My last hurrah. On this blog anyway...

Nine months since I posted anything on here. Nine long, boring months. You may be asking, “If the months were so boring, why didn’t you use that time to blog more, Dustin?” My answer is this: I’ve been finding myself. Not literally, mind you. That’d be easy; there are many mirrors in my house. No, I’ve been trying to get myself and my thoughts organized into a plan of attack for my life. What does this mean?

Many of you may know that I am often plagued with awesome ideas; some I share, some I don’t. The past few months, I have been plagued to no end. From the novel I am working on, to countless other story ideas, to working to improve the Rapids, to umpteen small business ideas, the wheels of my mind have not stopped turning even for sleep. I haven’t been able to focus on any one thing, and it’s been driving me CRAZY. On top of that, I have decided not to go back to school, oddly for the same reason. All these important things I want to focus on and school has just been getting in the way. Down the road, if I feel I need to, maybe I’ll go back. But for now, why spend money when my heart isn’t in it?

So with no school and a million ideas, I’ve got to find a way to better use my time. Sleeping in until 11 on a daily basis just isn’t cutting it, no matter how much I love my sleep. I’ve got to actually work on developing these ideas and giving them some form. So starting today, I will be getting up at 8am, 5 days a week. I’ll be making breakfast, as opposed to going out, and if today’s experiment goes well, I’ll be using the Pomodoro Time-Management Technique to organize the time I don’t spend at RRPC.  What is the Pomodoro, you ask? Check it out here before continuing on.

A list of tasks, 25 minutes per task; it sounds doable to me. So I’m trying it, even as I write this, to see if it helps my productivity at all. I have 16 minutes left on this “pomodoro.” Better hurry.

On January 20^th, I wrote about the importance of consistent writing. I have failed to provide a good example of that. I have not stayed drunk on writing, and it has nearly destroyed me. Fortunately my drive to write is greater than that, so I still WANT to do it. I just need to act on that desire.

A day later, I shared my thoughts on personal traditions, as well as the details of my own personal tradition. My spy up Camp Creek has informed me that the leaves are in their prime right now, so if the sun comes out today, I’m taking that drive. I am taking that drive, procuring that delicious apple cider and, damn it, I WILL ENJOY IT. I’ve been waiting for this opportunity all summer, and even feared I would miss it while I was in Italy last month. Fortunately I did not, and the opportunity is now in front of me. I just took a look out the window. The sun is breaking through the fog. Perfect.

Speaking of my trip to Italy, it was fantastic. Thanks for asking. More on that later.

 

So now it’s come to this. This is my last post on this particular blog. I plan to continue blogging, but it will be something new, something with some real direction. And definitely something more consistent. Ideally it will be a place to share my thoughts and my writing and the thoughts and writing of others, as well as an aid in creating an online presence. That said, I am not going to begin this blog tomorrow. I want to do it right this time, so I’m going to take the time to plan it out and make it worth following. I want it to be the blog that my readers look forward to every day or so. Look for that in the coming weeks. I might even begin with a narrative of my ten-day trip to Italy. Sorry to tease, but you’ll have to wait for that story.

I think I’ve said all I need to and everything I want to, so thank you for following “DT Recovered” over the course of its short and sporadic life. I think I’ve accomplished what I wanted to with it. I’ve found a direction. Now I’m on to the next leg of my life. What better time to start the next blog? Besides, I only have a minute and a half left on this pomodoro. Ciao.

Pretty Solid Saturday

A nice morning run in the sun and crisp January air, blue sky all around.  Followed by a brief workout.  Stopped by and said hi to my dad for a few.  Got my Jeep washed (finally).  It's been a long time coming, and now it looks great.  Coffee, lunch and a walk by the river with a really prodigious girl.  And that was all by 2:30. How great a day is that?  I have no complaints :)

Traditions of the Personal Persuasion

I once said to a young pupil of mine, “Trevor, if you retain one thing that I’ve told you, let it be the importance of having personal traditions.”  I said this during a text message conversation as I was driving back into Thurston on the McKenzie Highway.  It was a crisp, sunny fall day, and I had just made my annual pilgrimage to Herrick Farms for a jug of their apple cider.  It is honestly the best cider I’ve ever had.  I began this making this trip almost 6 years ago, shortly after I got my driver’s license.

The journey begins at the intersection of Marcola and Camp Creek Roads, where I cruise the snake-like road along the river taking in the changing trees, the sound of the rushing water, and the smell of the autumn leaves.  I end up next to Ray’s supermarket at Walterville and tourne a droite.  I then travel the half-mile or so to Millican Road and turn right again and follow the quaint little lane past the firehouse to the gravel parking lot at Herrick’s.  I have finally reached my destination.  But is it really my destination?   The trip as a whole is my purpose for the hour or so spent in transit.  Herrick’s is just a stop along the way, a necessary part of the whole.  If the farm is out of cider or closed for some reason, I make the trip all over again on another day.  It is a well-spent $6.95 when I finally pop the red lid off and take a few long draughts of the cold cider.  I save the rest to put in my refrigerator when I get home.  The last leg of the drive takes me over Hendrick’s Bridge and along the McKenzie Highway into Thurston, the part of Springfield where I grew up.

This jaunt upriver every year is the recurring highlight of the season for me.  It represents the pinnacle of fall, the time when the season is at its best.  It gives me something to look forward to each year, even if life in general isn’t going ideally at the time.  It is a time for me to think my thoughts, sing along terribly to the radio, and just enjoy the unfathomable beauty that nature offers.  This is my yearly tradition, one of many that I hope to create over the course of my life.

Amazing amounts of importance are placed on traditions involving family and friends.  I completely support these types of tradition.  However, I feel that we don’t know who we truly are until we discover what we choose to do month after month or year after year on our own, what gives us joy over and over again without directly involving others.  Personal tradition gives each and every one of us the ability to escape from everything else and focus on one completely intimate experience, an experience that reflects our deepest and most powerful passions.  More than just about anything, I recommend creating your own personal traditions.  You won’t regret it.

At the Bottom of the Writing Bottle

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” –Ray Bradbury

And destroy me it will.

I started this blog with the hopes of posting once a week at the very least.  Obviously I have failed, and to my friends who have been reading me faithfully and have wanted more from me, I am extremely sorry.  I’ve known all along that I haven’t been writing nearly as much or as often as I had planned and hoped, but it wasn’t until I read the above quote that I really thought about why.

My reality has been getting more irritating with each passing month.  Various things and people have been irking me to no end.  I spent a good portion of the last few months as nothing more than an apathetic, comatose statue, coasting through reality like Adam Sandler’s character on auto-pilot in Click.  In the process my creativity has been sedated. Lately, however, it is coming back with a vengeance and bringing with it an elevated sense of motivation.  I recognize now that, while one can never fully escape reality—and who would want to, reality is often rather desirable—everyone needs an outlet.  Everyone needs something that will help to preserve their sanity.  My outlet, which I plan to take advantage of a lot more often, is writing.

While I plan to post more often, the bulk of my creative writing efforts will be going into the book I am writing.  It began as a series of short story ideas, but I realized that they all contained common elements and could provide enough material to write a full book.  I am finding new ways every day to tie many of my ideas together.  I can already tell that it is going to be an amazing writing experience, and I hope a very satisfying reading experience.  I am still in the planning stages, but my goal is to have a portfolio of fully-developed character profiles and a full outline of the major plot points and themes that will be included in the book by September.  I will be going to Italy for almost two weeks and I think it will be a perfect time for me to really write a bulk of the story and focus solely on details. 

Ray Bradbury felt that a writer should never stop writing, or risk losing their creative flow.  I fully agree and from this point onward, while doing my utmost to make the best of my reality, I plan to get drunk multiple times a week.  Drunk on writing, that is.  It will take a lot of determination, but the hangover will ultimately be worth it.

(Come on, you didn’t really expect me to write an entire piece without some cheesy metaphor, did you?)

A Secret to Life

Following the significant loss in my life this summer, I’ve had a lot of time to think.  Spending fourteen months in love with someone, it is natural to make plans together, whether it involves your respective careers, where to relocate or how many children you will have and what their names will be.  You learn that to really make things work, there are compromises that need to be made, often at the expense of the hopes and dreams you had prior to falling in love with this person.  You later learn to ask yourself, should you really be compromising your dreams at all (the realistic ones at least)?

Pliny the Elder once said, “…the only certainty is that nothing is certain.”  Nearly all of us find out at some point in life that this applies to relationships.  Things are never certain, so planning our lives based on current circumstances is a risk we sometimes take.  Then these circumstances change.  You always hear people talk about “the secret to life.”  Well I am gradually finding out that there are many secrets that life holds, and learning how to come away from a loss and regain your life is just one of those secrets.

 Endless hours have been spent re-evaluating how I plan to spend the rest of my life.  In the process, I have rediscovered one of my life’s greatest dreams, a dream which I was willing (maybe too willing) to compromise in my recent relationship.  For years, I have wanted to live in Seattle when I get older, preferably fresh out of college.  I have always loved Seattle.  Something about that city just gets my heart beating fast.  No matter what I’m doing, a single thought of Seattle draws me into a daydream that lasts for what seems like hours.  During my freshman year at Oregon, my friend Peter and I had discussed moving to the Emerald City after school, though not completely seriously at the time.  Then, over the course of the next two or three years, things happened in my life.  School went poorly, to say the least.  A good friend died.  My car constantly crapped out on me.  Don’t miss that at all.  Seattle slowly became the last thing on my mind.  And then I met a girl.  Seattle might as well have ceased to exist in my mind.

The fourteen months spent with her were amazing.  No regrets to be had.  Over the course of the relationship, plans were made.  She wanted to live in Boston at some point, I wanted to live in Seattle at some point, and we were both willing to compromise.  A few years here, a few years there, it’d be great.  However, now that it’s all over with, I have been fortunate enough to rediscover my passion for Seattle.  I still think it’d be cool to live in Boston, but Seattle just has so much draw for me.  I realized that I was asinine to turn my “living there indefinitely” dream into a “maybe a couple years or so” compromise.  Yes, relationships require compromises such as this, but when it requires sacrificing a lifelong dream, maybe it’s not the right time for that level of relationship.  Maybe one should live out their dreams to the fullest extent before making that kind of sacrifice, or find someone who wants to live out the dream with them.  Granted, I could always move to Seattle and completely hate it, but that’s beside the point, and highly doubtful.

Seattle is what I want out of life, if nothing else.  I want to work in one of the buildings that grace the stunning skyline.  I want to have a Starbucks available to me wherever I turn.  I want season tickets to the Mariners.  I want to take an occasional cruise around the Sound and the lakes on an Argosy ferry.  I want to have an annual pass to the Space Needle so I could go up every night after work if I so choose.  I want to be able to get fresh fish from Pike’s and take it home to my Sound-view condo (hopefully someday) and cook it up while looking out the window at the sun setting over the water.  I want Seattle.

In writing this, I have discovered yet another secret to life.  We all have dreams for our lives, realistic and not-so-much.  Once we figure out the realistic, and even more importantly, the ones that drive us, we should pursue them with all of the ardor we can muster up.  If someone asks us to sacrifice those dreams or compromise them in any way, maybe it’s not the right time to have that person in our life, or maybe they’re just not the right person for us.  That’s not to say relationships of any kind should be avoided, just that they shouldn’t stand in the way of what means the most to us in life.  You wouldn’t want someone to allow you to sacrifice your spiritual beliefs or your morals, why let them allow your dreams to be forgotten?

More notes from Starbucks...long overdue.

Note:  I wrote this almost a month ago while sitting at a Starbucks while waiting for someone who never arrived.  She knows I've forgiven her, though.  Let's just say I was able to Make Lemonade of the situation :) and get some thoughts written down.


Yesterday, I gave to someone.  Yeah, me.  If you know me, I'm not the most heartless person in the world, but I'm definitely not the most charitable either.

On my way home from some errands, I noticed an old homeless man on a corner holding a cardboard sign.  He looked like someone who actually needed help, not one of those others.  You know, the people who are too lazy to get an actual job, so they buy some old clothes at Goodwill and trash them so they can look legit holding the cardboard sign they made from the box their new TV came in.

Anyway, I'd had lunch at Subway earlier in the day and for dessert, I purchased three white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, which are my absolute favorite.  It's been months since I had any so naturally I was stoked to devour them.

When I pulled up to this homeless man, my heart immediately hurt for him.  I'm not really sure why I developed such compassion in this moment; I usually ignore them, to be honest.  I blame my ever-increasing lack of faith in humanity.

My mind went to my wallet, which i realized I had emptied shortly before at Dutch Bros.

Then I looked in my passenger seat and saw my bag of cookies which seemed to radiate an inspiring energy.  The choral sounds of the Halo theme music resonating in my brain at the sight of those delicious cookies, I grabbed the bag and handed them through the window to the man.  No second thought as to how it would affect me (for better or for worse), no thought of what had been a growing anticipation for the glorious taste of the greatest cookies on earth.  I mean, I had been prepared to eat them ceremoniously, votive candles and all.

There was traffic behind me, so I didn't get a chance to say anything to him before driving off, but I caught what I'm pretty sure was, "Thank you, you're a good man."

At any rate, what hit me the hardest was the look on his face.  It's difficult to fully describe, but I'll tell you this:  he was grateful.  I had made his day a little better and that made me happy.

Driving away, I couldn't wipe the smile off my face.  And I won't say for sure, but a tear or two may have formed in my eyes...

All in all, it was a good day.  I made someone less fortunate than myself a little happier than they were a few minutes before I came along.

I just hope he wasn't allergic to white chocolate or macadamia nuts...FML.

Starbucks and a Moleskine

It was a nice walk to Starbucks, down Harlow Road in the shade of the trees on this warm, late-summer day.  It feels perfect outside, but I long for crisp fall days when the sun shines through the changing leaves, the leaves that crunch underfoot with the lightest of steps, the leaves whose colors signify a fresh start.  To me, anyway.

January 1^st has never felt like a new beginning to me.  No, that feeling always comes when summer transitions to autumn.  Fall means a new school year, at least for another two to three years.  This in turn means new knowledge, new experiences, new people.

I’ve never really made the effort to branch out since I graduated high school.  But with the recent changes in my life, I see no better time and opportunity to try new things, things that could bring me new happiness.

My mind is busy these days.  Bouncing around between ideas for work, my potential small business, my writing, money issues, school, future plans, the past… The list is endless.  It’s sometimes difficult to organize these thoughts, and that’s why I’m happy to have my Moleskine.  Hemingway was a genius.  

The most exciting thing on my mind these days is my best friend’s wedding.  No, not the Julia Roberts movie, although it’s a great flick.  My best friend from ten months old, Tyler Ryan Anderson, proposed to his love of six and a half years a week or so ago, and I couldn’t be happier for them.  I am very honored that he asked me to be his best man, although with 21 years of friendship under our belts, I probably would’ve kicked his ass if he hadn’t.  I have since begun to take notes for my speech.  It’ll be tough, but I can do it.

I Googled all sorts of “Best Man”-related topics, and the list of responsibilities I’ll have is insane.  But I’m excited.  I look forward to planning a great bachelor party/weekend, although I’ll probably keep it more along the lines of tame than the guys who wrote The Hangover.

I guess I’ve digressed a bit, but that’s what happens when I start writing:  my mind goes crazy.  I’m just glad I’ve regained my motivation and inspiration.  I felt empty for a while.  But now I raise my glass (or in this case my iced caramel macchiato with extra caramel) to autumn, or fall if you prefer.  To new beginnings.