Peace

Sometimes words just don't get the job done.


Watch this with the Full Screen option, trust me.

Kuroshio Sea - 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world - (song is Please don't go by Barcelona) from Jon Rawlinson on Vimeo.

Restless

Silent chaos pushed against every inch of my body. I winced at a pain that was not there. In a daze I found my running clothes and shoes.

Restlessness pummeled my stagnant blue veins with the ferocity of a champion heavyweight. The souls* of my feet left the pavement anxiously. Fresh exhaust from lawn mowers and minivans overtook the heat waves jumping into my nostrils. Trim lawns and the smell of fresh cut grass left a bitter taste in my mouth. I wanted out. It wasn't some cry into the night, "I need to find a road out of the suburbs!". No, this was an unrelenting bar fighter in his drunken state, battering the inner walls of my stomach, building calluses for the next fight.

In my subconscious, I was not tired of my life. I have a strong love for both my family and friends. I do not have a stressful job. I did not hate the streets I lived on. I love to live with a passion that makes me appreciate all that I have. I hold some undeserved God-given knack for finding beauty in any context. I still saw beauty in the 5 sunflowers that managed to break through worn out soil in my backyard. I still saw beauty in the children running in uncontrolled bliss from house to house. I still saw the beauty in the old couples walking at dusk.
But that bar fighter continues his turbulent blows. And I am left wanting to continue running on that path, right on out past the other developments, past the gas stations and trucks stops, past the interstates and rest stops.

I have a reoccurring thought...Where ever I end up, the people and the places will all eventually be the same. It shows up in one part of my mind. This thought does not scare me. In fact, it propels me. It only increases that curious drive inside of me. Another half of me expects everything to be refreshingly different. I have faith in my self that I will never let myself get too comfortable in my surroundings. I have only been idle for two days and already I am ready to jump back in, camera in hand, beads of sweat on my brow.

I push myself harder. My legs take me to a big hill on the road and I begin to run faster. My mind shifts from the pavement to the sky. Abba, Father, God, make me dismiss thoughts of stopping at the halfway point, make me run far past the top of the hill. Be in my aching joints, my restless mind, my nervous fingertips, my stagnant blue veins.

I hope that bar fighter never leaves.

Reverie

It begins on the cusp of a dream.
I am running from something, through an open field on a paisley carpet. I am not scared, I just know that I must run. I am in an empty hallway illuminated by incandescent lights on a sterile tile floor and I dissolve through to the floor below, my father and I watching an HBO TV show in a modest looking hotel room.
I wake up suddenly, in a daze, feeling for the alarm on the other side of the room. It's placed there to insure that I wake up fully as I stumble across the length of the room.
My conscious mind flashes on like a strobe and an image of her is instantly projected on to my eyelids, like a shot, nervous elation filling my stomach.
I snap out of the trance, realizing I must begin the day.
I place my keys by the cracked open window, change into my shorts, lace up my shoes, grab my iPod, and head out the door to the nearest treadmill.
Running is the middle ground between the daze of sleep and the surge of reality.
I am free to think childish selfish thoughts, unfiltered by my half-awake mind. My imagination is running rampant. I fantasize about short film ideas that I excitedly write down once the elapsed time hits 22:02.

As I shower, my mind is finally in its normal state. The disposition of the day has finally began to weigh down on me. I go through the mindless routine of getting ready.

The slam of the door behind me as I leave my room lets me know the day has begun.
Walking from class to class is a transitional period my mind takes full advantage of. Thoughts weave through my brain at blurred speeds. My body merely a vessel for this overbearing wave of rational and irrational thought.

Other times, my mind sits in silence.
The music flowing through my ears suppressing any sort of thought. My eyes are lenses, my mind a camera. I am a documentarian filming day to day life with hopes of capturing something beautiful and real.
I focus in on two people standing to the side a way ahead of me. They are dressed head to toe in black, the cuffs of their pants lay like abandoned parachutes on the cracked pavement. Slipknot on one shirt, black stripes overtaking white stripes on the other.
Before my mind passes some harsh undeserved judgment on both, one of them erupts in laughter.
And at that moment, I realize that we are one in the same person. I am reminded of their humanity by this outburst of human emotion. I couldn't help but smile to myself, sharing in her joy and realizing my foolishness.