Windstrewn isn’t really an epiphany. It’s not even a begrudging realization. Rather, I engage it as more a sun-risen acceptance of, and a somewhat selfish surrender to, who I am and what it is I’m supposed to be doing. And not necessarily ‘doing’ in the sense of an actual job or in terms what I can bring, in my spare moments, to the heart-hearth of others (though this is an angle of my endeavor’s light that certainly matters to me). I’ll be honest: Windstrewn is chiefly for me—and posterity. I need to open this door. I’ve had my hand on the knob since childhood. I feel that I’ve lived in the interminable eye of a hurricane all my life. It’s peaceful and still and soundless here, but vast and monstrous torrents of atmosphere have lifted and swept me, almost without self-awareness at times, through years and years of incredibly challenging experiences. I assure anyone who would read on that, in the boundlessly bittersweet and only-Hollywood fashionings of Forrest Gump, I have not had an average or effortless life nor have I consistently commissioned the best navy of decisions in living it. And I’m cool with that; my story has not written me. I am not ruined, but raised by it. And I choose now, in the goldening glint of my very first steps into the middle of my age, to grow and tirelessly search out the gravity of it. I have always loved the art and play and balance of words. I have always loved the release and rediscovery and emotive power of music. I have always stood before the pacing, unpredictable wolf of weariness and flicked berries in his face. I have always chosen to go on, despite the immobilizing crush of the heaviest heartache or the thinning of last hope on the day. I have always recognized, somewhere deep within, at some mysterious and incomprehensible and cloud-veiled depth, that I am but a wheel in a whirlwind; yet, I have also always found a way to trust, despite the stinging drive of rain and the whip of wasted whim, that there are blindingly blue and stormless skies somewhere overhead.
The picture bannering this blog is not of me, but I love it as if it were. I am a single father of three beautiful girls. Trust me: were this a picture of us, one would be wrapped around my right leg like a boa, the second would be leading the way by hand and the third would be telling me I wasn’t holding the umbrella right. Smirks aside, I don’t personally know the man or the boy. But, in the spirit of the spectacle, I know them both intimately well. Indeed, I am both. Surely, on several or more levels, we all are. It is a perfect portrait of imperfect life…and, if you’re paying attention, how we should live it.
My name’s John. I intend to make a rift in the sky and a home here for my heart. You are welcome to come inside for a respite from the howl of wind or—sometimes—to stand with me in its screaming middle.
WINDSTREWN 