TRUTH IS

So this morning I woke up to something quite extraordinary. You know the past 24 hours were a bit of an emotional drain on me in a very odd way. It was a time when I found out that someone I respect very highly (and still do) wasn't really respecting what I have put so much time into for the past year or two. That is a hard thing to come to grips with. And yet, this morning, I wake up to my lovely social connection site (FACEBOOK...yep I'm a lover) and I open my email and what do I see....an email from a former student of mine.

Inside the email it was a link to a page of someone at her school (an older teenager) who is doing something to try and make the world a better place. It was kids with postets on their palms and pushing them at the camera. The student with the postet was in the background, sometimes clear and sometimes blurry. You could tell that it was done by a high school student, but I was so amazed that someone was trying so hard to make a difference (and as this student grows older and gets stronger in themselves and what they are doing, will absolutely make a bigger than a school difference.) In the email my former student said to me that she came across this kid in her school who was doing this and it made her think of me immediately and she shared with me the link...It is called TRUTH IS...(See below)

Well, let me tell you that when I read it something popped into my head. I am doing something right! If a student is thinking of me when some teenager is doing something powerful for themselves, well let me tell you that makes me smile. That means that no matter what other people may think, I am doing something right. I have not only motivated kids to try something different, but when someone they know is doing something powerful and impactful, these students are thinking of me (even when they are not my "students" anymore).

That is when I realized something that we all know inside. You have to not let anyone else dictate what you feel about yourself and what you are doing. Sure we say it all the time to people who are going through something similar, but when it is ourselves going through it, well it isn't always the first bit of advice we go to. Sure we will tell others that we believe it and that we are over it because not everyone will like us, but inside it does hurt a bit. Well, this student sent this message at the perfect time.

The truth is, that what we always knew is the truth. Not everyone will like you, but when someone makes an impact on your life, then you need to tell them. You never know what they are going through or what un-special feeling they are having inside at the moment.

The truth is, that for every person who doesn't respect you there is another one who does respect you.

The truth is, one person can make a difference....but you have to actually speak up and tell the person who made one in you.

The truth is, you don't really ever know the reach you have made. So always believe in what you do.

The truth is, we always have great advice to give when other people are going through something. Now we have to believe it when we hear it or go through it.

The truth is, I will doubt myself again. I will feel left out again.

The truth is, I will feel included again. I will no what I'm doing is right again.

The truth is, you should see what teenagers really have the power to do...
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=324632&id=633649007

Thanks, Sara.

GRANDMA'S BOOK

So something happened tonight that is hard to put into words...especially when your blogs are usually about thought you are having randomly. I don't really like sharing emotions through an electronic setting. It just feels so distant, but tonight is clearly going to have to be a lesson to learn in my corner. What do you do when someone you respect very much, is actually doesn't really respect you?

I work in a place where art is of a main concern, and I deal with an art form, that although is more my second favorite form of theater, is one that I'm good at, and is actually the more popular art form. I also have a degree in public relations, so I know how to get people into the seats. But it hurts your heart when you find out that others may not like that you get that much attention. See this all sounds so high school as I am typing it, which is making me think that this is all so high school. So why bother to keep going? So I won't...

But I will talk about jealousy. What a stupid thing to feel most of the times (I'm a firm believer that all emotions have their place in this world.) But most of the time jealousy is just a stupid emotion to feel, because it doesn't lead anywhere. All jealousy does is leads to anger, and the type of anger that isn't a motivating kind.

I have never been the type of person to share my feelings freely. In fact, at first glance people may think of me as just someone who is a bit scary. When they get to know me they find a lot of hidden layers, but I have to say that I'm quite a sentimental person. I respect people so much for what they can do that I cannot, and I'm not the jealous kind. (Oh, my faults come in very different colored packages though....I'm no angel!) However, I don't understand jealousy. I have felt it before, of course, but I discovered really early that it doesn't lead anywhere. You just end up staying in the same place.

Anger can be such a strong motivating force and breeding ground for creativity, but the form of anger that is attached to jealousy is so stagnant. I can't afford myself that time to stay there. Proudly I am 31, but 32 is coming right around the corner (NOT 30!!!!) so I can't be bothered to stay in one emotional state for such a long period of time.

Isn't staying still how generation gaps happen? One generation gets jealous of another generation so they just stay still until the "younger" generation long surpasses them, and then the "older" generation has to catch up. I deal with teenagers all the time, if you look (and you don't have to look too closely) you can actually see the worlds tearing apart at the seams. It is sad.

I had a grandmother who may have passed away at 88, but she was not 88 at all. She knew what she was. There is a great quote I heard on a blog I read of a great friend of mine and she said, in order to be positive you have to accept the reality. The reality my grandmother understood is that she was not 22 anymore, or 33, or 44, or 55, or 66, or 77....she was 88. She understood that and than accepted that fact. Then she proceeded to act like "the young" were supposed to. She was loved by all ages. She never got jealous of people, she was happy for everyone who succeeded, or felt like they succeeded. She was amazing, remarkable and special, and maybe i should take out a chapter of her book.

Jealousy is for the birds...who has the time. Jealousy makes us stand still, and time isn't waiting around for the jealous to catch up....moving on.

POETIC MEMOIRS

I am sitting at Panera Bread right now with my laptop and a stack of papers so high that Wilt Chamberlain would stand on his tippy-toes just to see over them. Something powerful happened to me today, and I don't know where it came from. I have been lamenting my dry spell lately. Everyone says that you need to be sad in order to write. Well, I am not so sure that I would agree with that. You see I grabbed my stack of papers that are filled with ideas on napkins and the openings to poems and just older poems that I just seemed to have forgotten that I ever wrote. Well, some of those poems were from the "sad days." Boy, did I have a few of those. I don't know if maybe I wasn't great at expressing myself, but I was just appalled by those poems. If they were written by somebody else, I probably would have told the poet to "get over it." Hahahaha, but alas, they were me. So, "Jared, get over it!" Nope, instead my motivational force isn't sadness, it is motivation. Whenever I feel like I can take over the world I start getting ideas that I jot down.

You know, when I got back from the gym today I just thought that I would lay on the bed and maybe read. Then I said, you know what I am going to organize my book of work, and then I remembered I had a free smoothie on my Panera card (yes, I have one, don't judge). I came right on up here to the great Panera Bread and sat down and all of a sudden facebook wasn't calling me (for once) what was calling me was my stack of papers. My pages that reminded me of my past, and where I was at a certain point in my life.....these poems are my memoirs. These poems and these ideas have dates attached. I never thought until today that these writings are the history of my life. They show me that I am human, I have written some horrible shit, and I have written some amazing stuff.

I may not be the best, or the most forward thinking individual who ever lived, but I have something to say (and apparently judging from the folder of ideas, a lot that I have left to say that I never bothered to say.) I am someone powerful, and I can be proud of all that I am, and all that I am going to become...whatever that may be.

Maybe the point I am trying to make isn't what I care about. I spend so much time trying to make a point to other people that I stop and I go, "You know what I write for me. I write to make the point to myself." That is who I am. I talk out loud so that I can make sense of what is in my brain. And when my voice is gone, I write to make sense of my brain.

Yes, my dear friend is right in what he once said...."Poetry (or in any writing) isn't to make sense to the reader, is for me to make sense of myself."

DIFFERENT HEIGHTS

Project: Shattered Silence is a group that I started last year with 17 teenagers from all over the Tampa Bay area. The group was designed to help show that the arts are not about being seen the arts are about making sure your message is heard. It was more successful than I could have ever imagined, with two sold out performances, and a possiblity to try and take the show to New York an Off-Broadway. It was exciting on many levels. Therefore, after last year, I was asked to do the project again. This time when I showed up on the first day I was presented with 40 teenagers that were all asking to be a part of this project. I never would have imagined that in one year it would have gained that much steam. However, when the time came to choose the topic and message for this year's show, the same thing started to happen....discussion.

This was the most powerful day of last year's project and this year proved no different. I was in there watching 40 teenagers discuss so vividly, clearly, and no so-clearly in a respectful manner religion, heroes, scolisosis, being gay, and so on. Did they all agree? Absolutely not! They were not all on the same page, and truth be told life is going to change the opinions of most of them. They were speaking from their perspective of the right now. Yet, they were stating their opinions and listening to the others who opposed them in a respectful manner. And they responded to what was being said, so therefore they were listening too. I remain impressed by their inability to not see eye-to-eye, and yet their ability to remain calm when that happens.

Then I thought, this world isn't meant for us to see eye-to-eye. Hell, we are all different heights. We all stand at different levels, even physically....sometimes I can't see eye-to-eye because that is the way my body stands. So if I can't expect to do it physically why would I expect our minds to be able to do it. I mean I don't choose my friends on if I can look at them directly in the eye, why would I choose them based on if our opinions see eye-to-eye. As a matter of my opinion, if we all saw eye-to-eye and agreed all the time how boring of a world this would become. I don't want everyone to agree, what I do want is for people to respectfully acknowledge opinions contrary to their own.

Arguments are an interesting thing, people always tend to get violently involved in them sometimes. We try to yell our point, and talk over each other (myself included at times) in order to get the message into people's heads. Does that ever work in the moment? No it doesn't work ever!

Here is what I believe, I believe that when our minds are changed during an argument it is never over the course of the argument that our point of view is changed. If our minds somehow go through an overhaul at some point, chances are good that it is always after the argument has been completed. That is the time to self-reflect on what was said in the moment. We have allowed ourselves the time to reflect on how we said things, how we acted, or reacted to certain things said.

What is going on with this world when I can get 40 teenagers to get together and calmly acknowledge their differences in opinions, and yet adults are yelling all over this country? How does that happen? How can I get kids who "aren't supposed to know adult things" talk about abortion, or gay rights, politics, or religion.......adults cant even do that and they "are supposed to know about adult things."

Every time I turn around someone is getting on to this younger generation for something they did or said, or didn't do or didn't say.....well here is what people in America are missing.....QUIT TALKING AND START LISTENING!!!! People want to talk. People in America want to talk and be heard by politicians, not be talked to them. Teenagers want to talk and be heard by adults, not listen to their lectures about what they should be doing. Workers want to talk and be heard by administration, and not just told what must be done first. When are people going to realize that we are more apt to be paid attention to when we are paying attention?

So here is my lesson, learn from the teenagers, they are ready to talk....I got news for you...they have started talking already....you listening? If not, be prepared to be left behind....they end up taking over.

WEATHERED GRAVESTONES

So about a week ago I was in Boston, Mass. This would be my first time ever visiting the city. So I had to do the tourist-y stuff. I needed to see Fenway (well, maybe next time.) I had to see the Cheers restaurant (and would you believe that everybody knew my name?) I wanted to walk the freedom trail (a bit ambitious, but we did walk a lot of it.) I wanted to see the Maparium (hello, I was inside of a three-story glass globe.) And I wanted to see the gravesite of Paul Revere. HOLY ONE IF BY LAND AND TWO IF BY SEA BATMAN! This got me.

His gravesite sits among a sea of tombstones, and you have to search pretty hard for it. You would think it would be a huge tombstone stating who this is and that he is buried in this spot. It is a tiny tombstone. In fact, you would have no idea that anyone of any importance was lying in this spot. Just a bevy of pebbles surrounding a smoothed over rock with two words carved on it…Paul Revere.

I will gladly take this moment to come clean with my unhealthy obsession with cemeteries. I have no idea why I like them (well I like them during the day time.) I just do. I think cemeteries are beautiful. Maybe because despite that we think they may be grim, it is a place where people go to honor ones that have died. I also like the juxtaposition of people who go there realizing that we have to honor life, but we do this by recognizing death. I also just loved the fact that people who have passed on can announce that they were here - that they had a place in this world.

However, this cemetery in Boston showed me something completely different. There were tombstones that were clearly marked in the 16 or 1700’s. I was astounded that I was looking at something from that time period. (Let’s face it you don’t get a lot of that in many parts of this country.) However, as I was going in and out of the headstone rows (and irritating a few people as to how someone can take that many pictures of a cemetery) I noticed something strange…the gravestones had been weathered (as things tend to do when being left outside for 300 years.) However, something struck me on this particular day.

You see the headstones only had small amounts of information on them. On the newer ones (and by newer I mean like 1800’s) you could make out the name and the year they died, and if you squinted you could also make out their quote they left to be remembered by. However, for most of the gravestones, you couldn’t make out a single thing. They had been beaten by rain, and snow, and sleet, and wind. Time had showed these gravestones who the boss was. Time had washed away any indication of what was there. All that remained was a round headstone marking that underneath this rock is…was a body.

This got me to thinking about life (as for me that is what gravesites tend to do.) Eventually we all pass on. Eventually Time will show all of us who is the master. We are forgotten. In time. Even something as powerful as a rock or stone gets weathered down to a smooth surface. All that remains is a rock that shows that someone did exist on this earth.

I don’t say this to be macabre or to be negative, because I don’t think of it as a negative. I think it is a very positive thing at which to look. Life is going by, we are getting older with every passing day. Time is already starting to show us that it is going to move on (maybe the only thing that moves on despite all human efforts.) Why waste that time? We may want to be remembered (we all do) but why spend all of that life just trying to be remembered. Why not just do it because we believe personally in what we are doing. Stand up for things. Fight for a better world. Fight for what you believe in. Who knows maybe some of these empty gravesites are soldiers who fought for what they believed in? I don’t know. Soldiers who did what they had to do for the good of what they believed in. They were interested in the present and fought for a future where their names wouldn’t be remembered. That is such a powerful thought to me. That someone would fight for a greater good and not just to be remembered.

Or maybe these gravestones are mothers or daughters who stood behind while their fathers and husbands went to war to make sure that life was as good as it could be for their children. Once again, fighting in the present for a future they didn’t know about and not to be remembered. I think what I’m trying to say is that it doesn’t matter if you are remembered, what matters is that while you have that time, before Time takes it from you, maybe you should go off and do everything that you believe in…whether that is fighting for a cause, or seeing Europe.

I don’t know if there is only one life or not. I like to think there is, but truth be told, only certain people can tell you for a fact if that is the case, and they ain’t talking.

I guess the lesson I am choosing to learn from weathered gravestones is that life is short, Time marches on and forgets everyone, so make the most of the seconds you have.

FEATHERS IN THE GRASS

So after wasting getting up at 5:15 and "wasting" an hour and a half on the internet i decided to spend no more time stressing over the oil spill for once, and take an hour at the gym to send my energies elsewhere for a minute. As I was walking to the gym I noticed something, there was this huge gorgeous feather just lying on the grass. It also had freshly fallen from a bird, you could tell by how clean it was and untouched.

This feather got me thinking about myself when I was a child and how if I ever saw a feather on the grass i would have picked it up in a heartbeat. It wouldn't have mattered if it was freshly removed or not. And then I would play with that feather, and keep it in my room as if it was the most precious object I have ever found. (It was my gold. It was my oil. It was my Dolce & Gabana cologne. Hello?)

This morning I walked over to pick it up, but then thought, "What is the point in picking up the feather? What would I even do with it?" And then I continued my walk to the gym. It was on the rest of the walk that I thought, "Why wouldn't I pick it up? If I was a child that feather most assuredly would not still be there even if I was heading to the zoo or an amusement park. Nothing would have stopped me from picking up that feather."

What happens to us as we get older that we start forgetting those amazing childhood moments? I am sure that if I sat and contemplated it I could come up with so many more amazing and interesting ways to keep and preserve that feather than a six-year-old could. However, I decided I didn't want to use my brain that way anymore. I believe, at this moment while I am typing this, what an awful decision that was to just leave that feather on the grass.

A feather is special. A feather to me symbolizes strength, wisdom, flight, heights, elegance, beauty, and perseverance. That is what a feather indicates if I sit and dream about it. However, I decided to disregard all of that beauty and pass up the feather. I don't know if a six-year-old would have thought of any of those things, and yet they would respect that feather more than this 30-ahem-something would. Maybe a six-year-old knows all along how beautiful and magical a feather can be. Maybe the six-year-old just doesn't have the words yet to express the intelligence they possess.

So I want to make a vow (and who cares that it took me all these words to say this), but I will never pass up another feather on the grass again. I am going to respect that what that is on the grass is not just a feather, but a bit of childhood brilliance. I don't think that childhood brilliance should be left sitting on the grass.

ALICE CARTER - CALL THEM BY NAME

So not to start this blog off on a depressing note, but last night someone who is very dear to me in my life passed away from cancer. Although I have not spoken to this woman in probably five years (and not for any reason) she has been a staple on my life. She has been in my life since I was a child growing up in Little Rock, Arkansas.

When I first heard about what happened (through a text from my mother) I immediately told my mom that I am moved to write a blog about it. However, I told my mother that I wouldn't mention her by name. I began to think about that that statement. I have to mention her by name.

THIS WOMAN WAS ALICE CARTER - AND SHE WAS REMARKABLE!!!

Why wouldn't I mention her by name? Alice Carter is a woman who is such an important part of my childhood memories. Alice Carter gave me my very first job ever (outside of my father). I remember rolling papers for the newspaper route that she had. I remember Alice Carter ordering pizzas and sodas, and my brother and I (along with all of her kids) staying up to roll papers, eat pizza, and play video games. I even remember the apartment she lived in before she moved out of the city into a fancy trailer outside the city limits. I remember going over to see her before moving to Florida, and I remember advancing from video games to a board game. (Although I don't remember which one.)

Alice Carter always wore a bandanna, I remember that. Alice Carter always was the nicest person and cared for people, but she was especially kind to my brother and I. I remember that as the names from people from my childhood come and go, I remember the name Alice Carter. I remember all of her kids, even though we are more facebook buddies than actual day-to-day friends (I know you are reading this Alicia and Michelle...thanks for reading.) I remember that Alice Carter and her kids and I always had a good time when we were together, even though no money was spent.

I figure this...I HAVE to mention her name. Most of you guys reading this don't even know who Alice Carter is, maybe you never will. But I know that I have memories attached with Alice Carter that will be lost forever if I don't mention them. I know that the name Alice Carter will be lost if I don't tell you her name and who she was. I know that the spirit of Alice Carter (her energy, her drive, her kindness, her generosity) will only live on if I explain how wonderful it was?

I think the time has come to mention people by name. The people that are in our memories that connect with great and good thoughts should be mentioned by their given name. That is how we identify them. That is what I think we all should do; if we want them to be lost, then don't even talk about them. However, if we want to tell others about the great nostalgia they bring up (or if we just want to keep them as a forefront in our minds) then we need to mention these special people by their name.

I won't hide Alice Carter as a blog. She is special to me and will now and always be special to me. My childhood cannot be replaced, and she was part of making mine a memorable one. Thank you Alice Carter; Love you and miss you.