Appalachians vs. Rockies

For anyone who doesn’t already know, I’m a huge nature buff. Trees, lakes, oceans, mountains, I dig it all.

This weekend Ash and I spent most of our time with the dogs at Edwin Warner Park and took advantage of the nice weather, grabbing some long-needed fresh air. We did a lot of hiking through the trails, and running through the creeks throwing Frisbees–it was great! Despite all the commotion, though, it was good to immerse myself in a bit of creation again (albeit city-encompassed, protected, marked-trailed, occasionally-paved-roaded creation).

I have to say, though, that the feeling of the Appalachians are much different from the Colorado country I’m from.

Over in the Rockies, the air is crisp–the landscape is fierce and juvenile, as if it takes its hikes and adventures with you and discovers more about the world as you discover it yourself. The atmosphere is open, tough, powerful. When standing on the top of Pike’s Peak, it’s not uncommon to consider at that moment the immensity and dominion of God.

Here, along the Appalachian trails, however, the Earth feels ancient. Everything about the place is old and gentle and intimate–quite the opposite of everything I had experienced at home. The air has that musky quality to it that immediately presents to me an arbitrary picture of a grandparent’s home with floral couches, knitting needles, wood paneling, and grandfather clocks. It’s in the way the rocks lay, the way the trees grow and the rivers color their waters. To be honest, it made me very uncomfortable this past weekend.

I think it’s because in Colorado (or similar places) I could stand proud and look out upon a great view of the world and say, “This is what God is like.” As if I had it figured out. The truth is, I was “partly in the right and wholly in the wrong.” God is probably fierce and powerful like the Rockies, but He’s probably not only that. He’s also gentle, intimate, and of course, very very old (if age can indeed be a characteristic applied to God). And he’s most definitely a lot of other things, too, which I’m sure are displayed elsewhere in His Creation.

All said and done, I definitely need to take some trips. Anyone up for the rain forest?

Friday, Monday, comes around.

It is the weekend (yes). Not only that, it’s one of those rare Fridays that somehow feels like a Monday, leaving me with this abundance of work ethic to start the weekend off with. (double yes). Hopefully I’ll be off to new and creative things come morning–and after an extremely stressful week, I think it might be just what I need.

Now on to my three main orders of business:

1. Troy, Ash and I have heard some very nasty things about some circumstances at home, and I can’t help feeling a bit sick about it. (I mean, literally, physically, sick) I don’t know the whole story, and I don’t plan on divulging what I know on here, but I can say with the knowledge I do have that whatever the case was–whoever is telling the truth–that it was wrong. There was an injustice done, and it’s definitely going to eat at me for a while… anyway… without getting too angry and choked up right now, I will say finally that although I’m not the one who decides what justice is (thank God), I do trust that justice will play it’s part in that mess. And I’m terribly sorry for the ones who were hurt.

Ahem.

2. Okay–onto my next dilemma–the dreaded minor.

Right now at Belmont I’m majoring in Songwriting and minoring in Youth Ministry, although I haven’t really started taking my minor requirements yet. For the past month or so, I’ve been considering changing my minor to Writing. Yup… just plain writing. You see, my third year writing professor took a real liking to me after reading some of my papers, and on the bottom of every one she gives back to me, she writes “You have a gift! Don’t waste your talent–talk to Dr. Stover (the woman in charge of the writing major)!” So I did talk to her, and now I’m very seriously considering doing it. Any suggestions?
It’s sort of comical that this is happening to me, as it has already happened to Wendell in “A Walk Under Trees” and will play out much the same way (foreshadowing (sort of)).

Which leads me to my final point!

3. I’m almost done! After a year and a half of writing on “A Walk Under Trees” I am about 4 chapters from completing it. Whew. As much as I’d like to breath a sigh of relief, though, I realize that after I’m done I’m going to have to go back and rewrite/edit a bunch of things. My writing style has evolved and improved a lot since I first started, and it’s going to take a lot of work to get it all uniform. So I’m taking down all chapters on this blog and will probably not post them again.

After I’m done with Wendell I’m moving on to a farm boy named David. I’ve already got A FEW books planned out for him and his secret-littered family. I got a few new moleskines today for when the time finally comes.

So now off to the weekend – it’s gonna be a good one, I can feel it.

Research Papers…

…are the bane of my existence. It’s like giving an abstract artist a picture and telling them to trace and color it exactly how they see it. It’s not creation. It’s regurgitation, and I think I’m about to be sick.

Spring Break

You know, I spent a lot of time thinking what I was going to do for spring break before it began last Saturday. I thought about going on a mission trip to South Dakota, or Puerto Rico. I was also very much considering going up to Boston to visit Daniel. I was considering going up to Chicago or maybe even back to Colorado. But in the end, I hung around Nashville.

Well, me being the restless weirdo I am, I got busy catching up on some recording I’d been putting off for my next project.

You see, I’ve had an overload of songs after waiting 6 months to record Spare Oom, and now I have like 30 songs begging me to be included in the next one. And I’ll probably say yes to half of them. (I guess I like them)

Anyway, Troy and I built a makeshift recording booth out of PVC pipe, mattress covers, quilts, carpets, and curtains, and it works great!

So seven days later, I’ve got seven songs that I’m VERY proud of. And I’m spent. So much for some rest!

Some highlights:
“Heaven is a Lonely Road”, which really surprised me when it was done. It’s a little darker than some of my other stuff (which means it’s still pretty sunny).
In contrast I’ve got “The Dog Song” which is just a silly song I decided to throw in.
Also, there are two piano songs, “Divine Suicide” and “Will for Wandering,” which are probably the two prettiest songs I’ve ever recorded.
Of course, I’ve got “Tears to Love” and a little stinger called “Justice”.
And last, but not least, is “The Bride”, which I think will be the title track for the next album.

Anyway, didn’t mean to brag or anything… I’m just very excited about these songs! I can’t wait for people to hear them! I’ll try get seven more out soon and hopefully call it quits after that.

Yup… well… class is at 8… I need some sleep.

Goodnight,
Blake

Touring

So I’ve been considering the idea of going on tour a bit in the past–I was considering it last summer. And now I find myself thinking about it again, this time much more seriously.

A friend that I’ve been writing with suggested that I do go on tour this summer, maybe for three weeks or so. After talking a bit, we found that we could get gigs at churches up through Indiana, Illinois (Chicago), over through Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, and back to Nashville. He assured me I’d have no problem getting a band together, so I told him I’d think about it.

So yup, let me know what you think.

Also-in other news-I might be spending a week in Hawaii this summer for Ash and I’s honeymoon.

Blandemonium – For Third-Year Writing

A squint, a strain, a belly pain. A nervous glance around.
Some sickness haunts the air above our hallowed nation’s ground.
Most people there are unaware, too few can smell the truth.
Its stagnant streams are fizzing fast as sodium—
Blandemonium.

And as it goes, it plugs our nose to keep us from its stink,
So we see the world as wheels and never reinvent the kinks.
All that it wants is dreams and thoughts to make them all the same,
It whispers through our leaders at their podiums—
Blandemonium.

It closes minds and draws the blinds, judging those who won’t.
It takes the margin soundlessly without a single vote.
And all the while, we sit and smile, forgetting how to feel,
Hypnotized by man’s unholy hum—
Blandemonium.

Thursday, Jan. 15th 2009

- 12:30 -

It took me a while to get around to posting this, so I’m going to do my best to remember everything.

When it starts up, Ash and I are at a banquet. It’s many years in the future, although I don’t really know how far. Troy was nowhere around, but there were also no kids to speak of either.
Anyway, I don’t know exactly why we were there, but we were at a big theater, dressed, and surrounded by tons of famous people. And the whole banquet had to do with honoring me for some kind of accomplishments… yeah, I know, I’m an egotistical dreamer.

Anyway, Ash was working as a nurse in a big hospital in town. (Not sure which town it was… or city, rather) As we’re sitting at the banquet, people catch wind that there had been an assassination attempt on an extremely important political figure (it might have been the president, but I don’t think so). Ash is on call, and sure enough, she gets called in to the emergency room and has to leave the banquet. I sit with our closest mutual friend, a tall, skinny, brown-headed guy.

After the banquet’s over, Ash gets in really late that night. She looks like she’s been through hell, and I ask her what’s wrong, and she can barely bring herself to say anything. Finally, she tells me that while she’d been helping the doctors care for the politician, (who we, admittedly, didn’t seem to like much) a voice had been telling her to pull the plugs that kept the man alive in critical condition.

I told her that she was under a lot of stress and that she shouldn’t worry. She tried to calm down. But the next night, she complained of the voice again. And the night after that, she said she could see who was talking to her. It was a little Hispanic boy, about 10 years old, wearing a mostly yellow tank-top, the way she described him, standing in the middle of the hospital room. No one else could see or hear him.

I went out to lunch with that friend of ours, and we talked about society and what not. He worked in media and film… In fact, I think he might have been an actor, because we had to be all secretive when we went out. Anyway, he was talking to me about trends that were happening in the film industry. He said that he heard that tons of directors were getting paid by mysterious groups to put certain things in their movies. I had heard of this, too, but I didn’t really believe any of it. Then he started naming off movies, and that convinced me. He mentioned different films of the time that had themes of underground movement groups, and they always ended up on top, even in movies that had nothing to do with that sort of plotline.

I admitted that I was kinda weirded out by that, and he told me that he thought that there actually was an underground movement tied to the themes in the movies, planting those messages there to get people inclined to fighting for their cause. He said that he thought they might have been the ones that tried to assassinate the politician.

Suddenly, and thought came into my head. I told him about Ash and the little boy (I didn’t know if I should because that was rather personal information). His eyes went wide and he said that he’d been hearing voices, too. He told me that he’d had conversations with the boy, and learned some things. He’d learned that the boy was leading some strange underground group, but that it was the right side to be on. He’d learned that the boy was not really a boy, although he wouldn’t say exactly what he was. And also, just as a strange little side note, he’d learned that the boy was deathly afraid of any kind of crustacean – something had happened to him once that made him think they looked like dangerous monsters. On top of that, the boy told him where he lived.

So me and this friend set out to a run-down building in one of the more sketchy parts of town. We went in, and immediately my friend said that he could hear the boy talking. I could neither hear nor see him. So when I asked questions, my friend had to relay the answers from the boy back to me.

I don’t remember all the questions I asked, but I do some:

I asked, “Are you the one that’s telling my wife to kill the politician?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It’s the right thing to do.”
“Don’t you realize she could get into major trouble for this?”
“Oh, yes. And she will, But it’s a small price to pay…”

I also remember learning that the boy wanted her to do this thing the day after tomorrow. It was the last day, the right day, he said. Throughout the whole talk, I didn’t know how to react. For whatever reason, the things he said seemed to convince me that it was the right thing to do. I got the feeling that he at least knew what he was doing, and even what would happen. But I also got the feeling that he couldn’t very well be trusted, because even though I still got the answers from my friend, I could tell that this wasn’t a kid speaking.

I returned home, and Ash and I tried to decide what course of action to take. We decided finally to take a stand and make sure she resisted the little boy’s persuasion by both calling in sick and staying home on the last day the boy wanted her pull the plug.

The next night, the night before the boy wanted her to act, we were fixing dinner, and the doorbell rang. We lived in some sort of loft, and I had to walk down a long flight of stairs to get to the door. When I opened it, there was the boy, as my wife had described him. I could see him. I was shocked a bit.

He opened his mouth and spoke, but no words came out, and I realized that even thought I could now see him, I couldn’t yet hear him, but he beckoned me to follow with his hand. I asked him, “Should I grab my coat?” (it was very cold outside). He shook his head. But then I asked again, “Do you want a coat?” He was shivering, wearing that yellow tank top.
As soon as I asked the question, some kind of deep emotion welled up on his face, and I thought he might cry.
“Come in,” I said, “I’ll get you a coat to stay warm.”
I let him in the front door and walked up the stairs to the closet where I kept my coat, and then woke up………. Dang……….

Tuesday, Jan. 6 2009

- 12:15 -

Just a note – I spent this night in a town called Mountain View, MO, in a nice little hotel called “The Honeysuckle Inn”.

This was one of those nights that I had a bunch of little dreams, woke up, went back to sleep and dreamed some more.

The first one I remember was that I was at a football scrimmage against La Junta in Lamar. Jordan and I, for whatever reason, went down to the sidelines to support the team from there. And all of a sudden Coach Tice said that we could play if we wanted. So we both went out there without pads or anything and played our normal positions… It was fun.

Then I remember being in some bathroom in a house I’d never seen before. As I was coming out of the bathroom, I caught a glimpse of water moving toward me across the room, so I shut the door, and minutes later, heard it cracking against the weight of the built-up H20. I called my mom in a panic but she wasn’t much help. Finally, I got the nerve to open the door, take on the water, and do my best to swim to safety out of the house. But when I did open the door, a big bag of water fell in, as if from a water bed. These things were scattered all over the living room, and I left the dream very confused…

Lastly, and I think, most importantly, I was at the high school back in Lamar. They were getting ready for a play that was about Winnie the Pooh. Mandi was studying her lines to be one of the leading girl characters, and there was another girl there about Mandi’s age who was new to the school, who had another supporting girl’s role. Ms. Stewart was back helping with the process again. We were all in the Washington Elementary School gym, because they had decided to do the play for the little kids. They thought that the person playing Pooh might not be able to show, so I started to learn the lines when….
I was swept away, almost as if out of the dream itself, onto a beautiful mountainside with two castles on either side of me. They were somewhat “Disney-like”, or at least that’s what they reminded me of. And then, just as suddenly, Jesus and God were there (I think “The Shack” was getting to me) and although the Holy Spirit wasn’t there physically, I could tell he/she was… just… there. I don’t remember what Jesus and God looked like, and don’t even know if I knew at the time.
Anyway, they told me Kaley Day was trapped in one of the castles, so I set out to save her. I soon found, though, that this task was very hard, because the castles rapidly took on new looks, and the whole mountainside seemed to fog over in white and gold clouds. The transformations were even more beautiful than the regular mountainside, but when I looked at the transformed castles, with dark steeples and spears underneath what looked like some sort of see-through barrier, I could tell that evil dwelled there. With nothing left to do, I turned back to Jesus and God. I told them I did all that I could do, and that it would be easy for them to save her. But they looked down, shaking their heads, and said, “I don’t know…. I don’t know”

I was very surprised by their reactions, to say the least. All at once, I was flying though the white and gold clouds, and then was back at the school. The play was over. I saw Ian come out the side doors, tears in his eyes, and then I knew he knew about Kaley. He saw me and shook his head. I went to talk to him, searching my mind for some explanation to give him.

“Looks like your God really is almighty and all powerful,” he said. And then, all of a sudden, I thought I knew what I wanted to say:

“Ian, He is. I thought I did all I could, but it wasn’t His point to come in and fix it. He knows we can’t save Kaley on our own, and I know for a fact that one day, He will save her. For now, though, what He wants is for us to keep fighting. That’s why He didn’t save her. He knows what’s best, and He’ll rescue her in the right time. He just wants us to fight.”

A slight understanding came into his eyes as I walked him out to his car, and then he got in. I walked up to my own car, but suddenly I got a horrible taste in my mouth and bent over, spitting, and then gagging, and then I woke up, still spitting and gagging.

Sunday, Dec. 28th 2008

– 12:30 -

Finally! Another dream that I can make enough sense of when I wake up to post… I don’t know what’s been wrong with me, but hopefully I’m better now.

Here it is:

I was at Belmont, and I think it might have been my freshman year, or maybe a whole different school together. I just know I was living in the dorms. I don’t remember how I found this out, but I caught wind that there was some secret group around campus that supposedly did a bunch of very important, however maybe questionable things for not only the school, but the world. However, it also served many other functions, like a choir, a sports team, and other things. I decided I wanted to be a part of it.

So there was a girl who I guessed was in the group, and asked them how to join. She said that first off, I had to swear to secrecy. I did. Then she said I had to go to a certain classroom door in the school, and leave a message with a special code word. (Which was really just a sequence of random letters that didn’t make any sort of word at all) When I got there to the door, I found that there was a big white board on the outside with those magnetic alphabet letters stuck to it. I realized at once what I should do, and rearranged the letters to form the sequence the girl had told me about.

A few days later, a letter was delivered to me by a kid I didn’t know at all. I opened it and found a test of sorts. I don’t remember too much about the tests, but I do recall that they weren’t very ordinary. Some did ask me regular logic or math questions, but others were silly and didn’t seem to make much sense.

Anyway, it said at the bottom to put it back in an envelope and stick it in a box attached to the wall beside the door with the white board and letters. I did.

A few days later, I got another letter from a different kid. It was another test, and a different sheet of paper, which displayed my score on the last one. It was a 99%. I was pleased, to say the least. I completed that test, which was more essay-based and much more confusing, and turned it in.

Same thing happened. Another letter. And now the other piece of paper displayed both of my scores: 99%, and now a 37%…..

This continued for a while. I remember my score sheet with many different scores on it. The first four were 99%, 37%, 99%, 89%… and on.

On letter that came, though, said that I had been promoted—to a letter deliverer. I had now become one of those kids who dished out all the letters. It was kind of exciting, but mostly frustrating.

There was also a little bronze key in the letter. So I would go to the box on the wall at a designated time and open it with the key, taking out all the letters and delivering them to the people whose names were on them. That proved to be very hard work finding so many people.

On occasion, I would deliver letters that looked much different from the others. They would be fancy, with special envelopes and ink. When I would deliver them, the person I gave them to almost always gave me a big hug, or shook my hand, smiling a huge smile. One of these people was the actress who played “Kate” from Lost…. lol

Anyway, while I was delivering, I still got letters of my own (which I delivered to myself now) with more tests. I kept filling them out and turning them in, sometimes having to include pictures, CDs of me singing, or DVDs of me displaying athletic or acting ability.

Then one day, I got a letter that said my job as a letter-deliverer was done, and that I needed to do one last thing.

Unfortunately, I don’t remember exactly what I had to do, but it involved packing up my jeep with other possible recruits and doing something down in the very southern part of Mexico that was dangerous.

I don’t remember if all of us returned or not, but after I got back, a kid delivered one of those fancy letters to me, and I knew at once that I was in. I opened it, and it told me to meet everyone in a public lobby in front of the school for my induction. I showed up, along with a couple other nervous first-time recruits who I went on the trip with.

The secret group showed up one by one, and very inconspicuously. Eventually, there were about 30 in all. And then the director showed up.

She was about my height, skinny but resilient, and it was impossible to tell her age–she seemed like one of those people who just aged differently than everyone else. Her hair was a silvery-white, cut very short and sleek, sticking out like slivers here and there. It seemed to accent the sharpness of her features, especially on her face.

Despite her intimidating appearance, she came off very nice. (Although I could feel that there was some hidden agenda with this whole thing. That’s what I wanted to find out)

“Welcome,” she said. “Those three who will be joining our group today–we always start off with a little show: a song. It is up to the person who performed the best during the testing process to start us off with a song of their choice. That would be you, Blake.”

She pointed to me, and I felt my cheeks flush, but she just smiled. For whatever reason, I could tell that even though I had never met her, she had taken a liking to me as one of her prized students.

A little embarrassed, I started off with the only song in my head — “Sailing” by Christopher Cross. (It had been playing in my jeep on the way back from the trip)

By the time the chorus came around, everyone was singing in amazing harmonies, and I was belting out the solos as best I could. We started to draw a crowd, and people were clapping and watching and listening. Sometimes I glanced at the other two new recruits, sharing a moment of wonder with them. And sometimes I looked at the director woman, who looked at me as if to say that there was so much she had in store for everyone, especially me. I remember not being able to decide whether I liked it or not.

And what happened after that, I don’t remember….

An Old Note: The Song.

There’s a song I can’t listen to. I’ve tried.

I stare at the title for a while; the words are the warning sign.

I’ve tried. I’ve clicked it, I’ve heard the guitar start up with the rain.

I’ve felt myself being swept backward, shipped away, faster than any car or plane could take me, like a time machine. I’ve seen the classroom, and the empty desk beside mine with the flower pedals on its surface. And I’ve panicked.

No further! Could I survive if I went further? The tightness in my chest would surely crush my heart!

The complacent trills of that guitar torture me to cry. They don’t know it, though. They don’t know the power they have. The apprehension of the time-machine-maker’s voice is another warning: get out while you can.

So I do. I stop it, and I try hard to quell the monster inside me that the song provoked into consciousness. I must put it back to sleep again.

Will I ever dispose of it? I’m scared of the day it will wake.

I am still waiting for the time-machine-maker’s voice. More than once I’ve had to stop before his queue. So, I’m still waiting, just like how I’m still waiting on you. To graduate with you. To play high school baseball with you.

You were so anxious, but you never got the chance, and I took your place.

Why can’t I have done what you did? Which is more noble? Which hurts more? The living or the dying?

I will try again to hear the song: my proof that the living hurts more, in my case, and hopefully in yours too.