
In those moments it becomes easier than usual to question life, question fate, question God. There, at the point where everything has broken, one can't help but wonder how such a persistent, unending struggle could be right and fair and by design. Why would a person come to walk this Earth only to spend their time stumbling down a dark, abandoned dead end road? True, victory must be coupled with adversity, but shouldn't there be at least some reprieve along the way?
While growing up I was always told that God doesn't give you more than you can handle. I believe He's generally willing to lighten our load but sometimes doesn't because He's waiting for us to acknowledge that it is too heavy. We are, after all, only human. I think we need to be reminded of that every now and again.
For me, those occasions where I come face to face with my own feeble humanity are exhausting on every level. In the worst case they can take me out for days. So it wasn't a surprise to me when I slept in the next morning well beyond reason. It wasn't a surprise when the day vanished and I was suddenly readying myself for the only solid plans I had for the weekend. The surprise came in what I spent those hours doing.
One of the old friends I wonder most often about appeared on my buddy list for the first time in years. To see "hey bec" appear on the screen after I said "hello" felt amazing. This wasn't silence. This wasn't his wife asking yet again who I was. This was my friend, and the honesty in which we talked so readily proved that some things really don't change. I learned that in spite of some old bumps he was doing well. He'd found his faith and his motivation and was doing the family thing with kids so old it shocked me. I told him how great it was to know that somebody you care about is happy, especially when you've been wondering for so long.
Then he says "now it's your turn", but I had so little good to say. He was sincere in his questions and gentle in his disagreements as I fought to explain. At times I had to remind myself exactly who was at the other end of those electrons. When his connection cut out I was sad to have used the time on such stupidity, but I somehow found encouragement in the exchange.
The next day two other people I hadn't seen in months found me after church and offered an invitation to join their plans for the afternoon. Food and movies and more church filled up the next several hours, and as the day came to a close I acknowledged just how much I'd needed a diversion like it. I don't think I had even realized until that moment.
Something in all of it spoke to me about how good God really is. Everything I needed to be able to make it a few more steps, He provided. The ripples of those gifts have stretched into this week and I suspect many around me are grateful for the change. I know I am, even if it only gets to stay for the short term. In a difficult world where something had to give but nothing could, I got my break anyway.
The part of me that isn't still exhausted wants to celebrate tonight. Half of a year carrying a bad forecast is over. I get to start being closer to the end than to the beginning. The sentiments are extremely out of character, but I truly cannot wait to see it.
Captured At:2209