A Bond Between Men

In my last 4 years since writing here, I’ve become a wedding videographer. I call it a side gig as I’m about to enter year 8 as a high school teacher, but it’s much more than that. It’s exciting. It’s special. I get to blend into the background of arguably the most important days of people’s live and film their experiences and then stitch those moments together into a lasting film. I enjoy the process and I kind of depend on the job to force me to be present in my life, if only for the duration of a 10 or 12 hour shoot. 

This past weekend I filmed what seemed on the surface to be a normal wedding day, preparations at a hotel followed by ceremony and reception at a typical Massachusetts venue, outdoor tent on a beautiful property. In these waning days of summer, I almost relegated this wedding to be just another one to film through and then be on my way home as I’ve been constantly filming every single weekend since the start of May and will be until Thanksgiving. But something happened that surprised me pretty early in the day on this early August wedding.

The groom, his name is Rey, had about 10 or 11 groomsmen. The thing is though that this most recent wedding, the groomsmen, steeped in their pre ceremony jitters and buzzed states of mind with a few drinks in them, did something I had not witnessed in my almost 3 years of filming weddings, they went around in a circle in the hotel room and talked about the impact the groom had on their own lives.

These seemingly innocuous moments were just so pure and genuine that I was really taken back. Obviously I just filmed the whole event by being a fly on the wall but man, something about this vulnerable moment between a large group of men getting really emotional with each other gave me so much life, not because men are not allowed to do this socially, which I think is rare, but because I wish I was part of this group. I’ve got a few good friends but we’re scattered by geography and circumstance. 

There was something so profound about this simple and spontaneous exercise of an expression of love between friends that just crippled me. I’ve got good friends but to see this display between men that on the surface appeared super macho and concerned with appearance and machismo but deep down just wanted to express love for their friend was truly inspiring and heart warming.

I love being able to see and capture these intimate moments, even if I’m the stranger in the corner behind the camera. 

There’s this feeling I just can’t shake and it’s causing me to go stir crazy trying to escape it. It doesn’t have a specific name, I don’t try to communicate it verbally to anyone, and it eats away at the dark little corners and recesses of my physical and mental being.

It’s the moment in every movie and book and tv show where the protagonist hasn’t yet overcome the conflict. It’s the divot, the trough, the murky haze that envelops a character but instead of the protagonist coming through with a better sense of self and realization, it lingers indefinitely. 

You can’t kill it with alcohol. You can’t sleep it off or run away from it. You can’t will it away. 

The only remedy is temporary. 

You can distract it. You can force it to the back burner knowing you’ll have to deal with it later. 

This beast of a feeling overshadows everything. 

It feels like screaming underwater or running away from danger in a dream, useless. 

It’s related to guilt. Cousins with shame. Brother to fear. 

At the heart of it is the notion that every decision is harmful. It hungers for indecision. 

It fucking sucks. 

The Longer I Run

I haven’t had a drink in a few weeks but it feels like years.

I’ve been trying hard lately to define myself to myself. What do I stand for? Are there enough people in a given day that notice how hard I’m trying to justify me to me? I’m not used to being so silent. I’m steeped in quiet.

There’s nothing on the horizon I can see, which makes temporary states of happiness even more of an obstacle. I feel like a house that’s been leveled by a hurricane and only the foundation remains. Time is an enemy. I’ve regressed to my former self but my body has aged. It’s like I’ve run a race, gotten to the finish line, and then been told everything I’ve just accomplished doesn’t count and I need to start the race again while every other participant is free to leave and do as they wish.

I’m desperate for an authentic experience where I can let my guard down, but I’m coming up short. 

The best feeling I’ve had in a month is when I’m walking my dog late at night, at 11 or midnight. It feels like the neighborhood and the streets are mine. I pass like night. I can weave in and out of whole sections of the suburbs surreptitiously, just me and my puppy, who savors the ability to exercise her limbs and swell in the smells of the heavy air on a summer night. 

I question when the running feels less like a treadmill and more like a trail.

The longer I run the less I know for sure. 

Mosley

Process

One of the greatest reasons to go hiking is the value you can pull from the experience. Established trails have been blazed and managed for decades if not centuries and the maps are easily accessible. All that remains is the will. 

What appeals to me about hiking is the process. You cannot fake getting up a mountain. The forces exerted on your body, the sweat drenched t-shirts, the sunburn tinged skin; it is all you. I love the rhythm. You must take stock of your pace, accept the challenge before you and understand the result takes hours, not minutes. There’s an irrationality to it too, as if you’re wasting your time on an activity that is inherently worthless, that serves as a catalyst for me. 

The value is individualized. 

Whenever I hike I have this overinflated sense of confidence, arrogance even, about the task that lay in front of me. If it has been a while since my last hike I easily forget the physical toll even a day hike has on my body. 

Yesterday shocked me to life in such an unexpected way while hiking in New Hampshire. The ascent had me heaving for air, even doubting my own ability to hike a moderate trail. I stopped constantly and was overthinking the investment the process took from me. Not until my friend Sarah and I got high enough to see for miles did my mind register that this hike, as moderate or easy as it is, was kicking my ass. 

I don’t hike for the views, though they are spectacular. I hike to clear my head, to forget about anything and everything that isn’t secured in my backpack or within my eye line. 

Yesterday’s descent was accompanied by my arch enemy, lower back pain. Intense waves of pain emitting from my lower left back with each step down the mountain reminded me that no matter how grand or cocky my ambitions that limitations exist. 

I thought about a lot on yesterday’s hike. I had great conversation, too.

I live for the process, whether I’m cognizant of it or not.  

Contingency

I sat square across from my manager and was told I wasn’t making progress toward my professional development goals as a ninth grade English literature teacher. 

The pragmatist in me took over. 

But the potential scenarios concerning job security, future employment, housing, long-term goals, anxiety, all accelerated at a rate beyond composure. Fear washed over me and I had to excuse myself. 

In limbo for the time being concerning a contract extension. 

The ever so slight shift in how comfortable you feel in your current track in life is dumbfounding. A few words were spoken and the future tilted on its axis, gravity suspended, but only in your stomach. My mind raced from the image of a diminishing bank account, to defaulted student loans, to homelessness. Rationality too, became suspended. 

It’s quite surreal how tenuous the pieces of your life truly are. It’s the routine that blinds us to how truly vulnerable we are. 

I don’t have a contingency plan in place, but I’m trying my hardest to stack the deck. 

The tectonic shift of the ground beneath my feet, those few words spoken to me over a circular office table during fourth period, have shaken me to the core. Well what if I just run away? Move to the west coast? Reinvent, start over? How much education do you need to be a copy editor at a radio station? Is the military a viable option? Why does my mind keep reverting back to that scene in “Elizabethtown” where Kirsten Dunst keeps telling Orlando Bloom he failed, he failed, he failed but he’s still alive to learn from his mistakes?

Shit. 

I suppose the root of my fear is uncertainty. That and the fact that I’m completely questioning what I’m doing for a career. 

The only thing I truly am certain of is that uncertainty forces me to write things down.

I don’t think I’ve ever truly experienced a gut feeling that made me act instantly.

At some point rationality would interrupt an organic feeling of absolutism. Cause and effect would take over a thought process. 

But I’m starting to think a gut decision doesn’t have to be made without some time passing. Being certain is different than being certain immediately. 

I take a lot of comfort in this idea. I can have a gut feeling that grows over time. 

I’m not 100 percent sure what prompted this thought but I do know that part of it came from my tendency to compare myself to others. I constantly want to measure myself, my accomplishments, my possessions even, to others I know. 

We as people like to preach how important it is not to measure oneself against another and yet we do it constantly behind the scenes. 

I don’t want my life decisions to seem effortless. I don’t want my hard work that leaves me so exhausted at the end of a work day to appear to be not there. But on another level I do. 

Gut decisions should exist independently of outside influence. 

A Better Quality of Agony

I bought a book of essays by Teju Cole and I just read one called “A Better Quality of Agony.”

It made me think a lot about loss, hurt, and pain.

It also made me think about hidden pain, the inner anxieties and paranoia that may not be as obvious as say suffering the loss of a loved one. 

I think a lot about this idea of an in between where people thrive. This place between happily ever after and total chaos. I love exploring this fringe. It’s a place for selfish people. Where people have enough freedom to still make mistakes on their own but also feel the comfort of familiarity reeling them back in. 

I fear leaving this place. It’s full of confusion. But I take comfort in the confusion. Many things make me question my love of the in between but I usually regress to this happy medium where I feel okay in my confusion. 

I question how sustainable the in between can be. How long can one expect to thrive here without lasting consequences? How many smug, intentional days can go by before one realizes that the in between is a place full of people who refuse to commit and grow?

The in between is lonely.

The in between hurts.

But you never hurt anyone while you’re here, which is my favorite part.

It’s a better quality of agony because you can still get the best of both worlds.

I’m gearing up for something epic. 

Basically Homeless

I’m halfway through the six-week period of my life called “Basically Homeless.” I moved out of my downtown Brooklyn apartment on May 13 because I’m moving to Boston in August to teach. I didn’t re-up my lease in Brooklyn, but I’m stuck teaching until the end of June at my current job.

Through the generosity of a good friend, I crashed on his floor for the last 2 weeks of May in Crown Heights. Now I’m crashing on a very tiny corner of my dad’s home office in Islip out on Long Island. 

I spend the weekends back in my hometown at my mom’s in Stratford, CT, and I’m living out of a duffle bag, a backpack, and my car fueled by coffee, Redbull, and Clif bars

I’ve got no reason to complain. I’ve got a place to sleep, a paycheck each week, and a new job waiting for me in Boston. It’s just been so rough waking up at 4am to get to work before traffic hits. The drive home is something I would equate to human torture. It takes 2 and 1/2 hours to drive 47 miles from Coney Island to Islip, bumper to bumper, stop and go. 

Living on little sleep and sitting in traffic essentially makes my weekdays a revolving door of work, sitting in traffic, and repeat. 

I’ve only been driving to work for a week and I absolutely cannot stand the notion of doing that task any longer than I have to. Long Islanders who commute into the city are insane. 

So I’m holding out for June 28 when I’m done and I get to go hiking and I get to sleep in and become a vagabond who gets to traverse the country on weird, crazy, unscheduled road trips and hikes.

Bring it on June, I’m ready for you.   

Josh Ritter

Blue Highways

Why is it that loneliness strikes so hard at night? I think it has to do with the number of distractions from the day being eliminated and all you’re really left with is your own thoughts.

My cure for loneliness used to be alcohol but I’m taking a new path. My new cure for loneliness is literature. I’ve been voraciously reading in my spare time like I used to in high school and college. 

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t who I am, though.

I wish I didn’t think so much. I envy the people who choose to not tune into their inner thoughts. That’s what I loved about alcohol, it can turn an overthinker into someone who can live in the moment. I want to live in the moment without alcohol. I’m actively learning and trying to be present in the physical space I occupy and nothing else....says the guy writing a blog post. 

But seriously I’m working toward a stronger appreciation for my life.

From time to time when I lecture to my students I like to reference a quote I’ve read that has stuck with me in hopes it can help them.

The quote that I can’t shake is from this book called “Blue Highways” by William Least Heat Moon.

It’s the first sentence of the book:

“Beware of thoughts that come in the night.”

That quote haunts me.

It makes me dive deeper into loneliness and existentialism. 

But I think it’s the memorable quotes that make me appreciate literature even more. 

I’m just trying to be better.

Coney Island Kids

I’m really bad at so many things. 

I think my resting expression is somewhere between apathetic and suicidal.

But every once and a while I get shocked back to life, shocked back to how important my job is, when I interact with my students on a personal level. I absolutely love my kids. They are light years ahead of me when I was their age in so many ways. They care so much about me and despite a lot of hard exterior shells, these south Brooklyn kids are resilient. They’re so brilliant and witty and they make me smile when I desperately need it sometimes. 

These kids have changed me for the better and I appreciate all of them so much.