There's a special kind of beauty
Caught in the quiet moments of serenity
Taking places of grand gestures
Substituting it's own little pleasures
An exchange of looks and a sly smile
Something to communicate in a quiet style
When words fail to come out
It's a serene beauty to remind you what it's about
That love isn't made with heavy words and expressions
But with light hearts and meaningful confessions
A pouring out of emotions and feelings
With such great force even the coldest person is sent reeling
There's a special kind of beauty
Caught in those quiet moments of serenity
A kind that cannot be contained in so few lines
But can only be explored the others eyes
So explore those eyes looking up at you
In them find love and the courage to pull through
And if the eyes truly are windows to the soul
Then in them you'll find what words will never know
Saturday, May 30, 2015
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Énouement: Chapter 3
"Big news man, big news!" Sam announced, seemingly out of nowhere.
"Wait let me guess, you've finally converted to the dark side and fallen madly in love with me?" I replied.
He frowned for a moment, "Come on man, I'm serious this is important to me."
"Well then tell me what it is already mate, you can't keep a man in suspense like this."
"I have a girlfriend," his smile was so wide you could almost count all the teeth.
That announcement was little over 3 months ago now. I don't know if I've ever seen him so excited over something before, it was adorable. Sam proceeded to tell me all the details about this new woman and I didn't even have to ask, not that I wanted to know in the first place but that's beside the point. This description comes entirely from a second hand account given to me by Sam, but for all intents and purposes Eliza, his new girl who happens to be a friend, was 100% American-made good stuff. Apparently she had soft brown hair in a neatly cropped look that ended just below the ears, eyes that were the color of the stars, whatever the hell that means, and I didn't listen much past the description of the face. I wasn't really listening at all, but humoring Sam.
"Glenn, I'd like you to finally meet Eliza." We both shared a sheepish smile, handshake, and 'nice to meet you' before sitting down to lunch with Sam.
The first few moments were awkward and not necessarily tense, but there was something in the air between everyone. It was nothing sinister, just the natural outcome of three people meeting up and not fully knowing someone in the group. We tried some small talk, I found out she is majoring in Music, she found out I play guitar, we both found out apparently Sam has been learning to mix music. We were well on our way to having a little musical band type thing going and that helped ease some tension.
"Let's address the elephant in the room," I tried to look serious as I stared down Eliza and hide my smirk, "What unfortunate circumstances led to you being involved with this bodgy man?"
They looked at each other to both confirm what had just been asked and how they were to answer, "Well, we are in the same English class," Sam began before being cut off.
"I asked her, not you, you arse." A finger was put against Sam's mouth to shut him up as I looked back at Eliza.
And that much was true. They had met in an English class towards the beginning of our semester. The adorable part was finding out she had been the one to ask him out after weeks of side glances and hurried attempts to look cool and aloof. Meeting Eliza happened around 2 months ago. I hadn't seen much else of her other than that initial meeting, there were occasional lunches or hangouts with Sam but our schedules mostly didn't match up. The talk about her also trailed off as well, but I figured that was mostly due to settling into the relationship. It never really clicked until now, driving under the starts in Ambiguous Location, USA, that this whole trip might be some sort of unplanned retreat.
Sam wasn't an overtly reactionary kind of guy, but he had his streaks of impulsiveness that he was prone too. I might unfortunately be caught up in one such wave. His expression had seemed to soften in the meantime, teeth slowly unclenching. I could almost hear his jaw creaking like old machinery as he loosened up. Feeling bad about putting him in such unnecessary stress, I was almost content to let it pass and revisit the topic later into our trip. We were both exhausted and it was getting to the point where we'd need a hotel soon. It'd be nice to have a little respite too, a proper place to sleep and all that.
An hour or so more of driving and we had pulled off the highway and into a passable motel. The hotel attendant gave us a look while handing us the keys which of course alerted my "be an asshole" sense and put on my best lisp, making sure to get handsy with Sam, as we made our way to the room. A chance to mess with Sam and an innocent bystander was something I couldn't easily pass up. We made our way inside, belongings tossed aside without a care as Sam flopped down onto a bed, falling asleep almost immediately. I shuffled over to the sink and decided to stare myself down in the mirror.
Sunken eyes, a decent amount of facial scruff, and looking as terrible as I felt, I pushed my hair back out of my face and let out a long sigh. Leaning against the sink as I turned around, Sam looked just as exhausted and terrible. The thing they don't tell you about road trips is how incredibly uncomfortable they are and how that really affects the human body. But I think the real thing affecting us was the emotional weight Sam was carrying and my attempts to help him shoulder it.
"Wait let me guess, you've finally converted to the dark side and fallen madly in love with me?" I replied.
He frowned for a moment, "Come on man, I'm serious this is important to me."
"Well then tell me what it is already mate, you can't keep a man in suspense like this."
"I have a girlfriend," his smile was so wide you could almost count all the teeth.
That announcement was little over 3 months ago now. I don't know if I've ever seen him so excited over something before, it was adorable. Sam proceeded to tell me all the details about this new woman and I didn't even have to ask, not that I wanted to know in the first place but that's beside the point. This description comes entirely from a second hand account given to me by Sam, but for all intents and purposes Eliza, his new girl who happens to be a friend, was 100% American-made good stuff. Apparently she had soft brown hair in a neatly cropped look that ended just below the ears, eyes that were the color of the stars, whatever the hell that means, and I didn't listen much past the description of the face. I wasn't really listening at all, but humoring Sam.
"Glenn, I'd like you to finally meet Eliza." We both shared a sheepish smile, handshake, and 'nice to meet you' before sitting down to lunch with Sam.
The first few moments were awkward and not necessarily tense, but there was something in the air between everyone. It was nothing sinister, just the natural outcome of three people meeting up and not fully knowing someone in the group. We tried some small talk, I found out she is majoring in Music, she found out I play guitar, we both found out apparently Sam has been learning to mix music. We were well on our way to having a little musical band type thing going and that helped ease some tension.
"Let's address the elephant in the room," I tried to look serious as I stared down Eliza and hide my smirk, "What unfortunate circumstances led to you being involved with this bodgy man?"
They looked at each other to both confirm what had just been asked and how they were to answer, "Well, we are in the same English class," Sam began before being cut off.
"I asked her, not you, you arse." A finger was put against Sam's mouth to shut him up as I looked back at Eliza.
And that much was true. They had met in an English class towards the beginning of our semester. The adorable part was finding out she had been the one to ask him out after weeks of side glances and hurried attempts to look cool and aloof. Meeting Eliza happened around 2 months ago. I hadn't seen much else of her other than that initial meeting, there were occasional lunches or hangouts with Sam but our schedules mostly didn't match up. The talk about her also trailed off as well, but I figured that was mostly due to settling into the relationship. It never really clicked until now, driving under the starts in Ambiguous Location, USA, that this whole trip might be some sort of unplanned retreat.
Sam wasn't an overtly reactionary kind of guy, but he had his streaks of impulsiveness that he was prone too. I might unfortunately be caught up in one such wave. His expression had seemed to soften in the meantime, teeth slowly unclenching. I could almost hear his jaw creaking like old machinery as he loosened up. Feeling bad about putting him in such unnecessary stress, I was almost content to let it pass and revisit the topic later into our trip. We were both exhausted and it was getting to the point where we'd need a hotel soon. It'd be nice to have a little respite too, a proper place to sleep and all that.
An hour or so more of driving and we had pulled off the highway and into a passable motel. The hotel attendant gave us a look while handing us the keys which of course alerted my "be an asshole" sense and put on my best lisp, making sure to get handsy with Sam, as we made our way to the room. A chance to mess with Sam and an innocent bystander was something I couldn't easily pass up. We made our way inside, belongings tossed aside without a care as Sam flopped down onto a bed, falling asleep almost immediately. I shuffled over to the sink and decided to stare myself down in the mirror.
Sunken eyes, a decent amount of facial scruff, and looking as terrible as I felt, I pushed my hair back out of my face and let out a long sigh. Leaning against the sink as I turned around, Sam looked just as exhausted and terrible. The thing they don't tell you about road trips is how incredibly uncomfortable they are and how that really affects the human body. But I think the real thing affecting us was the emotional weight Sam was carrying and my attempts to help him shoulder it.
Friday, May 22, 2015
Énouement: Chapter 2
The sound of tires against gravel alerted me to the fact that we were pulling over, but my body physically wouldn't move or wake up and I figured why fight against that? I could hear the clinking of gas pumps and whatever is on the current Top 40 softly playing over the outside speakers. Several minutes passed before the noise and odd sense that someone was going to just steal the car and I didn't want to be in it when it happened were enough to wake me up and get my body moving outside the car.
Joints popped and cracked at a seemingly unholy rate across my body. As comfortable as the car was apparently that sleeping position isn't the best. I glanced around with no idea in hell where we were, I didn't do much travelling which wasn't an asset to my navigational skills, but there were also no discerning markings in the middle of Where-ever-the-hell-we-are, USA. Standing outside trying to discern our location was pointless and thus began the begrudging walk inside, hands shoved deeply into my zip-up's pockets.
A nice breeze was enough to tousle my hair, requiring manual repair as I hunted down Sam. Upon finding him I lazily ran my chest into the side of his body like a drunk ram trying to fight a wall. As much harm as it might bring to us, after I straightened back up and stared down the side of his face, the interrogation had to begin.
"Well we are a good," a quick pause to check my watch, "Six hours into...whatever the hell it is we are doing, so that begs the question. What the hell are we doing?"
"Adventuring..." his response was non-nonchalant with a tinge of terseness as he moved down the aisle searching for his breakfast.
"Mate, don't bullshit me. No one wakes up their friend who lives across campus at 2 AM on a lark." I continued after him, but only got a shrug in response.
The silence continued for a moment before I saw Sam reaching for a breakfast burrito, "Put that down!" I slapped his wrist giving him the scolding look of a mother, "If I allowed you to eat that it would be a greater offense than you pulling this stunt on me."
He looked like a puppy getting yelled at and reluctantly moved over to grab a cereal bar, looking in my direction for approval. I gave it begrudgingly. Answers had yet to come, but I just followed him as I grabbed a few things for myself. It was hard to find anything particularly fulfilling for a gas station breakfast, but we made do and were soon enough back on our way.
I leaned the seat back again and hung my feet outside the window. Wherever we were it was beautiful: blue skies passed against green trees creating a harsh line dividing the earth and sky. It was thousands of miles from my home, Australia not Pennsylvania, yet I was reminded slightly of it. Of course, it's a lot greener out here, but something about the air smelled familiar. It's hard to describe the feeling. Sam didn't seem to be taking it in as well as I was though, still white-knuckled and staring forward,
I wanted to let the silence linger for awhile hoping that maybe he'd be the first to break and begin pouring out all the details of this trip and finally tell me why we had departed. It might not be such a big secret, but I am of a much weaker will than Sam and he won out. Silence is not my friend and I felt the need to break it, however, it was also useless to try and make small talk. Ingenuity would be key to crack this egg, I'd need help.
If words wouldn't work, music might. Reaching back, I grabbed the guitar and took a few moments to tune it, all the while looking over at Sam with a smug grin on my face. I went with If It Means A Lot To You by A Day To Remember, a favorite of his, and a few strums in I thought Sam might just join in right then and save me the work. When that failed, in the hopes of comedy, I tried singing the female vocalist's part in a higher voice.
Joints popped and cracked at a seemingly unholy rate across my body. As comfortable as the car was apparently that sleeping position isn't the best. I glanced around with no idea in hell where we were, I didn't do much travelling which wasn't an asset to my navigational skills, but there were also no discerning markings in the middle of Where-ever-the-hell-we-are, USA. Standing outside trying to discern our location was pointless and thus began the begrudging walk inside, hands shoved deeply into my zip-up's pockets.
A nice breeze was enough to tousle my hair, requiring manual repair as I hunted down Sam. Upon finding him I lazily ran my chest into the side of his body like a drunk ram trying to fight a wall. As much harm as it might bring to us, after I straightened back up and stared down the side of his face, the interrogation had to begin.
"Well we are a good," a quick pause to check my watch, "Six hours into...whatever the hell it is we are doing, so that begs the question. What the hell are we doing?"
"Adventuring..." his response was non-nonchalant with a tinge of terseness as he moved down the aisle searching for his breakfast.
"Mate, don't bullshit me. No one wakes up their friend who lives across campus at 2 AM on a lark." I continued after him, but only got a shrug in response.
The silence continued for a moment before I saw Sam reaching for a breakfast burrito, "Put that down!" I slapped his wrist giving him the scolding look of a mother, "If I allowed you to eat that it would be a greater offense than you pulling this stunt on me."
He looked like a puppy getting yelled at and reluctantly moved over to grab a cereal bar, looking in my direction for approval. I gave it begrudgingly. Answers had yet to come, but I just followed him as I grabbed a few things for myself. It was hard to find anything particularly fulfilling for a gas station breakfast, but we made do and were soon enough back on our way.
I leaned the seat back again and hung my feet outside the window. Wherever we were it was beautiful: blue skies passed against green trees creating a harsh line dividing the earth and sky. It was thousands of miles from my home, Australia not Pennsylvania, yet I was reminded slightly of it. Of course, it's a lot greener out here, but something about the air smelled familiar. It's hard to describe the feeling. Sam didn't seem to be taking it in as well as I was though, still white-knuckled and staring forward,
I wanted to let the silence linger for awhile hoping that maybe he'd be the first to break and begin pouring out all the details of this trip and finally tell me why we had departed. It might not be such a big secret, but I am of a much weaker will than Sam and he won out. Silence is not my friend and I felt the need to break it, however, it was also useless to try and make small talk. Ingenuity would be key to crack this egg, I'd need help.
If words wouldn't work, music might. Reaching back, I grabbed the guitar and took a few moments to tune it, all the while looking over at Sam with a smug grin on my face. I went with If It Means A Lot To You by A Day To Remember, a favorite of his, and a few strums in I thought Sam might just join in right then and save me the work. When that failed, in the hopes of comedy, I tried singing the female vocalist's part in a higher voice.
And hey sweetie,
Well I need you here tonight,
And I know that you don't wanna be leaving me
Yeah, you want it, but I can't help it.
I just feel complete when you're by my side,
But I know you can't come home till they're singing
Instead of joining in with the traditional 'La, la la la, la la la' refrain Sam remained quiet, with teeth clenched. It almost looked like he was about to shatter them from sheer pressure. The strumming slowly died down as the realization came that he wasn't going to join in. A decrease in strumming seemed to match up with a decrease in teeth clenching.
"Sam..." I began slowly, "Why are we making this road trip?"
"Because," there was only a small pause between the start and follow-up of his answer but it felt like an eternity, "I just need some answers."
Don't we all....I let the thought trail off in my head as I looked out the window. There would be no follow-up to any other questions, but there's been some progress. It's a small victory, but one I'll have to take for now.
Saturday, May 9, 2015
Énouement: 1
Almost everyone has a best friend, the type of person you'd go to bat for and knows a lot more about you than you probably care to admit. The person who's the first to comfort you when you're said and the one to help you up when you fall, even if they laugh while doing so. Samuel Beckett is that person for me, however, after being woken up by three very loud knocks on my dorm room door at roughly 2:15 AM all of those feelings melted away and were replaced with an intense desire to punch him in his stupid face.
"Glenn, wake up! WAKE UP!" his voice was usually actually kind of soothing, one of those even toned news caster voices, but at this time it felt more like Danny Devito arguing with an alley cat.
"For Christ's sakes, mate. The hell are you on about?" I responded, pulling myself out of the bed. Putting on pants was a waste of time, Sam had seen more of me than some ex-girlfriends, boxers were enough to cover my delicates as it were.
"We gotta go man, things are happening, things are moving, things are things. Let's go!" Swinging open the door as he rambled on I was a bit stunned both by his nonsense words and his current accouterments: 2 dufflebags, one empty one full, a backpack, his guitar, a bag of assorted food, and an incredibly frantic look on his face. "Come on let's get moving, you gotta pack." He said to clear up the silence, tossing the empty bag in my face and barging his way through.
"Hold on," I waved my hands in protest, Sam looked up at me through his greyish eyes and glasses like a small child about to be reprimanded, "I need some back story here. What the hell is going on?"
Sam looked blank for a second before he shrugged and grabbed the bag back from my hands, "Road trip." He quipped and began packing my things for me.
I didn't do much to resist at that point, it took a bit of working to get anything from the kid and by now it was just easier to pack my stuff. Normally, I might actually try to talk him out of something like this but it was Memorial Day weekend meaning we had an extra day off so whatever, might as well go dick around for a few days. So, after 30 minutes of packing "only the bare essentials", even though Wonderwall got to pack his guitar, we were out the door.
The fact that Sam drives a nice luxury sedan, he has very nice parents, made the decision to leave a bit easier. If we were driving my 'barely qualifies as a car' car it might be a different story. We quickly tossed our stuff into the back and I climbed into the passenger seat reclining it as far back as it went.
"Hey Glenn-" Sam started before being cut off.
"Nope," I responded, "You wake me up at 2 AM which means I am entitled to a good, quiet nap. A'right mate? .....fuckin cunt." I muttered the last part.
I usually try to avoid certain colloquialisms in the States, but since I was woken from my slumber I reacted much like an upset toddler - crankily. The term is either one of endearment or an insult, it all depends on context. However in some special cases, like this moment with Sam, it means both. I know I shouldn't be so mean to a best friend, but I am an Aussie so somethings come across as mean when they aren't meant to be.
Off handed insults aside, it was good to do something spontaneous like this. Life had kind of gotten away from me in the past few weeks between school, work, and people in general. It seemed like things were getting rough for Sam too, even if he tried to hide it. It's a gift and a curse that I'm usually able to key in so well when people are off-balance and that might very well be why we're taking this trip right now. As shit as I am as a human being most of the time, I occasionally make a good sounding board....somehow.
The few times I opened my eyes when shifting positions in the seat I caught a glimpse of Sam and those few moments made it clear I was right that he was wrong. He usually had the hints of a smile somewhere on his face, thinking up jokes or stupid stories something along those lines, but when I looked at him it was a blank slate. Sam's face was completely cold and he was intently focused on the road like he was trying to focus on anything, but what was on his mind. It was weird because usually it was hard to get him to really focus on anything, Sam isn't ADD he's just fascinated by a lot of things and can switch topics easily. So, seeing him so focused on one thing is either really good or really bad. And right now I can't tell which it is and I don't like that at all.
"Glenn, wake up! WAKE UP!" his voice was usually actually kind of soothing, one of those even toned news caster voices, but at this time it felt more like Danny Devito arguing with an alley cat.
"For Christ's sakes, mate. The hell are you on about?" I responded, pulling myself out of the bed. Putting on pants was a waste of time, Sam had seen more of me than some ex-girlfriends, boxers were enough to cover my delicates as it were.
"We gotta go man, things are happening, things are moving, things are things. Let's go!" Swinging open the door as he rambled on I was a bit stunned both by his nonsense words and his current accouterments: 2 dufflebags, one empty one full, a backpack, his guitar, a bag of assorted food, and an incredibly frantic look on his face. "Come on let's get moving, you gotta pack." He said to clear up the silence, tossing the empty bag in my face and barging his way through.
"Hold on," I waved my hands in protest, Sam looked up at me through his greyish eyes and glasses like a small child about to be reprimanded, "I need some back story here. What the hell is going on?"
Sam looked blank for a second before he shrugged and grabbed the bag back from my hands, "Road trip." He quipped and began packing my things for me.
I didn't do much to resist at that point, it took a bit of working to get anything from the kid and by now it was just easier to pack my stuff. Normally, I might actually try to talk him out of something like this but it was Memorial Day weekend meaning we had an extra day off so whatever, might as well go dick around for a few days. So, after 30 minutes of packing "only the bare essentials", even though Wonderwall got to pack his guitar, we were out the door.
The fact that Sam drives a nice luxury sedan, he has very nice parents, made the decision to leave a bit easier. If we were driving my 'barely qualifies as a car' car it might be a different story. We quickly tossed our stuff into the back and I climbed into the passenger seat reclining it as far back as it went.
"Hey Glenn-" Sam started before being cut off.
"Nope," I responded, "You wake me up at 2 AM which means I am entitled to a good, quiet nap. A'right mate? .....fuckin cunt." I muttered the last part.
I usually try to avoid certain colloquialisms in the States, but since I was woken from my slumber I reacted much like an upset toddler - crankily. The term is either one of endearment or an insult, it all depends on context. However in some special cases, like this moment with Sam, it means both. I know I shouldn't be so mean to a best friend, but I am an Aussie so somethings come across as mean when they aren't meant to be.
Off handed insults aside, it was good to do something spontaneous like this. Life had kind of gotten away from me in the past few weeks between school, work, and people in general. It seemed like things were getting rough for Sam too, even if he tried to hide it. It's a gift and a curse that I'm usually able to key in so well when people are off-balance and that might very well be why we're taking this trip right now. As shit as I am as a human being most of the time, I occasionally make a good sounding board....somehow.
The few times I opened my eyes when shifting positions in the seat I caught a glimpse of Sam and those few moments made it clear I was right that he was wrong. He usually had the hints of a smile somewhere on his face, thinking up jokes or stupid stories something along those lines, but when I looked at him it was a blank slate. Sam's face was completely cold and he was intently focused on the road like he was trying to focus on anything, but what was on his mind. It was weird because usually it was hard to get him to really focus on anything, Sam isn't ADD he's just fascinated by a lot of things and can switch topics easily. So, seeing him so focused on one thing is either really good or really bad. And right now I can't tell which it is and I don't like that at all.
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