In transit

I know that I said my next post would be about my guitars.  I lied.  I will still write about them, but I want to include pictures and the cable to connect the camera to the computer is still in a box.  I'm actually, ahem, borrowing someone's wireless network because we have yet to get interweb hookups in the new place.  I don't miss it much, to be honest, but it certainly has its uses.

I want to say "but I digress," but I hate that phrase.  It's so overused.  There has to be a better phrase to identify a segue... Something to think about for later.  Anyways...

The experiences of this past month - those that prompted this move to a new house - have been the most stressful of my life.  I was physically exhausted by anger and frustration.  Now that we have settled, and that the issues have been all but resolved, I welcome the opportunity to sit and reflect on what I have learned.

I have learned to detach myself from material things.  In preparation for the move, I purged my personal belongings.  One of my co-workers said something the other day that I found quite insightful; he said that we never really own anything, we just have long-term rentals.  I do not enjoy the feeling of being tied to physical objects.  They are cumbersome, and maintaining them costs time and money.  I'm sure that I share a common sentiment in saying that I rarely have enough of either.  That which I do have, I would rather spend with my family and friends.  In seeking to satisfy our personal desires, how often do we overlook the ease with which we can fulfill our needs?  I try to remind myself every day to be grateful for the lasting things in life, the necessities that I am never without.

I have learned that the support from my family and friends is unconditional.  Even when I doubted myself, and the course of action that I ought to take, there was always someone to remind or reassure or assist.  I am deeply grateful to those who helped me to get through this difficult time.  Thank you all for your kindness.

I have learned that the seasons of our lives will always bring winters.  There's something poetic (though I lack the poetry to truly expound upon it) in the cold, the bitterness, the pressing need to overcome in order to make new beginnings.  Difficulties in relationships, personal wellness, finances and many other trials are passing things, often prolonged only by unwillingness to take significant action to overcome them.  Perhaps I was in need of something drastic to push me out of complacency.

Finally, I have learned that between full-time work, duties as a father and housekeeper, commitments to musical projects, and the many other distractions of modern life, an opportunity to sit in my recliner and quietly enjoy a beer at the end of the day should never be passed up.  So with that, I bid you all goodnight.

Testing the waters

Recently, I decided that it would be beneficial to keep a personal blog.  I follow a few different blogs on a daily or weekly basis, and enjoy keeping up with the lives of friends and others.  While I was living in Charlottetown a couple of years ago, I kept a blog with the intent of keeping in touch with friends and family back home.  I would often feel better after posting an entry, and writing in a casual and non-academic format helped me to break away from the grind of all of the term papers and essays that I was working on at the time.

After quitting school last year and leaving the U of A, I have done very little writing.  It's high time to get back at it.  I still like to go back and read my Charlottetown blog once in a while, because it reminds me of all of the experiences that I had while I was there and brings back a lot of fond memories.  Now that I have a son, I feel that this is the time of my life that I will most want to remember.  Realizing my experiences through writing and sharing that writing with others has always been my method for understanding the world and my place in it.

Returning to an art form, if I can call it that, after a long period of absence is awkward and difficult.  I literally sat in front of my computer monitor for over an hour just trying to decide what my blog's title should be.  The breadth of options can be paralyzing.  I had all of these clever ideas, but every time I entered them into the field where you pick your blog's URL, I found that someone had beaten me to it, and my little buds of creativity retreated into their stalks.

Reverb/chorus.  It's music-related, as is my entire life.  It has some deeper meaning somewhere that I'm not going to hash out here for the sake of everyone who reads this.  It's polyphonic, it's vocal, it's somehow relevant to all of this.

I hope that some people will read this as I write it and call me out on things that I say I'll do, and bug me to update about events in my life and experiences with my wife and my baby.  I think that doing this will help me to keep my life more organized, because when I don't write things down, I always forget to do them.  It's likely that my first few attempts at writing again will be utter crap, but bear with me, because I'll need some practice to get my brain and my fingers back on track.

Stay de-tuned.  Like my guitar.  Next post, I'll write about my guitars because I really like them and if I don't, someone will send me a message saying, "Dude, why haven't you updated your blog yet, I want to read about your guitars."

Time to quit, goodnight everyone.