Nigel

Before I really new Jesus and how much he loved animals, I didn't really like animals. I guess there's the possibility that I thought they were an inferior race, that they only half counted as citizens. I'm not sure what exactly what was going through my mind, but it was absolutely nonsense. Jesus showed me about animals and I love them a lot; I love them more than I ever thought I would. I went to the zoo the other day and just felt taken over by love for animals.
Nigel is probably my favorite animal. He's so excited to see me when I get home, even if I've been gone for 5 minutes. One of my friends once said this about his dog, and I want to echo his statement: I hope that I can one day be the man that my dog already thinks I am.

Sometimes when I think about Nigel, I think about God. I think about that God loves me no matter what.  That I can come home from the worst day and he's gonna run up and hug me and not want to be away from me. That when I leave, he starts crying. That's what nigel does, and I think that's how God feels too. 

I love that nigel is so curious all the time. He doesn't understand the world, but he wants to know. At the same time, even though he doesn't know, he feels content to sleep and just relax all the time. I like that. A lot. He's curious but not mad. I think my curiosity could drive me insane when I don't understand.

The truth is, I've learned so much from having nigel. He's one of the best dogs anyone could have. I always thought people that were way over obssesed with their dogs were crazy, but I understand now. A friend with unconditional love. That's something we all want. Well, guess what? That's something we can all have!

my photography

Several times in the last several months, I have been asked the question "how come you don't do photography anymore?". Though I tried to search for an answer, my mind could never come up with something adequate. This week, being buried underneath a musical avalanche, which, at most times, is the only kind of avalanche I'd like to be buried under, I realized something: music is my photography.
     Before, when music and I had been only briefly acquainted and were still getting to know each other, I felt as if music was something that I needed to play. It was an expression of myself, a way to let out how I felt, something I wanted to remember, something I wanted others to remember. It was just a means to record thoughts and feelings. It was a fun, but only a means to an end.
     Now that music and I have gotten to know each other a little better, my thoughts on it are completely different. Music is no longer an expression, it is a necessary side effect of everything I do. I can't walk without rhythm, I can't speak without a melody line, I can't listen to someone speak without hearing it in the midst of the worlds song. Tapping feet, notes in class, chalkboards, sighs, credit cards, scooting chairs, cars, construction work; this is the song I hear every day. I don't play music to express myself, I live and it is forced into music. I cannot help it. It is my fifth limb, a part of my body. It is not something on the outside; no, not even something on the inside; rather it IS my outside and my inside. It is my throat, it is my ears, it is my water, my mind's photograph. It is the way that I survive. It is my deepest conversation with God, and His deepest conversation with me.
     I didn't stop photographing because I didn't like it, or even because I had a choice between it and music. I stop photography because the click of the shutter, the sound of the wind, the gadgets moving and beeps of the camera; these were more about music to me, about musical value, than they were about the picture itself.
Music is my photography.

100 wonderful things

I was inspired this week after seeing a blog that listed 1000 things that are awesome (or something like that; I can't really remember the name). There were so many simple things, and reading it made me realize that I can be a negative person most of the time that I think or talk. It was a little disheartening, so I decided it might be advantageous to write my own list of things in life that I find nice, uplifting, or encouraging. I might not be ambitious enough to attempt 1000 things (or this class might just be too short), but I'll start with 100 and maybe I'll add to it when I can.

1. When someone holds the door open for me, even when I'm really far away and they have to stand there for a long time, and I don't know them.
2. When people make art in the top of my coffee
3. Toilet Seats that aren't freezing
4. When my dog Nigel sits on my lap while I'm playing guitar
5. Hearing music outdoors in the city, bouncing off buildings so that it's impossible to tell where it's coming from.
6. Getting phone calls from friends that I forgot about
7. Seeing people that rarely smile get a phone call or a text and break into a grin
8. Watching people sing and dance in the car
9. People in everyday places wearing scrubs
10. Hearing asian folks speaking in their native tongues really seriously.
11. Guys that can't help but wear suits to every occasion
12. People giving commands to their dogs in a different language
13. Thinking you've done terrible on a test, but getting it back with a good grade
14. People that raise their hands to speak in a normal, non-hand-raising discussion
15. Driving by a Volkswagon dealer while Ben Seavey is in the car, and getting to punch him a billion times
16. Dad's playing with their kids
17. Fall Seasonal Beers
18. People playing tennis wearing visors
19. Driving by a Krispy Kream late at night and seeing cops parked outside
20. When you don't have the right of way, but someone wants to let you pass anyway
21. People that are walking by themselves and smiling
22. saying the same thing as someone else at the same time
23. Walking through the music building practice rooms and hearing everyone practicing different music at the same time; dissonant sound
24. When someone texts me using "T9" and misspells a word accidentally to create a really funny sentence
25. People that are good at playing the washboard
26. Husbands and Wife's that have kids, and still kiss each other
27. Kids that know how to share
28. Australian accents
29. Really good beatboxers
30. People with hair bigger than their torso's
31. When waiters or waitresses are really lonely, and they start up long conversations with you
32. People that forget my name every time they see me, and call me something different because they think it's my name (so much that I stop correcting them)
33. Pianos that are really out of tune
34. People that are comfortable enough to wear baggy shirts and sweat pants to class when they're super tired
35. Really super good cheesecake
36. People that spend a good chunk of their time making sure someone else understands something in class
37. When someone gets really excited to tell you something that they've already told you before
38. guys with huge beards
39. Bands that set up their own equipment
40. People that enjoy an actual scene of beauty more than a photo of beauty
41. When you're scared to tell something to somebody, but they say it to you before you even have a chance to say it to them.
42. Guys with beasting moustaches
43. Anything that Tom Waits sings
44. Eugene Hutz
45. When you think you're gonna be sick, and you go to sleep, and then wake up feeling awesome
46. Hearing awesome, very unknown music in places like Food Lion
47. People with heavy Cajun accents
48. Being with someone when they first experience snow
49. when people that you wouldn't expect write "love" at the end of a message or email.
50. Getting Gold dollar coins as change
51. Driving really old trucks
52. People playing drums on their desk when they can't concentrate in class or meetings
53. Paint splatters
54. Girls that aren't scared to have tattoos
55. Looking at the clock and realizing that time has gone by much faster than expected
56. Unexpected presents
57. Cashiers that are super happy and nice
58. natty hair with dreads in it
59. People that are so broken all they can do is raise their hands and cry, and ask for help
60. People in business clothes that raise their sleeves and have tattoos under them
61. getting songs stuck in my head that make the whole day great
62. when the battery on my ipod is low, but it still magically lasts for a long time
63. irony
64. Folks that are really good at card tricks
65. finding out I have no homework
66. the wind on a really hot day
67. the sun on a really cold day
68. People that think they are whispering, but are actually being very loud and hearable (as long as it's not disruptive)
69. Happy dogs
70. the Avett Brothers
71. when someone takes your plate to the kitchen for you
72. cookies with extra gooey chocolate chips
73. words that are spelled the same backwards and forwards
74. 11 minute long epic songs
75. people that are good at spitting really far
76. Barbeque
77. music that makes me feel like I was born 70 years ago in eastern europe
78. headphones that don't fall out of my ears
79. Any food made by mexicans
80. businesses that have incense burning inside
81. crafty sarcasm
82. people that stand up and say something that everyone else had been thinking for the last 20 minutes
83. goofy last names
84. Christmas shoppers that do their shopping way in advance and don't stress during december
85. music that defies all sense of genre
86. speakers that don't have to use microphones because their voices project
87. young kids in musicals
88. seeing really professional people acting normal
89. bonfires on cold days
90. people that cross their 7's and Z's
91. being in a business class where the majority of people have apple computers, and the prof. is saying that Windows is the most used in the business world
92. driving fast on smooth windy roads with no other cars in sight
93. Listening to soft music in the car while it's dark and rainy
94. Drinking orange juice first thing in the morning and feeling it run down your throat and into your tummy
95. Frustrated people that can't stay frustrated when they see someone being funny
96. Laughing babies
97. Voices that are low and gravely
98. instruments being played in ways they weren't originally designed to be.
99. when people squeak when they're talking
100. windchimes

rainy, coffee, soup, bowerbirds kind of days

Rainy, coffee, soup kind of days are when words want to make their way to my fingertips an into some written form. I think these are the sort of days that my mouth would rather stay closed, most likely to keep the heat inside so my heart doesn't get any colder, and the words in my head try desperately to find a way to get out. I never have much to talk about; I always have a lot of talk, it's not usually about much.
These cold, fall hours have re-tuned my ears to a different station, one that plays bowerbirds, all the 'slow' avett brothers songs, and possibly the occasion fleet foxes tune. Fall is like saturday. It's like our Sabbath. The time that our body says that our summer, our friday night, was way too much and we need to take a rest.
     As a kid I didn't like rest, and fall meant that the only way to play was to have a huge coat and hat covering my body, making every movement uncomfortable and heavy. Fall now is so beautiful, a forced time of couches and soup, of snuggling and sappy movies. A time of sad inspiration and the first steps into a beautiful sleep, the state in between rest and deep sleep. A time where God holds us, fixes us dinner, and sits with us without saying anything. You do not argue with rest. You grab hold of it and sleep. Sleep without saying a word. Sleep while listening to nocturnals. I will not argue with sleep.