Monday, November 23, 2009

Chasing Clowns

A little while ago I was at a benefit concert for anti sex trafficking.  It was a good thing with some great musicians that I enjoy listening too.  The funny thing was there was a stretch with a lot of depressing breakup songs and he even cracked a joke about it.  I wouldn't have thought much of it except that I had been at another concert several weeks prior where it was even more obvious.  Now I've been jaded by girls plenty myself and I can appreciate a good breakup song as much as the next guy, but there was something stirring inside of me that shouldn't we have something else to write about?  I don't know God or family or even yellow submarines.

I started thinking about this idea of heartbreak just not seeming so important anymore.  And then for some reason, this got me to thinking about Camp Side By Side -- a camp for kids with cancer that is very close to my heart.  I started thinking about the many stories we've all heard of the person everyone loves slowly dying in front of all their friends and families -- the story where they are the beacon of strength and clarity and joy.  I ended up writing a poem about it.  The funny thing about this poem was my favorite line was the line "Chasing Clowns".  I have never seen a terminally ill child chase a clown, but that line seemed to capture everything I was trying to say so perfectly and so vividly.

Chasing Clowns
Growing pale
Looking frail
Finding joy left within

Seizing time
Making rhyme
Smile so big

Laughing, playing
Like we did back when

Hearbreak, traffic jams, dollar bills
Just don't seem so important anymore

Not held down
Chasing clowns
Fooling us around

Teaching us
Refusing fuss
Just the way things are

It will soon be done
But not before some fun

Need not cry
All must die

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Going for it all...

A couple of months ago I went bowling with some folks from my apartment complex.  When I go bowling, a game is a complete failure if I don't crack triple digits.  The first game I'm bowling okay and I need something like 8 pins in the final frame to get 100.  So what do I do, I step up and come up 1 short to get a 99!!  I am utterly crushed and looking for a reason to live.

But the real story is what happens next.  I don't mess around when it comes to bowling.  I don't try anything crazy because I don't want to throw a 50 up there.  But I am just so jaded and dispirited by my 99 that all rules are off.  Everyone knows that all the pros bowl with spin so I decide I'm just going to do it because I don't care anymore.    Let me preface this by saying at this point I've probably tried spinning a ball 3 times in my life so I have no idea what I'm doing. But the stars aligned, I went out and bowled a 165, the highest score of my life!  I bowled 4 strikes in one game -- this has never happened before!

So the obvious metaphor here is that sometimes you just have to go for something instead of playing it safe.  This has certainly been true of my life where most of my childhood, my hearts playing career, and various other points in my life I've been too afraid to go for it.  I see it all the time in tennis where I start playing not to lose instead of playing to win -- and then of course I lose.

But here's the crazy thing, I just went bowling again last Thursday.  At this point I'm walking on a water because I'm coming off a 165.  This happens to be a guy / girl mixer and I'm talking up my new found spinning expertise.  So what do I do?  I step up and roll a 148.  Pretty solid score, almost all the balls are right on target -- this spinning thing has got a future in my life.  But then game 2 comes and all a sudden I've lost it.  Balls were finding the gutter, they weren't spinning back far enough, it was just a mess.  I was like Samson with his hair cut off!  Somehow I salvaged a 106.  So game 3 comes up with a very important bet on the line and I need a big game. I have faith in the way of the spin so I stick with it.  Even worse, I bowl a 92.  I'm already a Has Been four games into my spin career.

So what's the lesson here?  I'm not really sure.  Go for broke and prepare for when broke comes along.