May | 2015 | BulgingButtons

May 18, 2015
by BulgingButtons Leave a comment

The Business of Writing

Writing, constantly writing
Get it Down
Draw it Out
Feel the words as they Flow
or Grind
or Pulsate
Breathe them in
Allow them to just be for a while
Exhale them
Bleed them if necessary

Sometimes it’s so easy
They flow from brain to fingertips
Other times they have to be pulled out
Yanked
Ripped
Excavated
With a rope thick as my arm
A coil of dense wire
An impossibly heavy iron chain

Are those words inelegant?
Flawed?
Damaged somehow?
Or do those rough-hewn words hold their own poetry?
Different than the silky thoughts of their more manageable cousins

This business of poetry
It seems like a cheat
Just snippets of words
Punctuation optional
Just meaning, nothing more
Style be damned
Conventions? Not today

The writing is a pipeline
A conduit
A path
Sometimes paved
Usually not

Jarring
Jagged
Rugged
Decayed in places
Pristine in others

Sometimes flat, cool, peaceful
Effortless
Most times steep, rocky, even painful
Exhausting and all consuming
But in the end worth the toil

This place I go
Is sometimes Lonely
Sorrowful
Desolate and Deserted
Terrifying
Disturbing even

Usually, though, it’s just Quiet
This place where hopes, dreams, wishes, and fears all meet

Like his forest
With the path grown over
It still exists but it has been neglected
However, neglect has not harmed it
It has preserved it
Kept it Sacred
Kept out the trespassers who don’t understand
Who don’t respect the Sacred
Who can’t see or feel or know why it’s important

Are my thoughts preserved? My fears and hopes, are they Sacred?
Or are they stagnant?
Do they develop and grow and evolve?
Am I walking in circles revisiting the same tired worn places over and over?
Like tracing a scar that has healed long ago
Or am I breaking new ground?
And if it is new ground, is it leading me in the right direction?
How will I know?
How can I tell?

May 17, 2015
by BulgingButtons 9 Comments

Countdown to 50

It even looks awful

What have I gotten myself into this time?

I’ve agreed to a challenge in which I will consume one veggie smoothie per week in place of an actual dinner with the thought that I will thereby lose 50 pounds over the course of a year.

You see, this summer I’ll be turning 49, and it would be fantastic to face 50 a little leaner. Ok, maybe not leaner, but with 50 fewer pounds of fat hugging my body.

How did this challenge come about? Well… one of our favorite breakfast places has begun serving smoothies as well as delicious skillets and omlettes. No, we didn’t order one, but it got my sweetheart thinking that if we replace just one meal per week, it could make a big impact. That and cutting down on the chips and dip and Hot Tamales, of course. Before I knew it, I was agreeing to try it. We’ll begin after my summer trip, so that will give us about 50 weeks to drop the 50 pounds. That’s totally reasonable.

Oh man, I’m afraid already. I HATE vegetable smoothies. If you have any recipes that don’t taste exactly like vomit, I’d love to hear from you.

May 16, 2015
by BulgingButtons 7 Comments

What Could You Give Up?

I could probably give this up forever.

My sweetheart went to the grocery store and bought chip dip. It wasn’t the kind in the plastic tub, it came in a glass jar. I was immediately suspicious. I come from the land of chip dip in a plastic tub. You know, the good stuff. Still, it was chip dip. How bad could it be

Surprisingly bad, it turns out. It had a weird taste to it, and a faintly greyish hue. And no, it wasn’t past its expiration date (I checked). Did I eat it? Some of it, but the rest got washed down the drain without a second thought. It was that bad.

I was just thinking about it and thinking to myself, if I never had that particular type of chip dip again I would be very happy. Then I thought about not ever having ANY chip dip again, and I was significantly less sure of my long-term happiness with that particular scenario. People do it, though. They give up all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons. Continue reading →