The secret moment

When blowing up a balloon, excitement running rampant.

“I can’t wait to play ping-pong with it” she says.

“I’m giving mine to my mother when she picks me up,” another second grader exclaims muttering.

Time goes by blowing, with breathlessness and dizziness defeated by strict perseverance.

Exerted, jaws aching.

Eyes pressurized, like that of the balloons ever expanding.

Both balloons pop.

Faces splashed with its own slobber.

Surprise reflexes immediately all encompassing.

On the verge of tears from freight.

They recollect and acknowledge the other.

They succumb to laughter.

And looking into each others eyes, knowing this is their secret to keep.

 

 

*I would like to acknowledge that the beautiful image is not my own.

Be the hero

The Oracle in The Matrix hands Neo a cookie after insinuating that a decision will be forced upon him. A situation will be imposed on him in which he will need to take action, to make a decision. A decision that will impact upon the outcome of this hero, the outcome of this hero’s world. A decision that extends so much further past the extent of the hero’s insecurities, vulnerabilities and misfortune. A decision that transcends the hero himself.

I sit watching birds fly around me. Contemplating what I’d use wings for if I had them.

Simply put, the hero sacrifices, the hero uses wings to fly towards his demons. Facing the mirror that reflects himself to himself, his purest of adversities and self-doubt. This hero attempts to save Morpheus, regardless of whether he understands and has learned all he could have about the limitless Matrix beforehand.

The hero learns that he is required to act regardless of whether he has the understanding to do so.

The hero learns that understanding the repercussions of any action they take is out of their grasp. Th hero learns that attempting to understand these repercussions leaves an individual hopeless, flailing in a dark void that can only imprison, serving to offer only endless questions to unsolved answers.

In order to live in reality, action needs to be taken. To dissolve fear Neo needed to risk losing against Agent Smith. One needs to risk losing and exposing oneself to further fear. The type of fear that can make you nauseous at the ponder of it. The type if fear that doesn’t ring the doorbell before entering.

Inevitably, there is always a Morpheus that needs to be saved, there are always fears to overcome. Use your wings for heroic purposes.

Living in other peoples insecurities

The boundary where someone finishes and the INFJ begins is often all too misconstrued, blurred. In the mind of the INFJ that is. From an INFJs perspective that is.

Ever wonder why INFJs are some of the best listeners? We absorb the stances that those we share our lives with take, both defensively and offensively. We hold these stances temporarily, putting our feet in the warm, hopefully not sweaty, shoes of those around us. I gravitate toward people that wear Converse for that reason. Walking around in soemone else’s functional, trendy and comfortable Chuck Taylors for quite some time isn’t too much to ask for, is it?

A problem, a conundrum of epic proportions starts here.

I wear Chuck Taylors. See they are often not only the choice of shoe that those closest to me sport but also the shoe I wear habitually. And I am guilty far too often, of wondering just who’s shoes are on my feet. ‘Are these mine or yours?’, my right brain asks my left.

In friendships, in family and in most occurrences with intimate relationships, the boundary between myself and those that matter has dissolved. The drawbridge is down, the crocodiles in their moat have been fed and the knights in the castle are on lunch break, swords in a pile, leaning against the wall on the far side of the mess hall. Whatever walks across that drawbridge becomes my problem, and not only a problem, a big problem.

I still have a ways to go. I still have a ways to go to understanding people, people’s natures, my own vulnerability.

My castle is strong, my fortress is sturdy. After all this time, I will say it feels cold, it feels hard, devoid of any softness. The battles that I have invited in have torn the place to ribbons overtime. The knights I have lost within my own hallways have dripped off the walls, ponding in places only dust should gather.

Its about time this INFJ cleans up. Buries the bodies, scrubs the floors, mans the towers with lookouts and readies the swords in sheath. Always, this castles drawbridge will remain down, for those who have the depth of personality and bravery to walk inches away from snapping crocodilian jaws. Those who value me. Those who are willing to put their value on the line to understand me and the sacrifice of mine.

A queen will come by one cold afternoon requiring respite, walking within, encapsulated. She will envision my hallways filled with her art, kitchen filled with her favorite ingredients, wardrobe filled with her clothing. She will sit down to share a cup of tea, transfixed with the view, transfixed with the land it overlooks. We will share.

Sharing starts with a cup of tea.

 

 

A sun soaked Saturday morning

On bed, eyes shut.

Warmth delivering tingles to my face and arms.

Clear white light shining through closed eyelids.

 

Open the window.

The birds outside sing for me, communicating.

Their chirps and tweets offer a complimentary twist to the already soothing melody heard from the lounge.

Ada from The National, ‘What a song, what a sound!’

 

I think of you.

I think of you next to me.

You are at work.

The significance of a haircut

As a natural neon colored advertising sign, one of those flashing in a sea of neon lights, up in the reaches overlooking metropolitan Japanese and South Korean streets, your hair advertises, compels, encourages or repels. My hair has always served my life with opportunity and complexity you see, a lavish bush I would call it. The type of hairstyle that would have come accompanied with a strategically placed comb, lost in endless curls, and puffed up in humid 1970’s sun.

As a young child between the ages of ten and sixteen, this fro was used as a perfect distraction, an opportunity to steal from my parents of all people. On a fortnightly basis my mum would hear the same sentence again and again leaving my lips, ‘can i get twenty dollars, I need a trim’. Lest she didn’t hear the scissors snipping in her own bathroom while I had cut my own locks, pocketing and spending the ‘dirty cash’ on essentials all sixteen year old’s need: chocolate milk, petrol, condoms and alcohol. Around this stage of my life, the relationship between my hair and the person who lay behind the hair begun.

Simply, hair allows you to express yourself without others consent. It gives others the opportunity to judge, it encourages judgement. With long hair, I received countless compliments. Some ladies I found out quickly are drawn to curls like a bird to its nest. Young students of mine climbed up my limbs as if they were a trees branches, to simply touch this nest, if only once. To identify yourself and allow others to identify you with wacky skull fur however requires courage and self-expression. Plenty of people will chuckle, smirk or whisper insults. These folk are the individuals that make us stronger, I thank them for their closed mindedness, I thank them for handing over an abundance of feathers to put into my courage and self-expression hat.

Now as a twenty seven year old, this relationship between myself and my hair has matured, it has matured with me, it has matured me. I recently got a haircut. Cut the sides short, while still holding onto those curls on the top that I could never let go of. I am older, I am getting older I now know. This haircut has shown me that much. My hair is getting grey, wow, grey. I am accepting my age, my life, my slow loss of youth, constantly reminded by this recently evolved feature I have acquired.

I like it, truly, I enjoy and feel fortunate to have graying hair. I keep smiling. To simply identify myself with this masculine, maturing symbol of awesomeness. To give others the opportunity to identify me with this masculine, maturing symbol of awesomeness.

I will keep smiling as my hair keeps graying.

In memory of my nephew Kobe

Staining Kobe into my skin.

Showing him the world that could have been.

His eyes transfixed. Glued on the world and growing older by the day.

He will never fade. This is his place to stay.

 

In remembrance, happy new years little man, you are in our hearts, on my flesh.

Being A Dad

Being in my twenty-somethings and having friends falling pregnant, I often wonder. When I become a father, what will being a father entail. This is my attempt to define my imaginings:

 

The time had come, I am a dad. From the first time I saw the porcelain sheen of her forehead, never would I forget. Never would I lose touch with that moment. A man keeps the memories that inherently make him a man, close to his chest. Some would say in his blood. I say in me.

In that moment something bizarre happens. For the first time in any man’s life, whoever it may be. Stuart Green the smiley, charismatic next door neighbor. Martin Luther King and Adolf Hitler. The plumber that you hired, once you realized the blocked sink really was not going to fix itself and might have been a fraction too far outside your skill set to combat. See all of these men, at this exact moment in their existence were greeted, introducing their child, their newborn bundle of joy into this world. We are adults, we knew and damned well expected that our lives would change. But in what ways and by how much?