Learning To Read. Pt 1

You probably know by now that I love to read poetry. It's the reason I got into writing in the first place. 


And in the short time I've been reading publicly, I've been lucky enough to find so much encouragement (btw thank you for all the kind words. they mean a lot to me). It's become such a big part of my life, that I decided to talk about how I learned to read and hopefully get more people to try.

Quiet a few years ago, a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company visited my school and read On The Eve of St. Agnes.To tell you that it was an important moment for me would be an understatement. It changed how I wrote, how I read, how I understood poetry. 

And while I am nowhere near on that level, I am better for what I learned from that experience. More about that specific reading later but here are some things that have stuck with me since then.

⸓

Part 1

Poetry People and Poetry Is The Message

Let's start with an uninspired, blanket observation: poetry isn't for everyone. And while that's true for almost anything, I have found such a hot or cold reaction to Poetry that I can't help but try and theorize why something I love so much, can be so hated as well. So I'll move to my second cliche and move to the beginning of these experiences.

Most of the time, when people find out that I love poems, I'm met on some scale between confusion, annoyance, distaste, or anger.

Rarely.

                 Vary rarely.

I meet someone who enjoys poetry too. 

It's not impossible. But I find those encounters to be outliers. And of those few encounters it's even harder to find someone who enjoys the same kind of poetry I do. Maybe this is do to my geography, or the small circles I keep, and maybe this would all be solved if I just got out more?... but this has been my experience.

So younger me, often kept poetry as a solitary subject. Something not to bring in to conversations with my friends. The times I remember best, ditching class, to have time alone in a corner of a library, or in my room, or on the university lawn, or hiding in the front seat of my car with the windows down. Quietly absorbing every line. Taking in the page as a secret passed thru history just for me. And I was fine with that. In fact it was exactly what I wanted. A way to enjoy my lonerism.

After all, poetry wasn't about making friends. 

Still isn't. 

Poetry is something I do for me. I read and write cause I want to. It's my desire that is it's own reward. There's no monetary value. No good job or high five. No reason other than a desire to read and write. I can share a moment with a writer's thoughts, see if they speak to me, if I like it or not or if I want even want that message in my life. And everything about Poetry, hinges on me. And while yes, sometimes it's another author who wrote the piece, the conversation is strictly internal. They were merely the fuel for my own imagination. I hold the conversation. I dictate how it ends. 

And I imagine this true for you, if you are a poetry person.

Maybe that's where the disconnect occurs? Maybe some people don't understand why they should put so much work or thought into a poem when it takes so much effort to understand and they receive no tangible reward. Poetry is slow. Its practice requires calming that internal itch for fast and easy and waiting for a longer, personal reward that may not reveal its purpose until years down, when a reader can recall a succinct and poignant line.

And while poetry is personal, at its origin, it's meant to be communal. Meant to be spread and shared. That was a big lesson for me to learn from the Shakespearean Actor and my wonderful Romance Professor. What's the point of writing, of publishing, if not to spread out like a virus thru time, infecting futures with the strange ramblings of your mind? 

Poetry, like all writing, is the message. Every poem has one. From the author to the reader. From reader to listener. And often that message is simple, though sometimes it is obscured in difficult layers of representation. *(More on this later)

That communication is the most important part of reading. Even if you're alone in your room, on a recording, in bed with a lover, or on a stage in front of a room full of people, or live on Instagram, the point is to uncover the message. 

Bring it out. 

Give it warmth. 

Slowly make it live. 

Only the reader can do that.

A good reading should help the message emerge. A great reading should bring the author's voice off the page and into our reality. Into the moment.

Sometimes it takes a lot of time and re-readings to ever get to a comfortable place and say - I know this poem well enough to read it.

I hear a lot of people read unconfidently. And this is probably because they aren't precisely sure what they are saying. 

So take time. 

I never read aloud the first time. And I never perform without many, many re-readings. I imagine this was equally true for the Shakespearean Actor who read at my University.

Read unfiltered, then Re-Read asking lots of questions like:

What did the author mean? What is actually being said here? What should the reader get from this? Why is the poem divided up the way it is? Are the rhymes and rhythms supposed to be emphasized or is it just a background mood? What is the tone of this poem? Etc.

There are a million questions and even more answers, but with every answer you find (different readers will and should find different answers) you should get closer to understanding your message.


 This is the work of reading. It's not easy. 

And the reward... that's even harder to define. 

Maybe here we can revisit this Love/Hate problem. 

Why work so hard for words? Why go slowly over an idea, again and again? Why obsess over someone else's thoughts? If you see no value in it, it is the equivalent of eating a chunk of rubber tire. Hard. Distasteful. Unrewarding. It's easy to understand why someone would hate the thought of it. Or think it strange that other people enjoy it.

I think that's the inherited attitude of our High School understanding of Poetry. And for that, I won't blame them.

But if like me, you are a Poetry Person, you know there are universes of ideas to escape to. Dreams to make. Experiences to feel. Each one has made my life so much deeper. Has taught me to appreciate others. To Think. To Feel. To Love. To be cautious of the words I use. To be mindful of my form. To be something more than I could be without Poetry. 

Human. 

So I challenge you to find a poem, record yourself reading it the first time, then read it over until you find some new insight into the meaning, and record it again. Hear the change that comes with understanding.

Much love

-rene

ps. as always like, share, subscribe and if you want to talk you can reach me on this blog, youtube, facebook and twitter. Also my new website ReneTheWriter.

pps. Let me know if you liked this and I can do more.

Black Ribbons Part 4

There are distances we make for others. 

Spaces. 

Between looks. 

They are hard to cross. 

Hidden miles between drinks and conversations. I was lost out there as tea table lights faded into darker hours. 

My eyes - glassed. Not from exhaustion, or beer - this is still the first can half-drunk and warm from my inattention. Not from the haze of smoke. Or the music. 

Distance.

- Do you know how far we are?

"You are being quiet," she nudged my shoulder. 


"A Silent Texan right, Rene?" the table is looking at me, "Pistols at dawn? Cowboys?"

The girl from the alley laughed. Brushed the black ribbons on her wrist, watching for my answer. She'd brought me here to meet friends.

One of which was a wispy-blonde, art student in a red tank top asking me questions about Texas. And conservatives. And cowboys.

"Y'all love your guns."

- How far we are. 

He was wanting to argue.

"No man we don't all have guns." And that's true. Mostly. We don't all carry. I wasn't going to tell him that I didn't know a lot of people who did. That they made me uncomfortable. Just that we all don't. 


"Ride your pony to school?" he laughed.

"No man."

"I just can't understand it cowboy..." He leaned over his drink. Coming just into the light of the candle so the fine blonde hair on his chin glimmered faintly.

He was ready to for a show. He was mad. And needed a way to express it. So he doesn't the night looking for an argument. To make a stand for a hero agains his anger. But he needed a straw dog.  An emblem for everything he thought was wrong in the world. For him, it was a gun owner. A Texan. And though I don't own one I was a Texan and that is close enough sometimes. 

His speech ran. I waited. Feeling my Lone Star getting warmer. And wondering if this would have gone a different way had I not ordered it. If I had ordered a Guinness instead. Or a craft micro-brew... would I be having a direct night then? 

He wanted me to argue back, but I only nodded and gave several sighs that ranged from "I know," to "I know right?" 

Cause for the most part I agreed with him. 

Distances. It's always hard to see how far we are...

"See cowboy," he showed me his wrist.

I wanted to tell him, I'm just not that person. Not that cowboy. I think he's right. But I listened.

Black Ribbons

Him and her. All their friends too. Made them into bracelets or armbands or on a necklace. 

Black Ribbons.

Each one a student lost in the last year. Each one a gun shot fired in some school.

They broke my heart. And I loved them for making a statement for trying to say something. And I loved them for having so much love in their hearts that they would give me a lecture on guns. 

Cause they were angry. Cause they believed change is possible. And something should be done. But the young can only do so much. And they didn't want to forget, and they don't want to sit by,  so they wore black ribbons and talk. And argue. And participate.

- Maybe the distance grew a little smaller.

The waitress came around and everyone ordered again, I did too.

Even though I knew I wasn't going to drink the next. Like I didn't drink the first.

Cause some people need to talk. People need to tell their story. Not about politics. Or policies. But people. Hurt people. Angry people. Scared people. Tired people. They all have stories. Even when we agree. We need to listen. 

I don't pretend to have answers. 

This took place well before the Orlando Shooting or Dallas. They were talking about campus shootings. But this happened right as I was revisiting this memory. And it hurts worse now. That distance. One I didn't want to cross... shrank again. 

And I still feel the same, but I think I need to clarify something about my thoughts. 

We need to do something. Action should be taken. But our dialogue devolves so quickly that it becomes near impossible to discuss how to change. There is anger and name calling, and politicizing and all the worst things that stop us until we quit and move on, waiting for another attack to stir everything up again.

Listen. Sympathize. Love. It is not easy to close distance. No matter how small. It is not easy to open ourselves to our own faults. Cause that's what it will take. Not proving what we feel is right but admitting what learn is wrong. 


-rene


ps. as always like, share, subscribe and if you want to talk you can reach me on this blog, youtube, facebook and twitter


mood: 

Miles Davis - So What

Black Ribbons Pt 3

-Rene

It was the alley after the show.
Moon rising to midnight over clouds, and the heavy, wet air swimming into my lungs. I feel like it might rain.

-Where are you going?

To the left was main street. The lights of the club front. People wandering from bar to bar and an occasional swoosh of tires against the road. 

And to right. A parking garage standing in concrete darkness. And the sounds of words disappearing.

-Nowhere to go. 
Knowing the places I don't want to be.
Knowing the places I'd rather be.
And to be here
with no where to go

Thinking to myself as a streak of sweat fell down from my forehead off my left eyebrow down into my tear duct. I can still remember the sting of the salt.

"What are you doing out here?" her voice softly groaned, letting her chords relax, frying in her loose shake.

- I hadn't seen her there...

 a door across the alley...

Or had I? 

She was leaning. Though I couldn't see, her bare back to the wall messing with her nails. Hair cut short and jet black. Like her leggings. Like her boots. Like her over-sized jacket wrapped around her waist.

"Well?" she insisted slowly.

"Just getting air." 

One step at a time I left the back door of the club. Feeling a slight breeze run over me. Night. 

"What are you doing out here?"

"Waiting."

And I could feel the sweat on my forehead again. And the cold chill of my shirt wet around from my neck down my chest. 

Shows are a sweaty. Tonight more so. The club had decided to bake me under the front lights. 

Red and Blue. Heat.

She jumped out into the street, "I thought you were pretty good... considering."

I laughed, "considering." 

"I usually don't..." shifting left and right, "it's not my kinda music. Plus they had your vocals way too low." She smiled and started to fidget with a bracelet on her left hand.

"Happens I guess. Maybe next time."

and I saw her bracelet. Black Ribbons. Fringed.

She started walking to the parking lot. "There's a party later tonight."

Of all these places,

where you'd rather be

where you wouldn't

there really is only the place you are

and the places you are going

-rene


ps. as always like, share, subscribe and if you want to talk you can reach me on this blog, youtube, facebook and twitter

mood: 

A Quick One

Hey everybody

What a week... 

Mixing up a little bit of everything, storms, sickness, work, and a whole lot of planning.

of course writing and rewriting. (a little more than half way through my 2nd full novel idea and that comes in goes in terms of my creativity for it. this week I did get a wave of inspiration about it so yeah!)

Everything is about planning. 

The guys and I in the middle of creating a brand new show. And though I don't have a lot of specifics to share, I can say it'll be something like I have never done before. And that's really exciting. I feel motivated. I feel creative. And ready to share everything we have been working on with the world.

endless possibilities

till next time. when I will  pick up this tour story. that's intertwining some of these disparate characters with a larger story. ended up taking more time than I thought. and a new The Weekend Playlist... wooo. also hopefully start this podcast I've been dreaming about.

ok

much love

-rene

ps. as always like, share, subscribe and if you want to talk you can reach me on this blog, youtube, facebook and twitter

mood: 

Black Ribbons pt 2

The next twenty minuets found me standing outside the motel. Making a few calls on the phone down my list: Dad, Girlfriend, friends back home, and finally any thing I was missing for work.

I was in the middle of texting my girlfriend, about what she did last night when the driver pulled up. 

"Ruh-ne?" he yelled out his passenger window phonetically stretching my name out to it's recognizable limits. 

When I grabbed my case, he popped the trunk and pointed his thumb, before tapping the Bluetooth connected to his ear.

He was mid-way through a sentence when he turned around quickly and asked, "The Metro?" 

"Yeah," 

And he was back on the phone, as we took off.

"I'm just tired of it man. She thinks..." he paused for a minute, listening to the other person as we wove through the city, "Yeah, yeah. The sh** she thinks she can just take from me. Take. Take. Take. All she's ever f*in done."

We hit a red light. And I tried looking out the window, block after block of tinted windows, banks, law firms, basically 'Nothing to look at,' I sighed. 

I didn't want to listen, but there wasn't much else going on.

"Ok, Ok, but listen to this remember last Christmas? We did a whole cross promotion thing, and I'm set up for the interview and she's gone man. I mean vanished from the building...

"Yeah... and it's not a big deal, I'm thinking, they need this done... exactly, let's get this over with.

He turns the corner slowly and we hit another batch of traffic. I'm waiting for a text from Rachel 

- you won't believe this car ride I'm on babe.

"So I do the interview they give me gift bags to give to the team. And they give me this extra camera like one big bonus for doing the interview. Yeah, so later I give everybody their bags and don't think anything of it until like 8 months later...

The car comes to a sudden halt. And the guy turns around still talking to his friend and points up ahead at the line of cars and mouths "2 more blocks"  as his friend is talking "almost."

"Then guess what? She's on about the camera after a meeting... She says, she deserved the camera. And I'm just thinking, what the hell are you talking about? You are serious about a stupid digital camera... Yeah don't you have a phone that can do all this? Just real dumb stuff like that all the time.

"And, and, and," he stumbles, "the real thing is, I don't care about the camera. It's not like I stole it from her. Just, yeah it never even registered that this would be a thing. You know... This?"

We creep up for two more agonizing blocks. As he goes on and on about this fight he is having with a co-worker. Though I eventually learn somewhere just past the start of the 2nd block, that they were more than co-workers.

It's a mercy when he finally sets the car in park.

I pay him. And he doesn't look at me. 

I start walking away from the car towards the venue when I remember the bass is in the truck. And for a second I start to run back, but I see him there. Still yelling about his fight to his friend. 

I tap on his window, "I forgot," I didn't even finish the line while I'm pointing to the trunk. 

And the driver gets startled. I don't know if he didn't recognize me or maybe it was too unexpected. 

Little things. 

Unaware.

So many problems come from little things.

to be cont.

-rene


ps. as always like, share, subscribe and if you want to talk you can reach me on this blog, youtube, facebook and twitter

mood: 

Dave Brubeck Quartet - St Louis Blues- Belgium 1964

Black Ribbons

White. A single wooden side table held a heavily used coffee maker, and a few pamphlets. The only things on the wall to break up this ocean of white: a red plastic clock and a pastel work of wild flowers framed in a dull gold. 

At the front desk, unaware or uncaring about my presence, a slumped young redhead played on the computer laughing to herself.

I was at least hoping for a place to sit. 

I set my bass down at my feet. Checked my phone for a text. 

the driver: 20 mins

Maybe I should go back to my room... Is that enough time for a nap? For a good moment, I was in another zone. Waiting. Looking at the clock on my phone trying to decide what I should do.

When her voice cut through the quiet-empty, "you in a band?" The desk girl was pointing down at my case.

"Yeah..."

"I was in a band for a bit," she shrugged, "guitar... We fought a lot... Didn't like it."

"I...ugh, well" I hadn't really expected her to say that and it left me stuttering awkwardly, "it can be tough sometimes I guess."

"Tell me," she said. And leaned deep over the counter pulling out a pair of scissors from behind the monitor. She kept her eyes on me. Reaching under her desk, and pulling out a spool of black ribbon.

I laughed, "tell you what?"

She held the spool between her legs, and opened out a piece about the size of a forearm and snipped, "how tough is it for you?"

"It can be like any job I guess," I started.

She raised her eyebrows. Pulled out another piece. 

Snip.

"There are bad days."

Pull. Snip.

"But I wouldn't..."

Pull.

"What are you doing?"

Snip.

She smiled, "Just a project I'm working on. Go on."

"I can't really imagine doing anything else," I finished. 

Watching her continue to cut the ribbons. And lay the strips of black across her desk. One after another. 

One a little shorter. The next longer.

She told me about her band. About how she was always butting heads with the drummer. And how she thought it was all connected to some incident involving Tiffany from Middle School that neither was supposed to talk to, and a back seat of the mini-van. And though it never got heated and they never fought, the practices became fewer and fewer. Their chemistry was colder. 

And one day,

"...she just didn't call anymore. And that was it. Like I still see her," she put down the scissors on to her pile of black ribbons, and stared me straight in the eyes, "we even saw a movie together not too long ago but... we don't even talk about it. The band I mean. Just... it was done."

the driver: hit traffic. another 20 mins.

"Tough," and wondering if there was still time for a nap.

to be cont.

-rene


ps. as always like, share, subscribe and if you want to talk you can reach me on this blog, youtube, facebook and twitter

mood:

Reflections from a Hotel Balcony...

What will I do from here? 

The question circled along with my finger around the edge of the railing. Cold steel. 11 stories up in middle of the city at dusk. 

In the air were sounds of cars going by. The quiet murmur of people. Bits of yelling. Laughter.

Lives unknown. 

Conversations of wind.

And what do they do? Geniuses? Freaks? Dreamers? Builders? Destroyers? The violence and love hidden away inside the small distant undefined lines that are the faces, costumes, people.

A strong wind came in, and I turned my neck left and right. And  that now familiar pain moved from the base of my neck down. Spread over my shoulder towards my elbow, and finally landing at  my left hand. 

What will I do from here? 

My eye caught a glimpse of orange. It flashed under a street light and fell into darkness. Than again under the next light. 

A woman? A hat maybe? She stopped for a moment under a third post.

Her dress white. She was small. Brunette. And that was as much as I could tell. She was another distant thing. 

A I say a thing, because I can know nothing at all of her. Her life is too big to fit in so small a frame. That I saw her and thought she was like summer. That she could be anything. Tells you nothing of who she really is. And as I wondered, it came to me. 

For her, I was a distant thing too.

11 stories up. A man. Small. On a balcony. A visitor no doubt... but a musician? a writer? for all she knew a doctor or politician? 

And she saw no pain in the shoulder. No questions of myself.

No strange thoughts that would keep me up till 4 am writing in a notebook. 

Melodies of dreams she could never know about. What do I seem to her? What would she call me? Her. Who could also be anything. A doctor. A dancer. A fortune teller. A politician. A business woman. She might be the one with an answer.

So I asked - What will I do from here?

For a moment more, she stood in the light. And from out of my building, two more ladies came out to the street. They waved to each other. Saying hello. Hugs. And off down the street. Moving from lamp to darkness to lamp along the sidewalk.

A strong wind came in. Carrying the sounds of cars, a siren, and the noise of people. Maybe an answer in there too. But I couldn't tell. I am too small a thing.

-rene

ps. as always like, share, subscribe and if you want to talk you can reach me on this blog, youtube, facebook and twitter

mood (Pathetique) Sonata No. 8 Op. 13 II. Adagio cantabile:

From Here

"It's done..." 

It was hard to hear exactly the words he said. Kept his head hunched down under his shoulder, under the music of the bar, under the people next to us, the drinks, ordering, yelling, laughing. The club was heavy with sound. Just a thick cloud of sensory over-load surrounded the two of us, so his Bogart-esque comments were less dramatic than they could've been. But I heard one thing, "it's done."

And I shook my head. Not to deny him, but just cause that's all I had. All I could give. Sometimes there are no words. Sometimes things are too big to hold much less comment on. And sometimes I get tired of retreading. 'We've been here before. This face. This voice. This argument. I've been here in Denver. In Nashville. I've seen it in Brooklyn and Toronto. I've fought this down the P.C.H. And back through the south, Albuquerque, El Paso, Dallas, Little Rock. So here in a small bar in Indianapolis. I'm not surprised.

He turned away. His head hovering over his half-drank pint. 

You can know something is true with out understanding why. 

"Alright." 

Might be the last word I said before turning towards the merch table. 

I slid behind the table and sat on a tub of t-shirts, watching people pass. Watching the main band play. 

Phillip, the dude working the merch for the other two bands, was on a break. He was older, professional, and always on top of his job, but left whenever he had half a chance.

I was lost there alone, with no thought for a few moments until the band hit a song right in the middle of the set. A pick up from the song before, and the local lighting girl took it as a cue to try some things out.

And just as the bass came in to the song, there was a flash of red. Then blue. Then red. Swiping left and right. Pulses of white from the back of the stage coming at me with the beat of the drum. Flash. Flash. Flash.

I saw the face that spread continents and time. Haunting the spaces between flashes. Between the red and the blue.

White. Cut in shadow by hard lines. Red. Eyes hooded. Blue. Across both sides of his nose. Black. A thin top lip. White. The beard. Red. Staring cold. Blue. The finality of disappointment.  The white flashes.

"Somethings you can't come back from." 

Seemed like a voice from out of time. From another place. 

"They go and go. Hiding behind you. Following close but always out of reach. They won't come back. It's done."

"And if I want to go?"

His lips immobile, but the words were there, "You can't. You can't be the same and leave it behind."

And then I knew, from a thought that was not my own, the words came to me. 

"The I can't be the same. I must change with everything else. I'm not the same. From here. I am new."

-rene

ps. as always like, share, subscribe and if you want to talk you can reach me on this blog, youtube, facebook and twitter

mood RIP Prince: 

Importance?

As some of you may know I do a lot of different kinds of writing

songwriting

fiction

blogs

poetry

And my poetry I just started to share on my Instagram. And I've gotten a great response. So I wanted to give a general thank you to everyone who has been awesome and joined me in this.

Poetry is something I've always kept close to my chest. Mostly because I have had so many negative or mildly negative response to sharing it in the past. But that's a story for another post, or to be self-referential that's a memory that will remain in the dark until later...

But the other day I was prepping a poem for Instagram. When I went through several really intense emotions while I was writing it.

I'm not sure why this poem is/was so different for me, but I found myself thinking this is something important. Not important in a Deceleration of Independence historical way. Or in a Origin of Species scientific discovery kind of way either, just in a personal journey moment.

I felt like I had summed up a big idea. And it was a complete giving. A full statement of itself.

Normally if I write a love song. It is not the end all statement of Love that I have. It is not a closed line. A definitive stamp on the subject. But this poem felt like a full expressed idea. 

Maybe I'll feel differently tomorrow and come back to the subject with new eyes?... I mean of course I will... it must be something intrinsically human to retread ideas and to find new facets... see I even did it just now.

So I guess it is not stop the presses type of news. But it is a poem that, for now I feel proud of. I will post it in parts over the next few days... maybe but for now here it is in it's entirety. 

-rene

mood:

why do you care for flowers?

I was in an ivy-autumn cafe
when she read me and asked
-- "Why do you care so for Spring? And for flowers?"

A Fragile Thing. Of Porcelain. I wrote
But she rolled over me asking
-- "Why can't you write of blood?
Of the black and blue bruises of Children?
Of the dark red streets soaked in heartache?
Have you seen all the shades of appropriation?
Do you know the colors of isolation?
Like glass hung over us?
That colors us?
And our visions of
ghosts like walking
dreams from lives lost?
But flowers," she said,
"Why do you care so for flowers?"


Gone. A Fast.
For Five days my words gone.
Away from my Paris-were-Texas-Fever-Dreams.
Away from hills. And meadows. And God-Damn Flowers.
She had asked, "Writer -- what good is a word if it doesn't speak for children? How honest can you be when you've never known an honest thing like hunger?"

Week 2 The Wheel Of Perpetual Turning

Yesterday. 

The morning was colder than I expected. Not enough blankets. The air was crisp like winter and my back and shoulder were wrapped up to each other for warmth. 

I checked my phone.

My alarm hadn't rung yet. 15 minutes early.

"I could still be sleeping... ugh." 

I rolled up a blanket to my shoulder, but it was too late. I was awake. 

Mirror.

Too early for you.

Mirror.

Too early for myself.

My eyes don't keep open long enough to really look anyway. 

I washed myself in the cold sink waiting for the heat to come, but what can I do... it's a slow morning.

Somehow I had routine-d my way to therapy across town. 

Hygiene. Clothing. Traffic. Parking.

There was a pretty young woman doing squats at the wall. There was a fifty something man, with his butt in the air working out his spine on a massage table, there was a young golfer in his twenties working out his wrist, and me at the wheel of perpetual turning. 

And we all had the same face of morning grimace. 

Mirror-less. 

There is little interaction between the patience here. Every now and then a quiet conversation. A polite excuse me as someone sneaks past another. But not much more than that. 

Turning my wheel. 

Listening to the grind of metal wondering, 'Am I allowed to have headphones?' They have Top 40 playing on a little computer in the corner so it's not dead silence. 'But if I'm gonna be here for an hour plus... it would be nice to disappear into headphones. While I turn.'

Turning. This wheel.

Things are starting to loosen up. My body isn't locked into itself anymore. And I'm actually feeling better.

And I start to wonder what a strange creature we are. Who are we that can sit in rooms and turn wheels and improve our state of living?

No other animal could be so silly as to think of this. But no other creature can heal like this.

5 mins forward. 5 mins back. Don't worry about lunch till I'm out the door. And headphones. 

No other being on this planet is crazy enough to have these thoughts while they are in pain.

Turning this wheel. 

And now writing.

This wheel.

Moving.

On.

-rene

ps. as always like, share, subscribe and if you want to talk you can reach me on this blog, youtube, facebook and twitter.


mood:

Therapy Week 1

'Try.'

It's what I've been telling myself. Sitting in a chair in the middle of a therapy center with five other patients beside me. Varying ages. Varying problems. This one has a hurt back. That one is working on her legs. Standing against the wall stretching is a women with a shoulder injury and her husband, sits by her side, watching the other patients as he waits.

The two therapists are at a computer station, typing out something. Maybe paperwork. Before they make another round to check on our progress. 

Breath.

Count.

Try.

Stretching my neck left. Hold five seconds. Stretch it right. I can feel something in my shoulder clicking and the sound radiates through my neck and into my ear. And it is horrible and loud. The pain is quick like getting a shot, and leaves as soon as I bring my head back to center, but the sound stays with me.

Breath.

Count.

Try.

I give it a moment. Before I do another set of 15. The old lady and her husband move to a machine that is kind of like a stationary bike except you pedal with your hands. Churning the handles in circles. Moving out the shoulders. It makes a whirring noise as she goes. The sound of resistance inside the machine. Turning. Turning. Fighting. Turning.

The husband is quiet. His lips shut tight. And his eyes dart back and forth across the room behind his glasses. She laughs, "It's hard to go backwards."

And he snaps awake for a moment, and whispers to her. Reaching his hand out to her. She laughs again. "No Daniel," she laughs to him and takes a moment to breath with her eyes closed.

"Keep at it," he whispers.

Her eyes shut tighter, "I can't. I can't." Her voice is quick and snappy. 

He whispers again but I couldn't hear it.

She takes a breath, and puts her hands back on the machine. And lets out three quick, Agh's.

I move my head left. Then right. Waiting for that cracking noise to pull through my shoulder. 

Breath.

Count.

Try.

'Lucky,' I thought, 'It could be worse.' And start moving out my shoulders in circles. 15 forward. 15 back. 3 times. 'It could be permanent...'

My therapist comes by to check me out. How am I doing? How does it feel?

"The same." I answered. 

And he nods. 

'Is it supposed to feel different? There is no way I could feel better this soon?'

He explains that the grinding, clicking noise is the sound of the muscles loosening up. That my body was in defense mode. And it is calming down. Eventually it will relax again and go back.

And that is comforting... for a bit. Till that crack rips across me again. That sharp pain. That ringing sound. A reminder. This happened. I'll try to heal it. But I can't reverse it. This happened.

The old lady begins at her machine again. And her husband closes his eyes.

Breath.

Count.

Try.

'It is hard to backwards.'



-rene

ps. as always like, share, subscribe and if you want to talk you can reach me on this blog, youtube, facebook and twitter


mood:

les noces de pierrette pablo picasso

One Day At A Time.

I don't have a lot of words today...

Just got out of an appointment to meet my physical therapist. To catch you up, I had an injury during SXSW last week. Shoulder and left hand feel busted. And the impact is radiating down through my back and legs. I don't know how much I feel like talking about it yet. Something's take time to digest. I'm not the kind of guy to just react quickly.

I think I'll be digesting this for a while.

My body takes time to heal.

My mind takes time to absorb.

My words are slow to form. 

I'm also a little bit tired of explaining what happened. It's one of those things that people don't understand the terminology and so they can't understand what I'm going through. Or it least it feels that way. 

I say I was hit by a lighting rig, and they look at me like what is that. So I describe it to them. 

More questions. 

More details. 

Then they ask me about being in a band. Am I famous. Etc. 

I feel like I'm talking more than I need to. And all I think about is this constant pain. 

Morning. Day. Night.

This pain is with me. 

Morning. Day. Night.

I'm reminded.

Morning. Day. Night.

I have realized one thing. I'm still getting used to asking for help. I don't know what I'd be doing if it wasn't for Rachel. Convincing me I need help. I've always done things on my own. And after all the years of her helping, I thought I'd be better at accepting it, but like I said I'm slow to accept. Slow to absorb. Slow at understanding.

I have some shows planned in the near future that are now in question. I'll be doing my videos. This blog. Poetry. Do my therapy. One day at a time. Breathing helps. And heat.


All that and listening to Wilco.

One day at a time.

-rene

ps. as always like, share, subscribe and if you want to talk you can reach me on this blog, youtube, facebook and twitter