Accidental hipster

I was raised by parents on the fringe of being hippies. They were cool with the counter culture without being deeply immersed. They both had strong farming backgrounds, college educations and traditional careers. We lived in the country, didn't buy many new clothes, raised a garden, and didn't have television. We used our library cards heavily, played board and card games, and played outside. We went to church every Sunday and were taught to care for others as we care for ourselves, not be worldly or selfish, and help out when are where we could. We learned we should be thankful for what we have as there are many who have much less.
There is a wave of people in modern culture now who were raised similarly to me, apparently, and have been saddled with the moniker of hipster. I apparently am one, though I never aspired to be, and don't particularity care to wear the label. My politics are generally left, I enjoy music that's not mainstream, and I never did give a damn to wear the hot fashions. We couldn't afford to be fashionable, so we made our own way. It appears many other kids came up the same way, and now we're the cool ones. Those of us who were never cool by the measure of society have accidentally become the cool, and I for one would rather not attract attention. I don't need your approval, your label, your critique, or your little box in which to place me. I do what I do because that's the way I've always done it. I'm not trying to fit in, and I think that's what annoys me the most. Just because there is a group of people similar to me does not mean I'm part of that group, or want to be. Perhaps I am just by association, but I reject the name while acknowledging the similarity. Don't judge me by my appearance, my musical tastes, my bookshelf or my beer preference. Judge me on my character, how I treat others, and how I conduct myself in the face of adversity. Judge me on how I view the world and why I view it that way. Judge me on my ability to make the best of my situation. Don't call me a hipster unless I give you permission. I am an individual. There may be many like me, and I may be like many, but I am me and there is no one else exactly like me. I don't want to be in your hipster grouping for the sake of belonging. I don't need to belong. I want to associate with other individuals who are like minded and approach life in a similar manner but if there are none to be found, I will move forward on my own, and no worse off for doing so.

Clocks and time

A guy asked me what time it was the other day. I told him it was whatever time he wanted it to be. The measure of time is, after all, a creation of man. And, I add, the source of stress. Other than concerns regarding the procurement of essential life needs, stress is primarily created by watching the time. Consider your daily life if you weren't concerned about what time is was at any particular moment. I watch the clock from the moment I wake up, to when I wake up again, to when I reach the kitchen, leave for work, arrive at work, wait for breaks, get home, etc etc. Without the clock I would be more free!

Soft spot for morons

Well I went and did it again. I lost a bunch of money on a motorcycle deal. You'd think by now I'd learn I'll never make any money dabbling in old Japanese junk. I had about 500 bucks wrapped up in a pretty nice old Honda with no title. It was just taking up room in the garage and I wanted it gone. I took the first serious bite I got on a trade. First off, the kid drove an hour to get here. Second, he's a fairly broke country boy with a love for motorcycles. He was a harmless kid, lives at home, twenty years old, drives a beater s10 with a rebel flag painted on the roof. Well, I shouldn't have been in such a hurry but I didn't figure I'd get another bite on the bike so I went ahead with the deal and now I have a hundred year old Belgian double barrel shotgun that someone scotch-brited all the bluing off. Now if you spend a few moments online you'll discover this gun ain't worth shit. You can't shoot modern shotgun shells in it, there aren't any parts available, and a gun with the bluing removed isn't worth much regardless of age. The market was flooded with cheap Belgian shotguns around the turn of the century and they just don't have much of a value. But, the kid was so excited and reminded me of myself just a few short years ago, I couldn't help but go ahead. The enjoyment he'll get out of messing with that bike is payment enough. That's what I keep telling myself anyhow. I could use the money but the problem with money is you just spend it and then it's gone. Ahh, you only live once I suppose. I went through the hassle of getting a title on this bike and learned how confusing that process is. Tyler and I had a lot of fun messing with it and annoying the neighbors when he was here for the 500. It's good to have a bike around for times like that but I'd prefer it be a Triumph next time. Maybe I can pawn this old shotgun off on some bike owner with a soft spot for dumb, enthusiastic 32 year olds that like junk bikes, old guns, and used to be redneck farm boys.

Sunrise on the mountains

As I gazed blankly out the window early this morning, my hands wrist deep in dishwater, I noticed the sun was illuminating only the town water tower, about half a mile west and a little higher than our apartment. As I watched, the tops of the trees across the river turned pink as well. I knew the warm morning sun would soon be shining on all around me, and I recalled my days as a carpenter in Telluride, watching and waiting impatiently as the pink dawn crept down the opposite face of the whitecapped mountains, on its way to my frigid location. I'm not sure if the temperature actually went up, but when the sun finally reached me it felt like the day had officially started; I was warmer, happier, and I would live to make it till lunchtime.

Reflections in ripple pond

When I look back on what little bit of my short life I can remember, one of the only decisions I would most certainly change is one time when I grabbed a handful of front brake instead of clutch. It was more reaction than decision, but when viewed in relation to the vast number of quite possibly not quite perfect decisions, the fact that's at the top is curious. However, with that bike out of my life, I was probably better off. I was about to sell it, which may have been handy, but maybe the lesson about brakes will come in handy someday. Maybe I'll tell the boy about it and it'll save his life.
I'd be pretty happy if the afterlife was an examination of our life on earth but with the ability to see the outcome of each different decision we could have made, it's impact on us and those around us. Also how other's decisions affected our life could be analyzed. Then, after we've exhausted each possibility, we get to return to life in a new body and have another go at it--and this time, we don't wreck the bike.

Habits

I'm to that age where I've been doing some things longer than I haven't been doing them. A decade seems so long when you're young. I'm still young. Graduated college ten years ago. What has happened since was for a time quite a hard ride to hang on to, but now it's settled down into a more normal situation. I've given up the youthful ambition to an abnormal life. Its just a show march to the end now, hopefully with some high points along the way. This may not be the end of the world, but I can see it from here.
If you could see the future would you want to? If you could wake up tomorrow and know the rest of your life? The losses, the low points, the high points, the end moment?
Sometimes I feel surrounded by the spirits of the ones that have died already, and sometimes the spirits of those still alive, just far away. Some days it's like a cloud around me, other days it's like a cloak.
At any rate, getting older is mostly boring. I've seen a lot of what can happen. What's the point I wonder? It's not so hopeless to pull the trigger on a brain drain, but it certainly does make you want to absorb each tiny second of joy as it passes you by. However, simultaneously, my feet are weighted down by a severe case of the ho-hums. I suppose all this is normal. The ability to think for oneself can be such a drag.
It's weird to think of how long you've known someone. Say you meet when you were fourteen. Now you're thirty one. When you met them it was so exciting and fresh. Now you've known them longer than you haven't known them. You grow accustomed to new habits, like a new neighborhood, a new house to zig zag through in the dark and find the cups without a light, a new liquor store with new local beer.
You can give up so much of yourself so swiftly without even noticing. The statue of future you, built by your teenage self, slowly eroded and chipped away to only the iron core in a mere fifteen years. Added to, surely, in unseen ways, and chipped away at, surrendered, for the concept of the common good, until you're not even sure what you started out as, what you are now or how exactly you got here.
And here we sit. Idly wondering, curious, not entirely concerned, just intrigued. The farther down the rabbit hole we fall, the less we recognize! The more you experience the more you realize you'll never comprehend.
At any rate, it's different. The situation itself is not different than it ever was, just the prism through which you view it has been modified, as will it continue to be. In the end it's a chair in the sun by a window.

Wine would help

It doesn't always have to be in focus to get the picture.

Sometimes I wish I was a burning newspaper ember floating from a burn barrel out on the farm.  As I drift above the cornfield, almost above the peak of the barn, I would look below and see spread below me, a magical sight.  Stretched the length of the garden like pumpkins on the vine are visions of myself at different stages in my storied life.  Like a museum exhibit the display marks the progression of my character.  By nurture and surroundings I meld and mold, sometimes matching my surroundings and sometimes flying directly against their cold stony cliff faces.

In my mind there's a photograph, a collection of snapshots, of who i saw myself as at different times of my life.  none of them are me now but is that disappointing or is it a revelation? or is it both?  it could be merely a current misconception of myself.  is it a calling to be more and do more?  or is it just a twitch of the brain, a flashforward of a thought from years back, come to prick my current brain awake from its slumberous state?  the great beast awakens, stumbling around on sleeping legs, searching for a pawhold in the inky blackness of the cave.  it wanders toward the deep blue of early, early dawn barely illuminating the entrance.  the smell of pines reminds the beast where it lay its head and the events of the previous night come back slowly like puzzle pieces falling through a lava lamp and landing more or less in the proper order.  the wind sings an early morning hymn of welcome through the boughs above, and the beast looks about for a brook barely hinted at by the smell of wetness and a recollection of damp feet.  The brook must not be very deep.  There is much to do today; or is there anything at all?  the list is fluid, much like the brook; the perception is the viewer's alone.

And in the cave--nothing.  Outside the cave--everything.  How did the beast arrive here, and does it matter?  From where did the feeling of a need to move on arise?  Is it a valid feeling?  Should it be acted upon?  Until the answer is clear, what should be done?
A quiet, ominous sound from nearby bushes confirms the answer.  The enemy is too close and the time to flee has fleetingly flown.  Now is the time to stand, fight, deliver, conquer.
I'm slowly forgetting all the things that used to make me real.  Once up on a time there was a mighty large rock, halfway up a hillside on the northwest side.  Upon this rock's face were carved the characteristics of Luke:  hard working, hard living, yet with an eye and an ear for the beautiful.   An amphibian of unnatural skill and ability, I have melded and molded to match my current surroundings, yet the slimy weak Mid-American Spotted-Belly Salamander has not forgotten his inner Twin-Tailed Shark Face Mountain Lizard soul.  Is this growing up?  How do you hold on to that flame without burning your fingers?