Dreamless

For those who might not know, I haven't been the happiest as of late.  Even though Brian and I worked as a team at a friend's Amazing Race Date and smiled happily at Michelle's Oscar Party, the two of us were really at odds.  Brian and I have hit our first real snag in our relationship, which I suppose after three years is to be expected.  I mean, sure, we've had little tiffs here and there... but nothing that has ever lasted more than an hour or ever caused us to question our futures together.  At least until now.  It pains me to say it, but earlier this week there was a moment when I honestly imagined my life without Brian--and I know for a fact Brian thought the same thing about me.

It all started with Brian's new blog, Project: Get Me The Hell to New York City, where he announced his plan to get a second job and save up money to pursue his dream of being an actor in the Big Apple.  I saw the link to the blog on Facebook, and that is how I learned of this plan.  Part of me was annoyed that such a plan was devised without me knowing, but in all fairness to Brian, I should have known all along that it would come to this.  I know how much he longs to be on stage and I also know how unsatisfied with his life he feels... but I also know how slim his odds are of ever achieving that dream.

Brian could tell that I wasn't too thrilled with his plan although I tried to act like I was.  Ever since we ran away to Los Angeles for him to be an actor there and came home penniless, I've gotten a pretty sour taste in my mouth of the aspiring actor's life.  And while Brian insists that we won't attempt the move without a much more sizable bank account and a more concrete plan of action, I'm still wary of it all.  Mostly I fear that our lives will be forever impoverished chasing after some bright star, which I suppose implies that I doubt Brian and his abilities.

Brian finally voiced his concerns by saying, "I think we want different things in life."  My response was to laugh.  He raised an eyebrow at this and I replied, "I was about to say the same thing but changed my mind."  And then it hit us:  we were both thinking it, so it must be true.  Maybe we aren't meant to be together.

Because while Brian is dead set on following his dream no matter the cost, I'm not sure I'm willing to pay it.  And what's worse is Brian's dream only reminds me that I no longer have a dream of my own.  Throughout various stages of my life I have wanted to be an actor, a singer, an artist, a writer... but now I never sing and I never draw.  I'm studying to get an English degree, but I don't know what I want to do with it.  I'm writing a book, but I don't really believe it will ever get published.  I just really don't know what my life's aspirations are.  I'm dreamless.

However, after a few days of awkward silences followed by even more awkward conversations, I am certain that no matter what I do with my life I want to do it with Brian.  And if I don't have a dream of my own, why shouldn't I support Brian in his?  So while I'm still not one-hundred-percent on board with the whole idea of starting anew in New York City in two years, I am trying.  And while there might be some new tension between the two of us, we are working on it.

And really, what else is there to do but try?

Some Pretty Great Friends

I love this photo of Michelle, Wes and I getting cozy for the camera!

I've learned a lot about friendship as of late.  I've also learned a lot about myself.  And what I've learned is that I'm not the greatest friend in the world.

I generally feel that I'm a friendly person.  I like most everybody once I get to know them and I enjoy the company of others, but being friendly is not the same thing as being a friend.  Being a friend requires a lot of work... and fairly recently I almost lost one of the best friends I've ever had (besides Brian) and all because I wasn't willing to put in the work.  I was selfish.  I wanted things to be easy and I wanted them to be my way.  But as it is with any relationship, there has to be some give and take.

Luckily, after I said some horrible and cruel things, my friend found it in her heart to forgive me.  That long conversation in a parked car is one I hope to never have to repeat, but in many ways I think it helped our friendship.  It forced us to say some of the things we've been too afraid to say--things that needed to be said--and now we're stronger for it.

I think.  I hope.

Just this Sunday Michelle and I drove the two hours up to Logan, Utah to visit our mutual friend Wes.  He's a great kid who we both kind of see as our brother.  Unfortunately, he's been having a rough time with some of his roommates so we thought we'd go and cheer him up.  We spent the whole day up there.  We did some shopping, watched a movie and even took him out to eat at the Olive Garden which, surprisingly enough, he had never been to before!  Then we went back to his room and spent the night talking and laughing like only we know how... and I thought to myself:  "I have some pretty great friends."

So I'd just like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude for Michelle, Wes and everyone else I've been lucky enough to call a friend.  I also promise to do my best to selflessly love you all in return and be there when I'm needed most.  And if you ever feel the need to call me out on something, by all means, do it!  I am far from perfect, but I'm trying.

Butterfly

Happy Valentine's Day!

Today is the day we all celebrate love, so I thought I'd share a sonnet I wrote for my Creative Writing class entitled "Butterfly" which is all about the night Brian and I first met.  Three years later, he still gives me butterflies.

This poem is dedicated to you, Brian.  I love you.

Butterfly

Jack Garcia

 

His sneakers echo in the empty mall.

Only the theater is open now.

Part of him chickens out. He thinks to call

it off,  but at this point isn’t sure how.

He rides the escalator up a floor

and sees him leaning against the railing.

At least he thinks so; they’ve not met before.

Again he considers leaving.  Bailing.

But the other man turns and sees him there.

He smiles.  The first man, nervous still, smiles too.

And like small children playing Truth or Dare,

they speak honestly and face something new.

That first date led to another, and soon

the butterfly emerged from the cocoon.

Twenty-two

Today in class we were given half an hour to write a poem putting to practice some of the things we learned from our reading.  The chapter assigned to us was about listing and repetition, so I tried to catalog and repeat as much as possible.  One of the poems in our textbook was entitled "Nineteen" and talked about a certain pivotal moment when the poet was nineteen years old.  I wrote about an experience that occurred when I was twenty-two years old, hence the title "Twenty-two."  I was hesitant at first, and I'm not sure if this is really what my professor was looking for, but I personally enjoy the poem that was the result.

Twenty-two

Jack Garcia 

I’m twenty-two years old
and the leaves are changing
as I walk from BYU down Bulldog,
cutting through parking lots to get
to my apartment:  The Branbury.

I stomp on leaves, crushing
red and yellow and orange
up one floor,
up one more
and then another to my door.

I sit on my unmade bed
and look out my balcony door
at the changing, falling leaves.
I’m aware now that I’m changing too,
but am I falling?

I am twenty-two years old
and I search through the contact list
on my phone.  I see many names:
the girl I should love, the boy I do love
and my mother’s.

“I am changing, mother,” I confess,
“like a leaf.  But I wouldn’t say I’m falling.”

Boxes

These square brown boxes
compartmentalize my life
with the sound of tape.


Things in the world of Jack and Brian have been interesting as of late, so I'd like to break it down for you in stackable, movable boxes.  In the bottom of the first cardboard box you'll find Brian's knee.  After going to the gym one day and running on the treadmill, Brian came home and expressed that his knee was in excruciating pain.  It hurt to walk on it.  The next day wasn't any better.  Or the day after that.  Eventually it got so bad that his work sent him home because he was slowly limping around the kitchen.

Brian's parents and I convinced him that he should see a doctor, who told him that he had either pinched or torn entirely the cartilage in his knee.  If it was only pinched, a few weeks of rest would do the trick.  However, if it was torn, he would need to have knee surgery.  In order to know for certain, Brian would need an MRI.  Luckily, Brian is still covered under his family's health insurance.  Not so luckily, his family has a high deductible that hasn't been met this year yet, so the MRI would still cost Brian and I over a thousand dollars out-of-pocket.

Brian opted out on the MRI, figuring that if he continued to stay at home for another couple of weeks and it still hurt, he would worry about it then.  Thankfully, his knee doesn't hurt anymore so we are assuming it had only been pinched.  Brian went back to work this past Friday for the first time and he said his knee felt fine and he was happy to be baking again.

One box filled, flaps folded down and taped shut.

Moving on, the next big box in my life can be labeled "pregnancy."  Of course it would take a miracle of science for me to be pregnant, so don't get any crazy ideas!  The expecting one is my sister, Renee, who sent me a text one evening while I was at work that simply said "I'm pregnant."  It was shock to read in a text message, but I'm sure it's nothing compared to how my sister must have felt when she saw the plus sign on that little pee stick.  "I was shaking like a leaf," she told me.

She's only 18 years old, and she and her boyfriend Jaylon aren't in the greatest financial situation.  There's a lot for us all to worry about, but Renee is determined to keep the baby and raise it.  The doctor told her she is only six weeks along (which I guess is too early to announce a pregnancy, anything can happen at this point) and gave her some advice on staying healthy and paperwork to apply for WIC.  The only thing I can do is love and support her in this life-changing process and be happy that I am going to become an uncle for the first time.  That's pretty exciting news if you think about it!

That box is only half full, so I won't tape it up yet.  There will be much more to add over the coming months... like baby clothes and toys.  I'm really excited to have a legitimate excuse to walk through Baby Gap.

Continuing on to the next box, you'll find that it is filled with a brand new apartment.  Normally when I say "brand new" I mean new to me, but this time the apartment is actually brand spanking new.  Brian and I saw Siena Villas in Orem and fell instantly in love with the new construction.  Granite countertops, textured walls, and sparkling new Whirlpool appliances were all too much for us to resist.  We filled out in application and less than a week later we were signing the lease.

The apartment was officially ours on the 1st, but we didn't start moving in until the 2nd because that's when I had a day off.  Brian's cousin Brett borrowed his stepdad's little pickup truck and  he helped us move all our belongings over.  Then we all drove up to Ikea and brought home a new sofa and a new entertainment center.  Our friend Michelle came over in the evening and helped us assemble the furniture (and when I say "helped" I mean that she and Brian ate pizza while I did most of the work).  Saturday morning I had some free time so I got all of our books and movies unpacked and on shelves, Century Link came and hooked up our internet, my manager's husband was nice enough to bring over a spare bed rail and Brian got the kitchen stuff all put away.  He even went grocery shopping last night, so we actually have food in our fridge and pantry!

We are loving our new apartment and you will be hearing lots about it as we slowly furnish and decorate it to our liking.  Now if only we could get rid of all these boxes...

My First Poem for Class

As I've mentioned before on this blog, I'm taking a class called Creative Process and Imaginative Writing which is trying to mold a poet out of me.  My friend Michelle insists that I already am a good poet, but writing silly rhymes about coworkers at the movie theater is not really a definitive example of poetry. The poems I'm reading in class are all so artfully crafted, and there's really so much about the form that I don't know and don't yet appreciate, that calling myself a poet just seems ludicrous.

That being said, I am enjoying the challenge of writing poetry for a more critical audience... especially my teacher who is not afraid to point out all of the many faults that my poems seem to be full of.  He equates harsh criticism to telling a friend they have spinach in their teeth.  While workshopping the following poem in class, he found the entire first stanza to be full of spinach.  Mostly he thought it was too vague, which I can see now.  He found the imagery in the second stanza to be more concrete and he enjoyed how "of heat" was mirrored with "burned."  He also liked that those two lines broke the form of what is otherwise an exercise in accentual-alliterative verse .

Some of you who've been reading the excerpts from my novel might recognize that this poem was mostly pulled from the first paragraph of Chapter 2.  It might sound like cheating, but one of the suggestions for writing poems is to write your ideas in prose and then mold them into a poem.  Besides, what my professor doesn't know can't hurt him!

Summer
Jack Garcia

Summer’s stay,

                                with sexual fervor,

Soaked her body

                                with sun-kissed sweat.

Radiant rays

                                of resplendent sun

Warmed her

                                in wild waves

Of heat.

Summer’s stay,

                                surprisingly fleeting,

Steps aside

                                surrendering to Fall.

Living leaves

                                are left to lie

Dead and broken,

                                decaying in dirt.

Burned.

Anyone Can Whistle

Anyone can whistle, that's what they say... easy.
Anyone can whistle, any old day... easy.
It's all so simple.
Relax, let go, let fly.
So someone tell me, why can't I?

I can dance a tango, I can read Greek... easy.
I can slay a dragon, any old week... easy.
What's hard is simple.
What's natural comes hard.
Maybe you could show me how to let go,
Lower my guard,
Learn to be free.
Maybe if you whistle,
Whistle for me. 

Stephen Sondheim's song "Anyone Can Whistle" is simple and beautiful.  If you've never heard it, I suggest you look it up on the internet and give it a listen.  Pure magic.

I have a confession to make, however.  I do not know how to whistle.  Nope.  Not even a little bit.  Unless you count blowing through the kind of whistle gym teachers have hanging around their necks.  Even then it's a stretch because I don't like getting that close to gym teachers.  They smell like B.O. and have constant sweat stains in the weirdest places.  Like around their belly buttons.  But whistling with just my own two lips... no can do.  Not even if I stick my fingers in my mouth.  I just look like an idiot trying to eat his hand.

At least the singer of the song can do other things besides whistle.  He can dance a tango, read Greek and even slay a dragon.  I'm telling you, if I had the strength and agility to slay a fire-breathing mythical beast I sure wouldn't care at all that I couldn't whistle.  Just saying.  Me, however...  I can't do any of those other things either!  And it got me thinking.  Just how many "easy" things can I not do?

Unfortunately, quite a lot.  I compiled a list.

Things Jack Can't Do that Other People Can

• Whistle
• Dance
• Read Greek
• Slay dragons
• Cook
• Eat with chopsticks
• Blow a bubblegum bubble
• Ice skate (or ski or snowboard)
• Roller skate (or roller blade or skateboard)
• Swim
• Swallow pills
• Drive a manual car
• Parallel park
• Basic math
• Play an instrument
• Throw or catch (or anything involving sports)
• Do the Star Trek hand thingy

I'm sure the list goes on and on, but another thing I'm not good at is making lists.  Halfway through I started listing off U.S. states because I forgot what I was listing.  I eventually remembered and deleted them all, but it was still embarrassing.  Four hours later after browsing Pinterest and cleaning my room I came back to the list and decided it was good enough.

Perhaps the lyric "Maybe you could show me how to let go, lower my guard, learn to be free" has something to do with my lack of abilities.  My fear and trepidation of failing at things and embarrassing myself impede me from trying a lot of things.  Heck, I didn't even know how to pee standing up until I was in my late teens!

That part was a joke.  Or was it?

This year, my resolution is to try to do more things that are outside of my comfort zone.  I won't ask for a fork when I'm at a Japanese restaurant.  Maybe I'll take Brian's car for a lesson in a nearby parking lot.  Somebody could throw me in an ocean and shout, "Doggy paddle for your life, Jack!  Do it or drown!"

And who knows?  With the proper attitude, maybe I can whistle.