I am a man. I role up my sleeves and I build shit. I am a man and I cut wood. I cut wood poorly. Perhaps crooked is a better term. Nonetheless I build shit, and because of that I am a man.

I tuck my dreadlocks into my shirt. Why? Because they annoy me when I’m trying to be a man. How can I be a man if my hair’s always dangling? I tuck them into my shirt right after I curse. I curse because I almost got them caught in a saw. I almost got them caught in a saw because they’re always dangling. And this wasn’t a manly saw either. This is some cordless 12v thing you might give your 7 year old to make him feel like a 12 year old. I picked it up from some guy on craigslist. I imagine when I was pulling up he hid any tools he thought I might hurt myself with. Why? Because I don’t think he thought I was a man.

What I’m trying to do here is build a bookshelf. There’s one goal my friends, put these pieces of wood together and wedge them between two walls. If I can do this I am a man. I take a 2x4 with one hand and a drill in the other and I screw. I screw hard. My wife looks at me and says, “Honey, you screw hard. But you’re doing it wrong, the thing is uneven.” I curse some more: “you piece of wood, just do what you’re supposed to do. Please would you *%&#@#* stay level.” And of course it doesn’t. And truthfully, I don’t think it respects me.

Why can’t things just bend in the way I want them to? Why won’t this board stay together with that screw? Why won’t this bracket line up with that one? I hate physics. And not because I don’t like quantum mechanics, anthropic principles, or the relationship between matter and wave energy. But because it doesn’t listen to me. It’s like it knows I’m trying to be a man and it gives me the middle finger and says: “kiss my ass, go use someone else to propitiate your pathetic attempt at acceptance.”  

Why do I have to strive so hard to be a man? I don’t want to have to have the answers. I don’t want to have to fix stuff. I don’t want to have to be the one to tell you how to do something. I don’t want to have to lift the heaviest couch when we’re moving. But this ain’t about using my hands, moving shit around, or giving advise. This is about the image some insecure asshole created to make himself feel superior, or adequate, or loved. And somehow this kept carrying on and on. And no one stopped it.

I’m gonna build this bookshelf. And it’s gonna be crooked, and it’s gonna be unstable. And if it falls apart in the middle of the night and kills the cat, then oh well, I’ll laugh. But not because I hate cats. Because I’m tired of proving my self to you. And I’m tired of trying to be your version of a man. I’m gonna be what I am: a short to averaged height insecure dude with dreadlocks, who’s sensitive, cares about his friends, has a weak urine stream, and is more self-righteous than he may seem.

And each day I’m gonna wake up and I’m gonna learn more and more what it means to be this thing called man. So you can follow me or mock me. You can respect me or call me a pansy. But while you cling to the semblance of a person moving to the rhythm and beat of a soul-less people, I will look in the mirror and I will see something of value and substance, something I can grip and hold on to, something more permanent than shadows, and more real than the luxurious and dissipated patterns of a prodigal culture. I will see a man.   

Beauty snuck up on me today.

I could see it in the way wind whipped through trees,

Casting branches and leaves to the ground.

I could see it in the osprey’s glide home.

And in the blue jays bouncing from branch to branch,

Leaving trails of color and a footprint of their dance.

I could see it in the calm sun, not ready to rear its head,

It seduced me with smile.

And just to bless us it leaves and comes again,

To say hello until we meet again.    

I could hear it in the buzz of crickets speaking overtones in creation’s symphony.

And in the vibrato and movement of the goat,

kicking and screaming in some ancient ritual.

I could hear it in the songs of birds indulging me with melodies.  

And the cackling of chickens sending quarter notes into the air,

I could almost touch them.  

I could feel it in the heat beating on my neck, reminding me of winter’s chill.

And in the shade protecting me from summer’s zeal.

In the breeze, brushing my cheeks, cooling my skin.

In the grass and dirt between my toes.

In the process between reap and sow.

In the blackness of the crow.

I could feel it in all these things as they broke into me.

And in the silence, between the breaths of this kingdom,

Between the pulse of the land,

In some dialect ears can’t hear,

I was spoken to.  

So come, teach me the forgotten way,

Teach me the way of old where mystics enlightened dreams,

And miles were put on feet to see a blind man see.

Show me the glory I have lost, and the grace moving within.

Set me by a pond, a river, an ocean, 

And let my reflection whisper silence,

Until the day I am spoken to once more.