My New New Year

I originally posted this on Facebook on December 21, 2012. 

Happy Winter Solstice everyone.

Today marks the dawning of a new year.  For me, it's a time to re-evaluate what is important to me and work toward better awareness and alignment of what I believe vs. what I truly value.
Each day is a step in a direction.  Not necessarily forward, but a step nonetheless.  And when each step is taken, it is unknown the direction I have taken until well after the footprint has settled.

Looking back, it has been an excruciatingly difficult year.  I've had many profound experiences which have permanently and profoundly changed me.  For the good or bad?  That's not a judgement that can be made with much clarity any more, nor could it be.  When such things happen, they challenge and change beliefs and perspectives.  What once had been called good is now called bad, and what had been called bad is now called good.  Each item settling into a place where it best belongs.  And in the end, the labels of good and bad fade into meaninglessness until it all just exists as experience.  What I take from it is a new or expanded awareness.  And not to be too ironic in my dismissal of the labels of good and bad, awareness is a good thing. 

I may be remiss in not sharing the deeper parts of my life with people but, somewhere along the way, I had found that such openness wasn't always welcome.  So, out of a sense of self protection, I keep things to myself for the most part.  However, this is changing. To what extent, I can't say.  Future awareness might further level my caution.  Wait and see.  I'm just going to take it one day at a time. 

This year I look forward with anticipation, wonder, and unfortunately, a great deal of anxiety, to what is coming.  But with that, I'm working to not look forward so much that I miss what I'm doing right now.  One day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time, one second at a time.

At the risk of sounding saccharine, I want to thank the many people in my life who have, over the past year, made a difference to me in profound and long lasting ways.  Some of you may not even realize it as we have never met in person, but your presence here and the things you've shared with me publicly and in private messages have meant a great deal to me.  Don't take my silence as lack of gratitude.  It's there; I just don't always express it.

Winter of 2012 Assateague Island, VA

Horseback Riding With Myself

I would love to say that my story with horses has come to a wonderful conclusion.  I dearly love them as I love all animals, but I haven't been able to reconcile my past experiences as well as my new found ones.  I still feel at times ignorant and undeserving of the knowledge and still a bit frustrated that I'm not as good of a horsemen that my fellow riders are.  I'm also insanely jealous of them as well.  Most of them are teenagers or younger and have the most uncanny, if I could say, natural ability to communicate with their equine companions that seem so unreal to me.  And the worst thing about all of this, is how out of place I feel as a 40+ salt and pepper hair, gay man, in a class of female teeny boppers, who can ride circles around me and jump fences, all the while I'm just trying to keep my horse from cutting the corners around the arena.

I'm currently not riding right now; I've had to stop in late 2010 because of health problems that have made it unsafe.   Problems with an untreatable, proximal positional vertigo being the main one as well as excessive weight gain, unpredictable heart fibrillations that cause dangerous lightheadedness, and a still as yet undiagnosed muscle atrophy, weakness, and neuropathy,  have made it difficult to make any progress on anything let alone dressage.  I don't really know if my riding days are over or not.  I hope that I can return to normal health.  But I just can't feel confidence in that happening as things seem to continue to slowly decline.  And to make it worse, other than the vertigo and heart issues, the doctors can't seem to find anything medically wrong with me. 

I've really been missing my time just being around those great creatures.  Grooming, hugging, leaning on, sitting on, smelling their sweat, picking their hooves, pulling their tails, giving them treats, whistling little songs to them while they crowd around me out in the paddock,  rubbing them on the brow and behind the ears until they practically fall asleep while their snotty snout is pressed into my stomach.  I've gotten so close to them now that I have gotten the point where I wish I could be one.  It's that way with all the animals I've ever made a connection to.   I see them as innocent, free spirits, always in the moment, with wonderful beauty and pure unconditional love.  Who wouldn't want to be them? 

Not to get too far off subject, as if there ever is a subject on a free-write post, but ever since I was 5 years old, I've spent much of my waking imagination in silent contemplation wondering what it would feel like to actually be one of the many animals that have occupied my waking sub-conscious.  I say 5 years old because that was how old I was when I had my first lucid dream that involved an animal.  It was a tiger. In that dream I also became a tiger and experienced an intimate and spiritually deep connection to the tiger that appeared to me.  I also felt a strong desire to never want to leave that dream and have pondered the experience off and on for decades since.  I don't know why I still remember that dream so vividly 35+ years later, but it was a life changing experience. One in which I don't really know how to explain, and it continues to be meaningful to me now, as well as many other similar experiences that I've had since, both in waking and non-waking dreams and meditations.  And aside from the apparent, if not superficial, similarity to the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes, it was nothing like Calvin & Hobbes, although I really do love that comic.

Only in recent years have I bothered to seriously look into these dreams to find out more about their possible significance and meaning.  And quite surprisingly, I've found many communities for that aspect of my life spanning from Therianopthy, to Native American spiritual traditions to the Furry Fandom.  So at this point, I can honestly claim I'm a furry and oddly enough, I actually couldn't care less about all the stigma and stereotypes associated with furries. They are my people, drama and all.

So what is the point of me saying all of this?  I don't know,
just to get it off my chest I suppose.  I haven't had a pet in my life for over 10 years.  That last one was a female tuxedo cat, who I still really miss.  We had a very special bond, as I've had with all the cats I've ever had.  She was always begging me to hold her up to the lights so that she could get at the moths.   I don't think I've ever gotten over her death.  She was suffering from an Alzheimer's like disease and it totally fucking sucked to see her go through the states of confusion she often went through.  She was only 12.

(1989-2001) picture taken circa 1994

Anyway, I wish I had the strength to just go down to the riding school again, but I also can't shake the feeling of being out of place there as if I don't belong.  It was easy for the most part to forget about that feeling when I could just jump on my horse and trot around the arena as it was just me, the instructor, and the horse.   But when I'm not riding, I become acutely aware of the dozen people there, and I am the only male.  And of course, the troublesome pink elephant in the arena that I wish wasn't there despite the common stereotype that all male dressage riders are gay.  I don't live in a gay friendly part of the country and there is always someone reminding me of that fact.

Some days I really hate my circumstances.  I really resent the shit my life has now.  And quite often I forget that in many other ways I have it really damn good!   It's as if one aspect of my life got amazingly better while others have reached their shelf life and are about to expire.  And it's those expiring parts that I never had the chance to make something of them.  For each day that passes, I find something new to regret.  

But, to avoid making this post a complete downer, I will include this cropped picture of me wearing my riding boots.  I'm on a horse.

Yeah, yeah, I know, toes forward! 

Winter Beach

I love the ocean beach in the winter time.   The air is crisp, and fresh and not a chain smoker in sight.

The landscape is serene with clear blue skies, endless horizon, birds...

more birds...

my boots...

and a beautiful a Belgium draft horse... 

I could spend all weekend out here...

Which is exactly what I did.

All pictures: January 15-16, 2011: Ocean City, MD

My Old Spiral Jetty

The two things I miss most about the western side of the country are 1) the mountains and 2) vast open space.  I really get homesick for it some days.

I was inspired by Holly, over at Self-Portrait as, to dig out my old pictures from 2003-2004 of the Spiral Jetty and the surrounding area.  The colors in the pictures aren't as rich as they should be but I attribute that to the fact that the film sat undeveloped in a hot humid house for 6 years.  Once I switched to digital, I completely forgot I still had an old film camera.  I tried enhancing the colors in a photo editor but I wasn't happy with any of the results.  I just couldn't get them to look right.  It's as if they were all meant to look old.

On the other hand, as I look at these pictures, there is a heavy sense of a bygone era.  Memories of a past that feels so far distant that even though they are familiar, they are complete foreign to me.  So, it's OK for them to look old.  They are faded and tainted with color, just like my memories.

10+1 Favorite Things

Reina tagged me.

I don't normally participate in these tagging games but this time I felt like I needed to.  Not out of obligation but for my own benefit.   I seriously thank Reina for sending it out there like this.  I probably wouldn't have thought of doing this had it not been for her.  It turned out to be just what I needed to lift my spirits.

My list ended up going to eleven. After all, don't all good things go up to eleven?
Anyway, here they are in no particular order:

1. Animals
There is nothing that grounds me more than the non-human living creatures of this planet.  There is something very awe inspiring about creatures that don't spend their lives trying to be something they are not.  They just exist, do their thing, and are happy to be doing it.  Many creatures feel the emotions of fear, anger, joy, happiness but they are not stuck on them, they blow it off and move on.   Their innocence transcends the complexity of the human mind.  Even though the human mind can give us tremendous understanding of our world, it can also be deceived, which creates needless suffering.  Animals are not capable of inflicting suffering upon themselves as we humans do. 

I mostly grew up with cats, dogs, horses and chickens.  Although, I never allowed myself to develop any bonds with dogs and horses until my later years.  I'm still working on birds though. Not sure how but I see myself finding that path through falconry.  I don't know.  We'll see.

Anyway, for some reason I have always easily bonded with cats.  Every cat I have ever owned over the years developed a special bond with me as well.  This bond was never shared with any other member of my family. 

One special bonding moment came when I was around 12 years old.  I woke up one Saturday morning to the sounds of little mews in my bedroom.  But they weren't just in the room.  They were in my bed.  Right there leaning up against my back, as I was lying in my side, was my mother cat and her five newborn kittens.  Rather than hiding away to have her litter as she had done in the past, she had them there with me.  While I was sleeping, she had pressed her back up against mine, as she had done every other night to sleep, but this time rather than find a secluded place in the house, under the bed, closet etc, she felt it safe enough to stay where she was.  I will never forget that.   Nor will I forget my dried crusty bloody pajamas as I was tearing them loose from the crusted bloody bed sheet.   Poor kitty she didn't like me leaving.  I pushed the blanket up to her to fill the space I had vacated.  She was content with that.

2. Dressage
Naturally, because dressage involves riding horses! And I love riding horses, although, I haven't been doing it for very long.  It took me awhile to rediscover the fascination I once had with horses growing up, a topic that needs a post of its own someday.

The neatest thing to me about dressage is that it's just as much about developing a strong, agile and athletic horse as it is about developing a strong, agile and athletic rider.  And the gentle and subtle communication between horse and rider is another special bond that both fascinates and amazes me.

No matter how hard a day I've had at work that week, the moment I step into the stall or walk out to the paddock to retrieve my horse, I no longer care about the world.  I'm fully present for this majestic, powerful, and gentle creature as we teach each other how to work as one.

3. Music
I love music.  I compose music.  I have been composing music since I was 5 years old.  At around age 12 my aunt gave me a few sheets of paper she had written on that showed me how to read music, how chords were constructed and how to transpose into different keys.   Within months, I was now writing things down.  By the time I entered high school, I had composed a huge body of work.   My final semester of my senior year in high school, I was taking 5 music classes out of the 8 periods.  I studied music during my first stint in college although I was never able to complete it.  I toured for one summer with the Blue Knights Drum and Bugle Corps. And during my second stint in college studying to be a Computer Engineer, I still kept my performance and composition skills alive by composing and performing with the percussion ensemble.  A few years ago, my brother-in-law commissioned me to compose the soundtrack to one of his short films.   

Needless to say, much of my life revolves around music.  I'm always looking for new and interesting music that I've never heard before.  Melodic and orchestrated works from modern or classical composers of jazz, heavy metal, folk, elevator, progressive rock, industrial, chill, Celtic, Andean, Latin,  etc.  The list goes on and on.  Too many to mention.  There are genres that I don't like but this post isn't about them.  They are few anyway.   On any given day at work, my iPod will be playing a mixture of an easy listening arrangement by Percy Faith followed by the hard pounding edge of the Dutch heavy metal band, Within Temptation, to be followed by a smooth cello concerto by Samuel Barber and so on.  It's all good.

4. Coffee
I don't drink it for the caffeine; I drink it for the flavor.  So naturally, I'm always buying the pricier stuff.   I was introduced to coffee at the tender age of 10 by my grandmother.  It was the most awesomest thing evar!

5. Sex
Yes I'm going to say it.  Sex, and all that sex can entail.  And it can entail a lot!  Kissing, cuddling, fetishes, BDSM, puppy play etc. and yes, it has to be the gay version.  I have a different blog about this so I don't need to elaborate any more here.  :)

6. Beer 
Not just any beer, it has to be the dark malty kind.  Yummy, malty smooth and malty!  I don't drink beer or any alcoholic drinks to get drunk, I never get drunk.  I drink beer for the flavor!  I just wished it didn't have so many gash darn calories!

7. Internet 
Ok, who DOESN'T love the internet?  Those who are reading this blog I would expect at least like the internet.  If you didn't like the internet, you mostly likely wouldn't be here.  Right?  

For me it's primarily an escape to distract me from the tedious and frustrating existence that I have living in this rural and socially foreign region of the US.  Yeah, there is some bad to that but I'm going to focus on the good.  The internet has accomplished for me the following: 
Allowed me to stay in closer contact with family and friends.  Provided a place for me to connect with other like minded people so that I can have a voice on topics that I would never have the opportunity to discuses otherwise.  Find hook ups with people with like minded interests.  Find dates with people with like minded interests. Look up crazy-ass things on Wikipedia, Google and lds.org.  And most importantly, it was instrumental in allowing me to find a particular picture of a friend of mine, which triggered my coming out process that forever changed the course of my life for the better. 

What would I have done without the internet?  

8. Computers and Programming 
Although, many might include this into internet, as it does require a computer to get on the internet, I think of it completely different.  I have been programming computers since I was 12 years old, long before the internet existed.  If I wasn't off tinkering on the piano or banging away on the drum set, I was on the computer, writing programs.  Anywhere form silly little things that played songs or plotted pretty designs on the monitor to elaborate database programs that I used to keep track of my huge reel-to-reel tape collection.

Now, I use the computer for almost everything I do.  It's the primary tool I use for my employment, to build my music compositions and recordings, write, blog, watch TV and otherwise communicate with the rest of the world.  The computer is the only appliance in my life that I would want to have with me if I were stranded on a desert island.  Assuming of course that there was a place to plug it in and I could get free Wi-Fi.

9. Walking and Nature
Granted they are two separate things but I'm combining them as they go hand in hand for me.

I walk a lot.  When I go out walking, I average about 4 miles per trip.  And depending on time, I may do several walks a day ranging from 3-10 miles.   I have lost a lot of weight doing this.  But the other reason I walk is to clear my head.  It helps me work out the anxiousness that builds up from sitting in a windowless office all day or help me blow off anger and frustration at the world in general. 

Even though there have been times I've walked on an indoor track with some friends, I prefer to only do my walking outside.  Walking outside could mean anything from walking around the town or city to hiking in the park or woods.  But ultimately, anything with a natural setting is ideal and preferred even if I have to drive a while to get there.

Since there are no mountains, I have to make do with the sandy beaches of my favorite place out here, the Chincoteague National Wildlife Preserve, which is mostly on Assategue Is. VA.  On any given day of the year, and I've pretty much hit that place every month throughout the year since 2007, I have seen more varieties of wildlife in that short time than I ever did growing up in rural Utah.  And watching these animals in their natural setting while I'm out communing with nature is a spiritual and profoundly grounding experience.  (see Animals)

10. Photography
I love the idea of making art out of an instantaneous moment in time, to capture a glimpse of the real word for a split second.  What would never be seen in that exact state ever again, is now captured forever.  And out of that moment is born something new.

Images can capture beauty and emotion that transcend from the time they were taken.  And for me, as I'm a very visually oriented thinker, such images draw me in, inspire, and stimulate me in ways that other art forms cannot.  Not even sculpture or paintings.  I hope to be featuring more of my photography in my blogs in the coming years.
 
11.  Family
Last but not least, my family.  This could be an entire blog post of its own.  In fact all of the things on here could be.  But let me just say this, without my mom and dad and many of my siblings, I wouldn't have made it this far.  I wouldn't be here to tell the tale of my life.  They have been the only true friends I will ever have and I can't even begin to express how fortunate I am.  I'm not even sure I can comprehend the magnitude of that fortune.  I'm fully aware that many others don't have what I have when it comes to family.  It breaks my heart.  I wish they could have mine. 

My parents have always had an open house to people over the years, many of them struggling in some why or other with their lives.  By giving them a space to crash for a time demonstrates the amazing generosity they have that not even I have been capable of giving.  I'm still the black sheep in this family, but this family is welcoming of the back sheep. 

Truth be told, it wasn't always like that, but it changed.  Back in the late 80's my mom found the courage, strength and open mindedness to drive her to find the path that would work when the life that was handed to her was failing miserably.   She questioned and challenged the status quo, looked beyond the LDS church to find real answers, real solutions!  By doing so, she brought the rest of us with her.   Now, here we are today.  From deep dysfunction grew strength, love and acceptance.  It's not perfect but it's all that it needs to be. 


tagging...
The rules of this tagging game are that I am to tag 10 others.  I'm not comfortable with doing that but if you feel inspired by my list, go for it, and let me know by posting a comment here.

UPDATE:  What the hell!   I realized there are a few people I really want to know better so I'm just going to go a head and risk it by tagging them, dammit!    I don't know if they will ever see this but it's out there.
Mel
Laruen T. Hart
fonsy
Stella 
Andee 
Quiet Song 
Maureen 
ControllerOne
UPDATE AGAIN:  looks like Quite Song already posted before I completed my tag list!  LOL!

Regina Spektor

This post, Most Beautiful People 2010, popped up in Google Reader this morning from blogger Shane Davis.

I had no idea who Regina Spektor was until today.   I've spent the rest of the morning crying my head off watching all of the videos I could find of her on YouTube.

I never know when someone out there in the world will touch me deeply and I'm essentially speechless right now.  I agree 100% with Shane.  How could anyone who produces such beauty be anything but beautiful in every aspect?