Decided I’d pick up a camera for my upcoming travels and scaled down substantially from the DSLRs I am accustomed to shooting with.  With the departure in scale also comes a departure in mechanisms as this is a mirrorless camera.  Aside from less potentially going awry with the physical hardware I’m not honestly sure what the advantages are other than I believe this camera is able to get 11fps by manner of that same mirrorless technology.  Once I’ve had the opportunity to take it out and shoot with it I’ll form my opinion, but winter seems to be back this weekend so it’ll wait a minute.

More of the same, hurry up and wait.

Every second is achingly slow when the requirement is expeditious.
Moments measured in seconds stretch to seasons.
Here tomorrow, gone today, move the hands already.

Anything to close a terminal day.

From my nowhere chair I sit stunned by lack.  Not of tangible things but of the ones that make a person a person.  The edges have been worn off the sides and there is no good or bad any more, just a long line with very few peaks or valleys.  To tread the line is a daily occurrence now, an unfamiliar routine becoming dangerously common.

For all that I have been, there is no suffering, there is no true joy.  Only the long line, smooth and infinite.  There is nothing to see, and yet everything is upon its surface.    All this internalized, rarely given to another, and even then, in limited form.  There is no proper conveyance for such a feeling.  Words seem pointless.

Turning to my favorite distraction, I seek humor in all things.  It is my gift and a curse that I can no longer truly enjoy as flawlessly as I am able to deliver it.  I suppose it is a gift because I am able to give it, not mine to receive.  What I receive in agony I distill to what is true and use it to do good.  The toll is large but the rewards are my punishment for a good deed.  For all the laughs serve to remind me of what I can not truly be, and they give me an undesirable feast upon which I must gorge.

Eat, distill, reward, suffer.  All on the long line out.

In accordance and obeying the bug which has bitten me, I decided to be spontaneous this weekend and visit a friend who lives about an hour and a half away in a decent sized city.  I went with no real plans in mind other than needing to pick up a couple things for my future travel plans but we ended up going on various adventures roaming around the city.  I am extremely grateful to have such friends, who have helped me to embrace who I really am, and to take risks with me.  It was a great night out and I got home in the early hours of Sunday feeling well at peace with the world.

Sunday has proven to be different, in an odd way, difficult to explain.  To simplify, I feel disconnected from the world.  Like I’m monitoring a life from the outside but it’s my own life.  Strange.  It’s as close as I have come to bothered in months, but far too close for comfort truth be told.  That is not what this place is for though, it is for adventures, and for self-discovery.

On that front, I have aligned my priorities and have dates in place to pick up my tickets to the left coast.  This trip will include rail, skies, roads, and likely plenty of good old fashioned hoofing it.  This isn’t a notion that feels outside a comfort zone, but it is one that I have never followed through on.  No more of that.  With this many years already behind me there is no valid excuse for that kind of pussy-footing.  Life is too short and I’ve already spent too much of it with my head down sulking.

Big world, bigger ambitions.  Help along the way or get out of the way, because time is truly of the essence.

Waiting is terrible as far as games are concerned.  The opponent is one impossible to beat and will kill you in the end.  Time waits for no one, and shows no remorse as it rolls over us all.  To be fair is not in the nature of such a force, but as it destroys, so too, does it mend.  Time has no concern of loss or gain, only to fulfill its agenda, an eternal march.  Time is apathetic to our love, our hate, our triumphs, and our trials.  Time is responsible for all things but will not be held responsible for anything.

There is no escaping aside from the acceptance that there is no way out.  Liberation comes from surrender and embracing all the time you have.  Fear no death because it takes no pleasure in your end.  Fear living afraid of death, as it makes you as good as gone to those who need you here and now.

Live without regrets and die well when you must.

Despite what an east coast ground-rodent has predicted, the rain came this morning.  Along with the showers an accompaniment of flashing lights and booming.  The seasons are getting increasingly strange as the years go on… so too are we all.

As I continue this post from yesterday, I sit inside the home freezing as it has once again become the appropriate season for the date.  The entire day was spent on the road sitting in meetings and watching snow fly outside the office.  As it so happens, in the conference room where we were having the meeting, there was a painting on the wall.

The painting was where my mind wandered all day.  There was business discussion and although I was engaged when I needed to be, my eyes kept finding their way back to that imagined coastal window.  Sailboats on the water, soft breeze pushing the wispy white curtains to the side, hazy sun obscured by clouds but the entire painting (as pointed at by a fellow wanderer) was noticeably bright for depicting what appeared to be a cool palette.  It made me want to be there, anywhere, where the coast was just outside the window.  Fortunately for me, in just over a month, I’ll find myself on the left coast to celebrate Paddy’s in the best way imaginable.

This begins my journey, but will only be the first step of a million miles.

So now I look to the sky in anticipation of streaking cross the country as an arrow, shooting all the way out.  My (wander)lust is insatiable, time to feast.

What began as a fanciful whim at the start of the year has grown to be an all-consuming obsession in a month.  It would seem I’ve fallen headlong into a level of personal freedom I haven’t experienced in a very long time.  It was this very freedom which was the catalyst for my plans to finally see more of this beautiful blue and green planet of ours.

My journey of countless miles has begun.  No more self-imposed limits.  Only the liberation of my heart and my mind.

Onward to those long, winding roads and big blue sky.