Tag: looking forward

by jad

Marking Time: 20 Weeks of Gratitude, Week 16

Part 1: Non-Standard Calendar Time has been an interesting medium and muse for this weekly ritual. When I started this, I knew that I’d be making a partner of the unfolding days; I did not have a script nor plan for the whole arc of my gratitude in the first twenty weeks of #TwentyTwenty. I had general bearings, but no clear map—anything more definite would have been a contradiction in terms. So as we begin to crest the horizon and near the last leg of this journey, I’ve become increasingly aware of the regions of time that I’ve lingered in … Continue reading “Marking Time: 20 Weeks of Gratitude, Week 16” →

by jad

New Year’s Eve, 2019

You’re probably sick of my rituals by now, but decades don’t come by every day, and there’s something satisfying about symmetry—it’s almost 2020, and just like in 2010, I’m standing at the threshold of something that feels new and energizing. I’m excited to step into this confluence, but I want to do so with a lot more intention & mindfulness than I ever have before. I’m not usually one for New Year’s Resolutions, but I have some in mind this year. I have goals, but more importantly, I seek an orientation. I want to “face up” to this future; à … Continue reading “New Year’s Eve, 2019” →

by jad

Union: Yes!

If parliamentary procedure can be fun, then tonight was that. Wrote up, put forward and got approved on my very first Robert’s Rules-style resolution for anything ever at the Seattle Transit Riders Union members meeting this eve. Stoked to be finally connecting these dots stretched out across a decade’s worth of stuff and nonsense.

by jad

20+C+M+B+19

This may not be the strangest thing to happen in our building’s very long history in this part of town, but I dare say that it probably stands out. Tonight, our parish priest blessed every room of our tiny apartment with a special prayer based on the function and meaning of that space—yes, including the bathroom. We started by chalking the door: 20 † C † M † B † 19, the year and the letters of “christus mansionem benedicat,” or “may Christ bless this house.” Our home was then sprinkled with holy water from an aspergillum of rosemary. Something … Continue reading “20+C+M+B+19” →

by jad

New Year’s Morning, 2019

“Vibratory atmospheric atoms of the life-principle…Look at the silly men…Where go? What for?—sleep. But this foolish gang was bending on-ward…The rhythm and the IT of our final excited joy in talking and living to the blank tranced end of all innumerable riotous angelic particulars that had been lurking in our souls all our lives…What’s your road, man?” Jack Kerouac, On The Road I start this New Year with lines taken out of pages 152 through 251 of Jack Kerouac’s ‘On The Road.’ I’d scribbled these into the upper-right corner of a page that was otherwise taken up by an anarchist … Continue reading “New Year’s Morning, 2019” →

by jad

Preparing for Takeoff

There’s something that happens just before a dream becomes a plan, or maybe a little bit after that, when a plan is just about to gel into reality but isn’t quite there yet, at that liminal point between the lines of a preflight checklist; something happens akin to stage fright. This is the “dizziness of freedom,” the truly unpleasant kind that reminds one that, just as much as one is free to dream up and shape the arc of their future, one is also very much free to fall short. Waiting around in the liminal place makes everything feel heightened, … Continue reading “Preparing for Takeoff” →