Shuffle Play.

"I have seen so much beauty it could make you cry"
You can say that again.
Sitting across from the Hudson for 5 hours will fill you
With inescapable awe
Humbled understanding
That life beyond my little sphere does indeed thrive
All the shrubs and trees
Prostrate towards Heaven
Soaking in our sun
Drinking our water

"Why are you shaking like a leaf / Come on, come talk to me"
If I have any takeaway from this life
To pass on to anyone who will listen
It's that silence, walls, refusal to speak
Are the absolute worst methods for all things
They are the source of all deep feuds
All estrangements
We need not all always stay in contact
But you simply should not one day decide to turn someone off
It serves no one, and only leads to deep wounds
That only build off themselves, compounding

"It's gonna be a big time in the Jungle"
My Father was drafted for Vietnam
But never had to serve
His generation was the last
To embrace the cause of civic duty
Of real democratic citizenship
And now he, in his illness and new phase in life
Is a shell of the man I knew as a child
His coldness replaced now with a more contemplative nature
I can only pray his body continues to hold up

"Believing I had supernatural powers, I slammed into a brick wall"
Two weeks ago, I thought I was perhaps turning a corner
With my heart, with my head
That for once 'things were finally looking up for ole Liz Lemon'
I don't really understand why it is always so difficult to connect with someone
Or why these matters are such deeply guarded secrets
Do we all have the pick of the C-team
Since A and B-rated people found each other?
And when did I make the C-team?

"I was playing my guitar, lying underneath the stars, thanking the Lord for my fingers"
I fear what my life will be like when I don't sing for my supper
When the mornings are early, and consistent
I miss playing guitar in Spain
Amongst my Brothers and Sisters
The yellow Spanish sunlight draping us all
In a profoundness, a gravitas to all our actions
The starlight, a chance to revisit imagination
Form our own Constellations
Our our mythology
In my sky, Cassiopeia sits right-side up
And her chair is more ornate.
We filled the Spanish sky with our deepest hopes
We shaped them into beasts, Great Men, Greater Women
Told their stories
Until it was time to sleep, time to dream
And walk the next day.

"As we beg and steal and borrow, life is hit or miss, and this:
I hope, I think, I know"
I hope that the next ten years will bring the end to much pain in my family
That we can move forward with the understanding
That the shortness of this life
And it's precious gift overall
Means that we simply "get on with it" with each other
There is no place for blocking one out.
You simply cannot, must not.
I think I will spend the next 4 months working hard
To get into the best shape of my entire life
And run my ass off
Run my heart out
Run until they tell me to stop running
As Jesse put it
I know that my life continues to be guided by grace
And I will work hard to maintain it.
I know that only hard-working people ever really "get" lucky.

"What a joy to walk in this pilgrim way, leaning on the Everlasting Arms"
I walk in stride with my former self of a year ago
Step-in-step with he who walks the Camino on a loop.
You never see the transformation as you monitor by the minute
And yet you know that you walk into the Square in Santiago
Utterly Transformed.
I cannot live the same way as before.
I am a different soul, manifest through my mind, my body
Every day I could weep on account of the joy I received in those 4 weeks in Spain
And each day I draw from that well as I take on new challenges
My Father's illness
My family's division
My obesity
My heart
You walk two paths, always.
The spiritual one, where you are drawn close to the source of all
And the physical, where you filter the beauty you experience
Into energy, into rocket boost,
Into courage

From my book: "ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee"
My connections to all things, all sentient beings, is very clear
And my reliance on the great system of life is so apparent
The assumption that the sun rises tomorrow,
That so many other things I take for granted never notice
Is The Great Lesson
So if I am connected to all things, and when tragedy pings another
It therefore pings me,
Then how else could I live than for my brother and sister?
And how could the pursuit of riches, fine goods
Of impermanent desires, fickle conquests
Involving libido, pride, or acquisition
Ever be seen as anything else but a convenient waste
And ignorance of the true issue at hand.
The bell tolls for all of us, and someday it will toll in a much more tangible way
For me, for my divided family
My frail Father
For my nation
All of us
And if that end befalls us all
We must spend what time is given to us
Before that unavoidable tragedy and fall
Living together
Walking in communion
Creating our own Skies
Creating unity
So that there need not be any more
Lonely birthdays
Awkward Christmases
Forgotten Easters
Or days spent simply Dealing.

What, I ask,

On this beautiful,

Transcendent

Ineclipsible 

(Which I'm pretty sure is not a word)

Sunday afternoon,

What in the vast,

Uncompromising,

Unstable

Yet imperfectly perfect

Spinning World

Are we waiting for?

I realized today

That we are all floating 

Amidst Billions of Light Years of space time

And in this isolation

Or, despite this isolation,

We still have a way

To have each other. 

What, in this cynical world

Of meteoric rises and untimely deaths,

Of gradual ascents and patterned declines,

Of Manifest Destiny,

Where you Choose Your Own Adventure,

Are we waiting for?

To the woman with Red Curls

Staring at her own Reflection Pool

Resisting the urge to go asunder,

I remind you there exists

In all things not death or taxes

A Choice,

For fulfillment over fear

A happiness in choosing to start living 

The very things that make your heart

Practically leap out of your chest 

The things that fill you up

And cause the physical reaction:

The churning, the raised brow,

The blue blurry-eyed realization

That life is both fleeting and forever

In a single moment;

The fiction and truth merged into one. 

You can write your own meaningful narrative

And to the woman with Red Curls

Her own author of happiness,

Of fulfillment

Of success,

Knowing what and who lay at your feet,

What are we waiting for?

On William Shakespeare's 450th Birthday

Today Shakespeare was born 450 years ago.  It is also a special day in my life, as I remember my completion of the Camino de Santiago in 2013 today.

I wrote my song, "Ophelia" with the imagery of Hamlet and Ophelia from Shakespeare's play.  Take a second to give it a listen, and think of how The Bard has influenced your life.

Listen to "Ophelia" HERE

"Ophelia" by John Schmitt

Hamlet to Ophelia, "Adieu, love, adieu."
Echoes through millennia
"Adieu, love, adieu."

We play these plays, and say these parts
While we dance through all these issues in the dark
Feigning madness from the start
As we dance through all these issues in the dark

Hamlet to Ophelia, "Adieu, love, adieu."
Echoes through millennia
"Adieu, love, adieu."

I just can't take the stage and say these parts
While we dance through all these issues in the dark
Feigning madness from the start
We dance through all these issues in the dark

Because Kings will kill Kings
And marry their Queens
But love always seems
to be lost on me.

And so to my Ophelia, "adieu, love, adieu."
It echoes through my heart and lungs
"Adieu, love adieu"

Adieu, love, adieu, love love love love love

So Ophelia stepped out into the Great Divide
And decided she'd try to walk on water
Because Kings will kill Kings
And marry their Queens
But love always seems
To be lost on me
Oh, you're lost on me.

Project - Midnight Train to Georgia

The city ate her up and spit her back out 

And she waved her white flag at me, seething

She's leaving the left coast, limping and bleeding

She's leaving without ever really succeeding. 

She's wants to root near her roots

Make home near her home

She's leaving and she wants me to follow her down 

There's always another adventure to see

Another request being made of me

A time and a place she needs me to be

Chasing the girl that's chasing the dream

So here we go again

I'm buying in with money I would never spend 

Leaping without looking at the water's edge

We held a yard sale to sell off some stuff

We put our lives on the lawn 'til I'd had enough

These things still matter, so selling bits of us is tough

Time has taught me that this life is fleeting

And I'm happiest when I'm not kicking and screaming

So as the iPod on shuffle plays "Don't Stop Believing," I weep. 

Remembering Dee Dee and Donald

To me, it is Saint Patrick's Day, not Paddy's Day.  There is no green beer, Guinness, "Car Bomb" shots, green outfits with stupid sayings on them.  There is no fake jig dancing, hopping up and down and kicking, pretending to replicate the ancient skill of folk dancers.  

I sing songs this time of year about hunger strikes, about the the occupation of a people by another people, wrongful imprisoning, about gruesome war crimes, about terrorism, and about the love between families, between men and women, between men and God.  I sing songs about celebration, such jubilant celebration that men whimsically drank far too much and celebrated, because the stakes were so high and they had won.

Monday is about remembering.  It's for Delia Neylan Schmitt, my late grandmother, who was so proud to be descended from Ireland, and passed that nationalism onto her children, and her children's children.  It's about Donald Staszczyk, born on St. Patrick's Day, my grandfather, whose legacy and life looms ever larger in my own.  The loss of them both this time of year is palpable.  I can taste it, smell it.  

Saint Patrick's Day is solemn; it really is a high holy day.  On Monday I sing songs for men and women I have never met, but who stood up to oppression, fought and died for something greater than themselves, or just decided that they should give their families a better life.  Saint Patrick's Day is for all American immigrants, and we celebrate how similar we are.  The themes and struggles of the Irish people are transcendent to all peoples, and through their song, we can examine them in a closer way.

Shakespeare, it was believed, would always play the ghosts in his plays, and the characters often had the same general message, "REMEMBER ME."  That is the greatest honor we can have for any one person, to keep their memory alive, their legacy.  It's why we build statues, print faces on money, name institutions, and sing songs.  On March 17th, on the high holy feast day of Saint Patrick, the patron saint of the Republic of Ireland, we remember the ghosts of the past, both those from legend and from our own lives.

Now that's a holiday I can sink my teeth into.

Victoria

Victoria

(Don't you dare call her Vicky)

You have given me the space tonight

By your beautiful Smile

Your pleasant Southern Voice

and well-intentioned listening

To relive the most harrowing and best month

Of my life on earth. 

So while I may have left you with a small scallop necklace

It is I that is grateful. 

You have shone a fresh light

Into an otherwise routine set of anecdotes

You allowed exposition on ideas that are not easily

Deciphered in an elevator pitch. 

"Oh I went on this trip to Spain for a month"

"I walked the Camino de Santiago - have you heard of that?" (As I wince)

No, I got to speak of Joe

Of my family

My faith

Of that moment atop O Cebriero

When my life had a compass bearing again

I got to tell my story of Cristina

And seeing James' bones

I spoke of it all magnanimously

And with purpose

Because I'm proud of it all

So Vicky

Sorry I can't help it

Victoria - 

Wear the little shell close to your heart

It's travelled thousands and thousands of and thousands of steps 

since being found on the pathway

Touch it when you need a reminder

That you're already on your Camino

It started the moment the stirring began inside you

You can train by choosing to be the better version of yourself tomorrow

And do your best to believe in other people. 

Ultimately, I can't help but trace this back to you

More and more as the months drag on,

I arrive in the familiar and all-too-telling location

Next to your memory. 

I miss the place you had in my life

More than anything. 

How you let me take care of you

How we danced around the kitchen

While you cooked 

How you were someone I could miss

And someone I could love

How you could absorb all the giving

I was willing to give

I felt so deeply that I needed to outwardly show you 

How much I cared

To perform it in front of you

To tap dance for my lover

So she wouldn't leave. 

No ones ever shown me how to love

I've never learned what adult love really is

Or, if I have,

I'm terrible at it. 

Tragically and woefully terrible. 

So congratulations!

You've still managed to shine a Mirror

To Myself

I again see the Little Boy there

Ready to dance. 

"Yeah - exactly."

This is nothing quite so human

Than the first breath beyond a broken heart

The flag waiving, limping

Dejected breath

The Reminder and Alarm

all at Once

Of One's own fleeting humanity.

I feel so impossibly behind everyone else

No matter how I see it

The latest Bout

Was like being called up to the major leagues

For a single day.

Why am I so undeserving of Romantic Love

From someone I respect and desire?

Why are my actions, all done in the spirit of support,

Always perceived as "too" much?

Why am I the last man standing

Walking

Down Columbus Ave 

Medicating with Music?

Songs come on,

I say "Yeah - exactly"

And exhale.

I am drawing in my fences again. 

To Life:

Why must you do this to Me?

Thankful

It is so beautifully diverse 

In opinion

In look

And still so almost-similar

These tenths of percentages of difference

That separate he from his aunt

Create enough space by which

Love and real care can flood in

A life enveloped in family is a life worth living

The lofty pursuits of career and culture

Are not unlike chasing the elusive first high

The needle never feels as good the second, third, fourth, or fifth time around

The pills never as potent 

I don't speak from experience 

But all who have raged with those demons

Say the same thing:

The first taste is the best. 

Yet family can age and transform

And seeing a cousin weep in front of us

Over her lost sister

The prayer, over our food,

Looks in both directions:

Thank You for what we will eat

Together

And use to work on our future benefit

And at the same token

Thank You for the gift 

Of all those before

Those silent, large-looming figures

Such as Gabriel, or in my own life,

Donald

Who are the backs upon which we stand. 

It is beautiful the way we as a people remember

The way breaking bread with our blood

Seems to be instinctive and necessary

I return home full of not only belly but of life

A slice of pie in an otherwise insular group of people

The laughter is sincere

The well wishes are doubly so

So today, Donald and Delia

I toast to your memory

Not a holiday will ever go by 

Where you aren't thought of

And deeply missed. 

The family to me is fascinating

In it's inability for me to read

The family is not something we chose

These groups of people are thrown together without any other criteria than genetics

And from this connection

Comes support

Boundless selflessness

Laughter

Humility

And respect. 

We check in with those elder than us

And bask in our achievements

I marvel at their wisdom

Their prowess for cooking

Their ability to mean what they say

To say what they mean. 

Layla, I hope more than anything at this moment

That your sister and Gabriel are indeed enjoying Thanksgiving somewhere "up there" as you put it

You deserve it, as do they

And today of all days,

I am so thankful to have shared a table

With your beautiful family

While I think of my own

And it's own beautiful moments 

And diverse people. 

Family is all we've got

And it's all we need. 

I am done living in fear

Over something real I feel

In fear of it's rejection. 

Never again.