My Brother, My Muse

My oldest brother and I play a game sometimes. He'll shoot me an email with some poetry or an obscure passage from an old Chinese mystic. I'll fire something back, and we'll parry on like this for days. My brother suddenly becomes my muse...

See for yourself.

drifting
in
and out of
belief
about
what
Is

possible

two butterflies
dance past
on an invisible
stage
leaving me to
wonder
how
things
got just so

complicated.

J

Comments

The Riddle

We all have an identity that we believe is who we truly are. As if that identity is static from birth to death. It is how we define ourselves. Ask me who I am and the reply will be – I am me. A man. A son. A brother. A father. A husband. Yes yes of course. But who are you really? What is this thing called identity? I have been so many different identities. Dishwasher. Cook. Baker. Carpenter. Contractor. Salesman. Graphic designer. Firefighter. Stay at home dad. Cyclist. Lover. Tyrant. Romantic. Destroyer. And spiritual seeker. Dreamer too. But maybe an imposter as well? Have I really been any of those things? And when we lose an identity, what then? Adopt a new one? Do we add and shed identities like layers of clothing? ******* How do we ever really know who or what we are? How does belief cloak itself around us to create a way for us to show up in the world? I want to please you. I will rebel against you. I am angry. I am sad. I am generous. I am...

Waking Up with the What Ifs

Apparently last night I had been dreaming of a life I left behind 11 years ago. Snippets of memory like peering through a gauzy veil, and scenes vaguely reminiscent of my life as a builder in a small coastal town north of Boston. I woke up with the What Ifs. You know how dreams are: like your eyes can’t completely focus, situations that are seemingly disconnected but maybe not, faces you know but can’t place, yet the feeling in the dream is quite real. I was back in Old Town and trying to figure out why the house I was in was unfinished. There was a meeting to be had there, but it was just me. I walked down a cobbled street to what I figured to be the office of the architect and it was a room of all glass and about 10 people seated around a glass table. I tried to get the attention of the man who was the architect on this particular job without disrupting the meeting. He looked like a friend who wasn’t an architect but a realtor and a neighbor. I wondered how he switched care...

Mindset Like a Dog

This morning after getting the kids off to school I decided to take my dogs for a longer than usual hike on our local mountain. I took a couple big swigs of water, layered up, added hat and gloves, and headed out the gate. The dogs knew what was up and bounced around me, excited and eager for whatever lay ahead. Yet every time they see me putting on my boots it’s like they have never been walked before. Their excitement is fresh. Every day. How is it that they have no idea how long or short I am going to walk them, yet they are always down to walk? I never have to prod them out of their lethargy. Rain, snow, or sun, they are ready. Anytime. This got me to wondering what if I adopted this dog mindset? What exactly would that feel like? ******* Recently I’ve felt flat. Not super inspired. I’m attempting to increase my client base as a Mindset Coach and honestly renovating a 200-year-old house like in my former life feels markedly easier than landing new clients. It’s the...

Before My Last Breath

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