10/29/17

First 9 Weeks Done.

Last week I was at Highball with Alicia and Maya. We made our way to the main stage to watch the performance and the fashion costumes. Once we squeezed our way into the middle of the crowd facing the stage we stood and watched the show.
My mind flashed to Vegas...
Here we are, a giant crow of spectators surrounded by tall buildings...
What if...
What if started to fill my mind
What would I do? Where would we go?
How could I make sure these two women I am with are safe?
How would we not get separated?
How would we not get trampled?
Or how would we not get shot?

This isn't the first time I've had this thought flash in my mind.
I was driving with Tempestt once and I heard a loud bang, instantly my mind thought there was a shooter and I had to drive her to safety I had to gas it and push through traffic if necessary. But it wasn't gunfire and her view of me instantly slouched below the wheel trying to find the direction of fire looked ridiculous.

But this is the world I live in. This is the America I am in. At any moment we could be attacked. Terrorist from another country, terrorist from down the street, could be anytime anywhere because most of the attacks are random acts of violence without purpose of a specific target.

"Alas! there are some wounds that cannot be wholly cured," said Gandalf.
"I fear it may be so with mine," said Frodo. "There is no real going back. Though I may come to the Shire, it will not seem the same; for I shall not be the same. I am wounded with knife, sting, and tooth, and a long burden. Where shall I find rest?”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

[From the book I'll never write that jumps straight to the dramatic part]

Let's go, we can go on an adventure together, one that will be our own. You've said so many times how you love to explore, it never gets old let's do it together for once.

It's different now.

What's different about it? Come on I know of a place

You don't understand...you never understand and you CAN'T understand...Adventures, exploring, it is all just innocent fun for you...but it's different for me...it's different now...than before.

...Let me help you, Let me fix this

ha, I'm not sure this works like that

How does it work, if I could understand...maybe I could help...

I think that's the point, if you think you can understand, it only proves how much you couldn't.

...But don't you like the beach?

yes

Don't you like the ocean?

yes, yes to all of it but, ugh you just don't get it you beautiful ignorant person,
I like all of it but once you've been on adventures, once you've been pulled to places you don't want to go, once you've seen places you didn't want to it changes things...yes it is the same, the ocean is still magnificent, the beach is still wonderful but it isn't them that has changed, it's me, it's my lens. There comes a moment where adventures aren't adventures anymore, they became tours of duty they are business trips.

...you're right maybe I can't understand...We don't have to go anywhere, I mean since I've met you we haven't, what's staying longer matter, I just like you near me no matter where.

It's interesting, different people value adventures for different reasons. Some only value them for the self fulfillment. As long as they reach the summit nothing else matters.

...Some adventure like that?

yeah, some do

...can I hold your hand?


Sam Smith - Too Good At Goodbyes

10/22/17

8th week of school finished. First Quarter grades are due November 2nd.

#SavetheCrew

This week the owner of the Columbus MLS team the Crew announced that if they didn't get a new stadium downtown he would move the team to Austin Texas.

Columbus Crew Stadium, built in 1999, it was the first soccer-specific stadium built by a Major League Soccer team, starting an important trend in MLS stadium construction. The stadium is named for Madrid-based Mapfre Insurance after the company signed a sponsorship agreement announced on March 3, 2015.

If the crew somehow stay and the stadium stays eventually it will go down as a historic landmark being the first soccer-specific professional stadium built in America a very cool thing to have.

I like the crew, I want them to stay but I have to be honest I haven't been the best fan. I've been a handful of times and usually on a discount night. Columbus isn't a real city so an MLS team seems like the perfect fit. The city is a college football town which is perfect when the MLS season goes through the summer.

Friday night we went out in the short north, Bodega, This woman came up to us asking for help with her hair tie stuck in her hair (very relateable) One of the servers stepped in and said she would handle it. Moments later after a loud crash the demeanor of the hair tie woman had changed, the body language of the server was less than friendly and cherries and berries were lighting up the walls as the police arrived.

It felt strange, not that this woman was creating a scene but that everyone in the bar gawked and talked (myself included) In moments like these it feels like such a herd mentality. Like we are all sheep. It reminded me of the man at Zenos who stumbled and bumbled around endlessly talking to me. It reminded me of all of my friends back at the pantry. Poverty, trauma, and mental health all seem to go hand in hand. We as young adults wanting to enjoy the nightlife in the city without having to deal with the realities of a city are ridiculously unequipped. I doubt any of those bars downtown have trainings on how to deescalate a situation or trauma informed reactions.

I have always said this but honestly two wrong turns in life possibly even turns that are out of my own control and I am that homeless person arguing in a bar bathroom. Lets say I broke my leg and my medical doctor prescribed me an addictive legal opioid pill suddenly my body is craving this chemical and it's controlling my decisions to the point where I lose my job, my friends, and I'm on the street doing anything to curb my opioid addiction.

What if my parents both died in a car crash leaving me to grow up without relatives around putting me in the foster system where I'm never adopted, craving community and family and needed financial help I turn to theft and robbery after my criminal record reaches a point I'm unemployable living on the streets growing bitter as I watch young people my age party every night ignoring me on the sidewalk or messing with me while recording on their phones.

We are a suburban generation wanting to live in the city, without any of the realities of the city to bother us.

I'm uncomfortable when I see the panhandlers waiting by the off ramps, I'm uncomfortable when I see the mentally ill shouting from the street corner at no one at all, I'm uncomfortable walking to my gym at the residents from the YMCA congregate near the stoop. I'm uncomfortable when a woman needs help getting her hair tie out.

But it isn't wrong to feel uncomfortable, the question is, something inside of me is signaling, something inside of me is reacting to what I'm experiencing in my environment and my uncomfortable manner is an internal call to action. I have the choice to ignore, avoid eye contact and walk by, or I have the choice to engage. It could be as simple as a smile with eye contact, to tell the person, I see you and yes you exist even though it might feel like your invisible at times when everyone walks past. It could be as easy as tossing a dollar. Or it could be as intricate and stopping my evening plans for a moment to get in an uncomfortable, unknown conversation with a person on the street.

A person whose gotten where they are because of circumstances, some controllable, others out of their control.

It doesn't make the person any less than me.
It doesn't make me any better because my lot in life played out this way.
As I've mentioned before, not all people are created equal.

We, the people who have chosen the city over the suburbs have an obligation to act when we feel that uncomfortable condition. We may have no training, we may not know what to do, but we can start with a kind smile and asking how they are doing and we can learn from our own mistakes and successes understanding that every person and situation is different but ignoring is one of the most hurtful forms of communication.
No one wants to feel ignored.

Tempestt has talked about gift cards, bus passes, and such, and I really like those ideas, why haven't I done it yet? She's an amazing woman.

I hope I made the impression
That I was always interested
All the feelings I kept in
What should we do?
Whatever you want to

Therapy - Khalid

10/15/17

Granted.

How do I accurately and fully express my feelings towards an other?
Otherness, this idea of free will and freedom, one of my most fundamental beliefs. It is one of the cornerstones that makes Adam Adam. One of my earliest wrestling of this idea was written down over five years ago on here February 19th 2012. My theology may have changed a lot over the past five years but this wrestling with otherness certainly hasn't. It was only gotten more interesting to me.

Trust, otherness, respect, and affection
These are very real and very internal feelings.
the self
only the self truly knows how I trust, and my affections
the other
This is the person I want to express these internal feelings towards
but they have their own interpretations and expectations.

transmitting
trusting
receiving
transmitter trust

The four step process I wrote about back in February of 2015.

I actually still strongly believe everything I wrote on that day, in fact I'm actually impressed I was able to express my thoughts so well in that letter. I usually feel frustrated that I've only accomplished expressing 10% of how I feel but there I feel expressed and hopefully heard.

But now over two years later I'd like to amend my thoughts. I'd like to talk about another risk in communication.

All is communication. Even when you believe you aren't sending a message it could be received as a message. Silence is a form of communication. What ever I'm not intending on sending a message of neglect but in that absence of a message there is an interpretation of neglect. a receiving of a message unsent. It's a risk we all must take.

I think at this point in my life my biggest fear is appropriately expressing to this other how I feel successfully.

For instance her birthday is 64 days away.
I want to give her something for her birthday that expresses exactly how important she is to me, how she makes me feel, how grateful I am she's in my life. How amazing of a person she is, how she makes me feel when I'm stressed, how happy I am when I'm with her, how her eyes make me feel when they look in mine, how being next to her, how listening to her about her work, her family, her friends, gives me a calm satisfaction, how she enjoys being with my friends, how she's so easy to get along with, how we don't fight, how she laughs when I quote Juicy from Notorious B.I.G. how she makes me laugh, how she swears she can be sexy in all of her awkwardness. How she wants to explore with me, how she enjoys apple picking and pie baking, how she wants to see me nearly every night exactly as much as I want to see her.

But how do I give her something that expresses that?
She has so much money anything she's been wanting she just buys it herself?
And getting her more stuff isn't a good expression of what she means to me
What do I get the woman that has everything and means so much to me?
Oh Wonder tickets? She's seen them twice on her own
Tickets to see Waitress her favorite musical? Not only has she already seen it but she's already bought her own tickets to see it in November.

64 days to transmit a message that is appropriately received.
To not take her for granted.

I know a birthday present isn't the be all end all it's a symptom of the anxiety I am starting to feel towards her... now that we've been seeing each other since sometime in August sooner or later I'm going to mess up, I'm going to fail to express her value to her. I'm going to take her for granted. I'm going to hurt her. And inevitably I'm going to lose her. But I really like her I want her to not simply hear that from me but I want her to know that within her and I want her to trust that.

I don't know how to do that and I'm afraid I'll grow complacent.
I want to continue to learn more and more about this incredibly complex and wonderful woman and I want to know how best to express to her what she means in a way she will receive the message rather than a way I prefer to send the message.

I'm so afraid.

Build It Better - Aron Wright










Finished my 7th week.

10/08/17

Sixth week of teaching, finished.

I'm not sure what to write about this week.
I feel like I've expressed most of my thoughts already on here.
1. I really like Tempestt
2. Teaching is hard but good
3. Hurricanes recently make me more and more nervous about this planet
4. I don't like the president of my country because of his actions, words, and choices
5. America views black athletes as merely entertainers, they shouldn't speak they should just play their game and go away
6. I wish my friends would stop moving away from Columbus and Ohio.

That's pretty much my life right now.

Last week I tried to watch one of my students football games on Saturday morning. I showed up to the game couldn't spot him on the field (but they are all suited up and tiny) Then after about a half an hour his mother came up behind me in tears she told me his dad was suppose to bring him to the game but he didn't. She apologized and started expressing her frustration with the student's father. We talked for an hour or so then she left and I left shortly after.

I had a few thoughts I suppose I could attempt to express here.
First I thought again about the idea of all people being created equal and the comparison of my childhood vs my student's childhood. I'm not sure what the authors of the American Declaration of Independence has in mind with those words but it seems more and more evident to me that people are not created equal. Some are born into poverty, health issues, inheriting debt, fetal alcohol syndrome, addicted to substances their mother took while pregnant, parent incarcerated, parent deceased. Not everyone is created equal and I think it's that very reason why we need to be aware and sensitive to that fact.

We need to acknowledge that a bunch of 1700s white men wrote that and that isn't the world we live in today.

There's this image online that really paints the picture of my opinion on the word "equal" Equal doesn't mean fair.

All men aren't created equal (the fact that the writers used the word 'men' instead of people is telling of their views on equality) and that's why it is up to the government for the people by the people to help the people receive fairness or as the illustration says "equity."

I know I already ranted a few weeks about about our governments increased military spending budget and I think it is the allocation of resources in such a way that frustrates me when I think about all not being created equal.

Second, I realized I was the only white person at the football game. But the game took place in the same city I lived in. Segregation is very much alive today. How is it possible if all are equal there can be neighborhoods of all white or all black or all one race without diversity? There is obviously something systemic happening here. It may be subconscious, it may be intentional, whatever it is, it feels very strange to come to the realization of my ignorance of the segregation within my own northern union free state underground railroad city.

I don't have the solution to any of the things I'm observing but I am at the very least aware of them and know we need to find the root causes of such things and work on improving our country to hopefully move closer and closer to the idea that all PEOPLE are created unequal so we much be intentional with equity.

I think that starts with something as simple as taking a knee.

Logic - 1-800-273-8255

10/01/17

The Renaissance art in the museums of Europe
impacted me deeply during the backpacking trip in 2014.
Tempestt told me I should listen to Logic's album in its entirety the first thing I noticed was the album art. I remember when I saw the original.

The Wedding Feast at Cana, by Paolo Veronese 1563

A post shared by Adam🌱 (@zmorris93) on Jun 7, 2014 at 5:48pm PDT

I remember when I returned to America after that trip. My religious views had changed.
I wrote about it on June 21, 2014
It was a mix of seeing this piece of art at a concentration camp

A post shared by Adam🌱 (@zmorris93) on Jun 13, 2014 at 6:30am PDT

That art made after symbols of hate by a group of people who are now allowed to march freely in my country, and the Sistine Chapel wall by Michelangelo in 1541.

I remember reflecting on another piece I saw even months later September 13, 2014 The Stanza della Segnatura by Raphael in 1511. The four walls in one of the Raphael rooms the room of the Signatura. This piece challenged my thoughts on Faith and Science the two contradicting worlds today then together harmoniously. It helped me open my mind to allow the two to exist in the same space in my head, to greet each other with a bow and dance, their movements and song plays on in my mind today still working out the steps like trying to make out every word when they should simply hum along.

It's interesting how religious artwork has a way of unraveling religious beliefs.
The Wedding Feast at Cana is a biblical story about Jesus turning water to wine
The Last Judgment and The Room of the Signatura are both found in the Vatican.
The place where the most powerful Christian religious leader lives.

Logic's album art used this piece to make an anti religious statement
and the Vatican art, which I believe was mostly made by atheist Renaissance artists, had an impact on my mind and heart opening it to other possibilities beyond what is taught within the walls of churches.

Logic - Hallelujah