Year Reflections

The hotel opened up like a delightful grand maze. The colonial architecture only fortified the idea. With just enough imagination I managed to melt away the obvious signs of modernity and feel the same warm distinct night of the Conquistador roaming his hallways. The metamorphosis is instant and unsettling. It takes a certain amount of concentration though to ignore the primal shouts and whoops of the party-goers I arrived with. The clock was slowly winding down for the year and in the back of my mind I know it is only seven days more for 2007. The leap seems inconsequential. They always do.
What is the truly frightening aspect are the internal rages that fueled the year. At which point I wonder, did the Conquistador challenge the same neurosis? Was the self he fought greater? More simple? The question slithers me into the skin of Ghenis Khan, conqueror of many lands. The words he discovered thousands of years before echo loudly in the artificial Colonial Mansion that was really just a hotel. After achieving his monumental campaign throughout the Asian continent and knowing the riches of the great kingdoms the Khan could only scribble on a pillar, “I turn to simplicity; I turn again to purity.” I wonder: Can I achieve this? What would it take? I may spend years chasing that dream, coming closer and closer only to realize that time has no regard for my quest and interests.
So 2007 becomes 2008 and I mark it with everyone else: 2008, only seven days away. Compiling a list of my accomplishments and failure is cruel and mind-wrenching. How do you explain spiritual resurgence? Can you simply mark-down new found strength? The deed is hard, unbearably hard. No, only history makes sense in the soft light of the Mexican night, roaming hallways like a ghost while your friends rot away their liver with liquor. History and the forces that drive it and the numerous failures and the numerous successes are all that matter. But why lie? There is more and I know it. I know that the year brought something new and that sorting the mess out is a daunting task. A list obviously won’t cut. So I sit and compose a story, a poem, a long winded memoir; grasping at some central idea or thought that could piece this year together.
All that comes is a phrase: I eat, sleep, shit, and the rest is guess work. Just that phrase, a dim-witted one at best. There is so much to put; lessons, new adventures, new challenges … even the tears. Like the success of my first scuba dive or the haunting visible deterioration of my Grandparents. You can not quantify or convey it fully. These things are personal and, in light of the sand, minor. Instead what erupts is a wounded idea about Conquistadors, Genghis Khan, and the redemption of a pillar. That is what drives my year-end reflection. Ugh, how serious and moribund. And finally after all that walking, with an empty bottle of beer, I decide to sit down. I find a grandiose patio that retains a sensuous charm. And just there, on the edge, overlooking the vast obsidian ocean is a chair. I sit down and I realize: The chair is soaking wet.
So I laughed. Here I was considering myself so grand and compelling when it took a cosmic joke to remind me I was never special. I had a wet ass. That was my year, all of it: an endless search for a wet chair.
The lesson is the laughing. You need it. When you do laugh, at yourself first, you can relax and pay attention to the beauty. This is a sensation history knows, the simplicity of watching a beautiful scene, whatever that may be. In this case; a black night, a restless ocean, and a lonely wet chair I spent a year searching for.

Should Death take me, for we never know...

To those left behind- This is a life fulfilled. Life is always fulfilled when you live. Time is short. I am writing this as I go. Not to any place a ticket will take you. This is for family, friends, and lovers. Will there be wisdom in these words? Maybe. Pain, probably. Love, certainly. It is all I have to give, love. My meager words must shine with the deep well of love I hold for each and every one of you those past, those here and those to come. I won’t apologize. I did the best I could as I improvised my way. Some days were good. Some days I surprised myself, both in cruelty and in goodness. Others, well, how mundane. But I loved and fought with my heart. Never could you say better for me. Don’t cry when I leave. Leave I must. Don’t waste sadness for the place I have left unfilled. Smile that you knew my presence once sparked your creativity. I only wanted to ease the process of imagination to free you from the pain it can bring. I have no words on how to live your life. Only you can find the path. Just recall that even in my fear I followed the voice of my soul, sometimes without reason, always scared, but never did I turn away. So with a smile, madness and a dream plunge into the path your soul has deemed destiny. Do not let it pass for it would be the biggest insult you could ever give to my memory. Worse still, it would be an insult to the image reflecting in your mirror.

Love

Love is strange. Try and define it, categorize it, bottle it and you will try forever. You can only feel it. Like the breeze in the sweltering sun, the consoling touch of a friend, or the wetness left behind from a lover's kiss. Love will find you only when are ready to accept its flow. You can not force -- You can appreciatte. You will be baffled. Love will enlighten, as if the all the world is cast anew in the light of a sleepy eyed dawn. You will remember what it is to be the child who wobbles scared with eyes wide open. You will be challeneged. Love will never leave you the same.

The Moment of Truth

The clock ticks. The clock tocks. You stare limply at your watch. Mintues to hours, hours in minutes. You think. And think some more. The decision was made. You know. Sense it. Sense your fear. Below, the glimmer of giddy rebellion simmers. Like a fever. Waves of madness, coupled with rational sadness. If you are wrong? Too late. Your eyes never leave the clock; As if the synchronized movements will soothe your nervous flights of fancy. You wonder where to begin. You wonder when it began. There is no guide or map. Either way everything has changed.

To My Unborn Daughter

Dear Daughter Yet to be Born,

I mended your wound, the one you have yet to have. Kissed it once for pain and once for the soul. You were still small, even now before you have come. The first day of school you cried so hard you almost never went. How could I send you to school covered in a flood of fear! But go you will, to learn and be, make friends and love the summer ease. My sweetest. My love. Only your mother I have yet to know can claim such a place inside this heart. Daughter of mine, name still unknown, I already feel your beauty will rival the world. The first bike I've yet to give, your first love I've yet to meet. The world is harsh, cruel and unkind. I will protect you in this house of love. I will make mistakes, this I know. Yell or Snap, the kind of tactics one should never resort towards. Please forgive this, it is just, I have grown old. You will come and shine but rain as well. Nights of worry have me worried already ... When you are still young, yet growing so old. I know one day you will become a woman in full. Be a lover to someone, seek there arms in the cold, enjoy your first drinks and many more. If only you could never suffer disappointments ire. Never experiance a hang over, nor a broken heart. O Daughter I have yet to know. I make this promise before you are conceived, for your mother and the house yet to be. Destroying is quick, a task so easy. But I will work to build, listen and learn to create our home. The work will be hard, but worth the load. To bring you into this world in a family with love and hope. So to my Daughter yet to be born, know I will scour the world to give you a warm place to grow.

Your Father Unknown,

Mark

To the Ocean!

I am bringing my Illusions
and
All of life's confusion

You bring your baggage,
full of wounded wings and sadness

We shall hike a mile, or two
Till we meet the ocean blue

Over the cliffs our belongings go

Down
Down
Down

to drown ... in the ocean blue
Let it go, no longer to bother you

Then we'll smile and dance so sweet
And we'll remember:
To laugh
And that life really is a gift.

Love is a Hard Rain

"Love is a hard rain"

I am not sure what it means,
That is what she told me
Just before she decided to leave.

When the door closed behind her
I went searching for dreams,
Till I found I was chasing
nothing
But schemes

I returned stronger, thinking:
'Now I believe!'
So I chased down new lovers --
Only to be left with no cover

Now I wait, patient, for what chance has to offer.