Coyote's Wings

Long ago, when all the spirits that we know as animal spoke, and were brothers, Coyote and Eagle were friends, and they would hunt together, Coyote running over the ground and Eagle sighting prey from far up on the winds. Now, Eagle soared over the mountains, and because he was so closed to the Sun, he could be warm even in the winter, because in those days the Sun was very close, and even slept in the mountains at night. But Eagle felt bad for his brother Coyote, who ran over the ground, even in the winter, where the Sun could not reach down through the trees, because of their thick needles and leaves – back then, even the leafy trees grew all year round.

So Eagle said to Coyote, “Brother, aren’t you cold down there, where the Sun cannot reach? You’d better come up here with me, and fly over the trees.”

But Coyote is very proud and stubborn, and he only laughed at Eagle. “I feel just fine, brother! I have thick fur and the cold does not bother me at all.”

Eagle continued to ask his brother, each time they went out hunting, if he would not feel better up on the wind, where it was warm under the Sun. And each time, Coyote would laugh and tell Eagle to focus on his own tasks, and let Coyote worry about the ground – he was not cold, under his thick fur.

One day, Eagle and Coyote were out hunting, and they came across the Heron, who was weeping in his home by the lake, which had not yet frozen over.

“Why are you weeping, Heron?” asked Eagle, as he landed on the tree above. “It is a beautiful day, and there are plenty of fish for both of us.” It was only them, for that moment, as Coyote could not run as fast as Eagle could fly, and he was still catching up.

Heron looked up at Eagle sadly, and said “Oh, Eagle, I am weeping because I cannot catch any fish with these wings!” Back then, Heron had very dark, heavy wings, which could carry him very high but looked out of place against his light body. “They are so heavy and dark that the fish always see my silhouette and scatter before I can get to them! I cannot catch fish anymore, and I am afraid that my family will starve.”

Eagle pondered this for a moment, because he was very wise, and he saw a solution. “Heron,” he said, “What if someone were to take your wings? You could catch fish as the men do, by stabbing with your beak from the shores, and the fish would not see your wings.”

“That is a great idea, Eagle!” Heron was overjoyed, and he did a dance with his wings – the dance that all herons do, now. “But who will you give them to? They are very big and dark, and very powerful.”

“I will give them to Coyote, so that he does not have to run over the cold ground when we are hunting together,” said Eagle.

Heron clapped his beak. “Eagle, are you sure that is a good idea? Coyote can be very foolish, and he might do something stupid with these wings and hurt himself, or you.” But Eagle did not believe him, and as soon as Heron had shrugged off his wings and waded away, Coyote came running up.

“Brother!” he cried, his ears perked. “Why are we all here so still, when the day is beautiful and there is hunting to be done?” He saw the wings then, floating in the water, and stopped short. “What are those there for? Aren’t those Heron’s wings?”

Eagle stretched his own wings and smiled. “Heron doesn’t want his wings anymore,” he said. “They are yours, if you want them.” For he knew that for all Coyote’s pride in his legs and his own warm fur, he was very curious.

Coyote pretended to be disinterested in the wings, but secretly, he was immediately filled with joy at the thought of flying high, and being able to soar with Eagle above the trees. He sniffed at the big, dark wings, and then said “Oh, well, I may as well take them – I wouldn’t want them to go to waste!”

As he put them on, Eagle said from his tree branch, “Just be careful, Coyote. They are very powerful wings, and dangerous if you are not careful with them.”

“I am always careful!” Coyote was never careful, but he thought he was. He immediately took off, flying in circles over the lake and laughing for joy. Eagle was pleased at his brother’s happiness, and they went back to hunting together.

But it had not been very long when Coyote began to try to do tricks, as he had seen Eagle do with his mate. He flew straight downwards, and then straight upwards, and he began to fly with his eyes closed, despite all of Eagle’s warnings. “I am Coyote!” he cried. “I will do tricks that no bird has ever done!” And he continued to fly with his eyes closed, turning around and around.

Eagle cried warnings after him, trying to slow him down, but Coyote continued to fly until he flew straight into the Sun, knocking her out of her path. The bright heat of the Sun singed the wings to the white color they are today, and Sun fled, for she was afraid of Coyote pulling her down to the Earth. As she fled, the trees turned yellow, and then red, as the heat left them, and all their leaves dropped off. Eagle came and pulled Coyote away from the Sun by his wings, almost detaching them, and carried his brother back to land in his claws.

Coyote was still unconscious when Eagle took the wings back off of him and brought them over to Heron, who was happily stabbing his meals in the lake. “Heron,” he said, “You were right. Coyote flew into the Sun with your wings, and damaged them. Do you want them back? They are not so dark anymore, and you will be able to catch fish without scaring them.

And so Heron did his dance with his wings, as all Herons do now, and Eagle went back to hunting on the wind alone, while Coyote went back to running over land. To this day they share their kills, and Coyote runs over the ground, warm in his thick fur, while Eagle soars over the wind, and Eagle does the wise thing and does not offer Coyote power anymore, and Coyote is crazy and cheers Eagle up with his tricks.

It feels too cold to walk outside right now. I don’t know why – it’s only seventeen degrees, I’ve walked in colder. Maybe I don’t want it bad enough, maybe I’ve been sitting here, inert, for too long, maybe it doesn’t matter. It’s cold, and I’m lonely, and Mohan hasn’t talked to me in ages and I haven’t talked to him, but I’ve been hearing the kittens, for whatever that’s worth. Ever heard a cat meow from a few feet behind you, looked around, and seen your own cat sleeping peacefully right under your chair? Or vice versa, sometimes. It’s a little unnerving. It helps that the kittens (I know they must be full grown by now, but I still think of them as The Kittens) have a deeper pitch, and aren’t as vibrato in voice.

Walking home from work today, I had this craving for someone I haven’t seen in a while. I wanted to talk to him, hold his hand, walk together and talk and understand him. I wanted company. Want. I want company. I want someone to hug, and I want someone to talk to and care about and kiss in the dark when we’re alone and it’s the magic of the night that lights up your soul and I want adventure and love, and love, and it… just… hurts.

Damn, I’m whiny this fine evening. That’s why I go walk, when things get lonely. I find things to focus on that aren’t life, and it’s a little easier to take. Ah, well. Took some pictures, and now I’m just going to read Sandman and fall asleep. Maybe things will be better in the morning.

The -real- reason to run away.

I think I need to run away and find the part of me that makes up stories again. Just leave, leave this whole town, house, state, region, life, find some place that’s going to be new and fresh and what I’m looking for. I want to be a storyteller again. Where did my soul go? The sky is grey, featureless, unshining, unshadowed, unsmiling like a blank slate, but I’ve had enough, I’m ready to soar, I’m ready to leave contrails of fire and a comet’s trail and make you think so hard your head explodes. Hell yes.

My best friend gave me an endless scene for Christmas/New Year’s/whatever we’re calling it, she’s Jewish and I’m Christian and our other friend is Agnostic/indescribable, so I’m really unsure, but it hardly matters. I’m ready to dive into another world, make things stop making sense, start letting the world run away with me again. We’ll see.

I’ve been having dreams, by the way. Disturbing dreams. The night before last, I dreamed that my dad gave me a plate of eggs, and I got halfway through and he pointed out that I’d also consumed half a slice of ham, and I was horrified partly because that’s meat, I ate it, why did you give me a plate with meat on it, and partly because I hadn’t even noticed, or maybe my subconscious had and had kept eating anyway, and now I’m freaked out because I don’t know what my subconscious is trying to say, but I woke up with a really gross feeling, like… unclean, and now I want to go vegan more than ever. Last night I dreamed my dad and I had a huge fight about David – this came on the heels of a strange and beautiful dream in which I took this friend to prom, despite her not being bi or anything, and the fact that I not only am straight, but also have never had a crush on her. I drove a Bentley. I don’t know what that means. I also was about as masculine as I’ve ever been, and I don’t know what that means either.

Discovery, and a journey with no destination is still a journey worth making.

Well, I started writing something full of self-pity, and anguish or angst, and this torn, hurt, lost feeling that’s been growing inside of me, like a little jagged sword-blade, slowly ripping the hole wider, little by little as the months pass. That’s a better description than listing the reasons and environmental stress, like the first post did. Why I’m here… well, it matters, but that’s not what it’s about, really. It’s about getting out, or at least living with the world I’m in.

The fact is… mostly, I want to leave. I want to take my guitar, my laptop, and my cat, and just go… away. Somewhere. I can’t – I have no car, no money (at least, not enough to get away), little momentum – just the urge to go. But there I am again, complaining. Basically, today I sang a song for a friend, and he seemed to like it, and he showed me a bunch of cool stuff on the guitar and now I’ve got even more to do to take my mind off of all this crap, so… yeah.

I wrote this walking to see a friend, when I stopped to have a drink at Starbucks: “The impossible things we see by the side of the road – ghosts of fallen leaves, shadows left on the pavement, like a footprint; bubbles rising from the solid ground beneath a puddle; your smile, on a bit of jagged glass, there and gone like a sunbeam’s flash;”

Later I made it into a song.

Impossible things
found by the roadside (wayside?)
starlight, trapped in frost,
all crystal, distant,
cold as the fire that sparked it,
bright as a hole in the sky,
impossible, oh, impossible things
glass, soft as a candle,
shifting in the winds
like a sea of cattails,
singing beneath the streetlights,
oh, impossible, oh—
and a smile in your eyes,
brighter than sun and star and hellfire,
like the rhythm in your voice,
oh, those long days
impossible,
impossible things
we find on our journeys,
impossible things
the gems in the coal mine,
rainclouds in the desert,
oh, impossible—
the songs you sing,
the broken wing of a soaring bird
oh, oh, oh…
impossible things, found by the wayside
impossible, ohhh… impossible

I dunno. Maybe it’s crap. I kinda like it, though, and if I can find a good guitar part, I’ll try and make it a song worth singing.

So I’m still here. There’s still roads I haven’t walked, there’s still trees I haven’t climbed, still trails to hike and paths to take and songs to sing and stories to write and so, so many things to discover. I’m tired of going nowhere. Maybe I’m not looking at this the right way. I can whine and cry about still being in this town, this state, this ugly little nowhere and this house all I want, but there’s so much that I haven’t done, it seems useless to just complain. I think I’ll start taking new roads, when I’m not working. Not really Going Somewhere doesn’t mean I have to be going nowhere.

Because this world is worth it.

This feels ego-centric even as I start to write it, but I think I'll do it anyway.

I pray I never have the sense to bow my head against the wind; I pray for the strength to be able to laugh at myself; I pray that I never lose touch with idealism, and that I always stay grounded in reality.

Yeah, self-centered as hell. But ya know what? I mean it. It's not that I don't want to change, it's that I don't want to be anyone else. I don't want to turn into a bitter, angry person. Or even a bitter happy person, actually, or even a cheerful cynic. I've done that before, and it's not worth it. There's so much out there! There's so much emotion, so much love, so much beauty and art and potential, and I don't want to go through life ignoring it, or worse, mocking it. I -did- the whole "This world sucks, why bother" thing, and then I heard a song, and things changed.

One love, one blood
One life, you got to do what you should.

I was lonely, and angry, and torn up inside, I was laughing at the world and screaming at myself, I was lying awake at night dreaming of an end to all the pain, I couldn't stop moving and I wasn't going anywhere, and then one day I heard a song, and I let the words and the chords sink in, and I almost cried there on the street, walking home in the rain, and I started thinking. And searching, and trying, and caring and now... now I'm awake walking, at night, kneeling in woods and taking streets in the vague hope they won't be dead ends. I'm writing, I'm singing, I'm praying, I'm loving and learning and it still doesn't feel like enough, I still haven't found what I'm looking for--

but it's better than nothing.

Cynicism is worse than nothing. Cynicism is apathy, despair, and... well, apathy and despair under a guise of laughter. I think it's less painful than apathy and despair, but certainly not less destructive. I... rely on it too much, still. It's hard not to, in a way, because it's easier to just laugh at things, to say "I'm above that shit" and stop caring. You care, you open yourself up to hurt.

Anyway.

I want to be restless and wild and passionate, I don't want to settle, I don't want to stop caring, I don't want to stop wanting to fix this world. No, one person can't fix the world, yes, people are constantly trying and there's still tons of shit out there. But you know what? I'd rather go down fighting. I'd rather spend the rest of my life striving and pushing and shouting and caring and hurting than shrug it off, laugh it off, and sit back to watch things fail. I believe this world can be a better place, people can change, and with that in mind I would rather die than sit here and smirk.

This world sucks. Let's do something about it.

Of snow, forgiveness, new beginnings to eternal cycles.

This night, I walked out into the air, clear and cold, and went to a quiet place, a clearing in a wood, covered in snow and quiet. And I knelt, there, and prayed for forgiveness for all I’ve done this year, all I’ve thought, all I’ve felt, all I’ve said with malice in my heart. There’s a lot of it. I prayed to be forgiven for all that I am, underneath the grin and laughter, all that I am instead of what I could, should be. And I said that this year, I will do better. And I meant it, and still do.

And then I stood beneath the lights, walking away from that quiet place, as snow began to fall from the sky in little, whirling, crystals, and I caught them on my sleeve and marveled at their beauty, their crystalline perfection, and I stood with my head thrown back to the sky and watched a dance older than any can say, a new thing each time it begins, and I laughed, and spun, and caught the sweetest of life’s moments one at a time on my tongue.

This is the same planet as it was yesterday, as it always has been, and this sky is the same as it has been, the stars still shine as they have always, the snow still falls the same way, but this is a new snow, it is a new night, it is a new year and a new life, and I am forgiven, and I will start anew.