Tweeting Is Not Writing.

The world of Blogging, and the art of posting is going the way of the diary and the personal journal.
Micro blogging and "tweets" are now part and parcel of the art of the personal story.
The blog is a place where we write to share, get feedback where possible, and tell a story to the world.
And it literally is the world, as the internet has connected us to lands once foreign and not visited by us in person, but now the good people of Spain, Cuba, China, New Zealand among just a few, daily drop in to read our ramblings.

Twitter took the art of the story, and told us it was too long! There were many who did not want the 1000 word story. Just a simple "tweet" updating us on what television show we were watching, and what fruit we ate from the market.
Dumb it down and tweet it out.

"Brenda is out of bed and making lunches"
or "Ken feels 100 years old today"
or "Bucky had a steaming triple latte from "Fourbucks" a few minutes ago".
Was this what we wanted, or were we told that this is what the world wanted from us?

Are we lazy at reading or writing?
Just asking.

And I ask not to be a smart ass in the pejorative sense. I ask because I honestly want to know, from you dear readers: Is this is what we really only want to know?

I want to be connected to friends or even people that I have known through their writings, but never had the amazing good fortune of sitting down and breaking bread in person with.
After reading your posts for the past 2 years I feel like I know you. Should I feel silly reading a eight word experience with a egg sandwich?

("Craig just had the best egg sandwich ever!")

Actual tweet, I just changed the name to protect the name of the sandwich!

I dunno, I guess I am disappointed at the brevity of life and the recording of thoughts. Facebook started a whole journey of life "tweets" if you will, that took us into the lives of our social network.
Just today I read some "posts" on Facebook from my friends. I like these people and accepted their invitation to be their "friend" on Facebook, (this task in itself always makes me smile. "Will you be my friend"? I want to send message back: "I am your friend, or I thought I was") but I really don't care if they are "tired and going to bed" nightly. Well that is not entirely correct as I do care. I just always assumed that we get tired and we go to bed nightly. Posting it for their friends edification seem silly in my books.

Blogs are different in some respects, and can be challenging, enlightening, spiritually uplifting, and a damn good read!
Twitter took the blog and made it into the Readers Digest condensed version. Funny, because Readers Digest just filed for bankruptcy.

Now IBM has patented a device for our television remotes that will allow us to tweet a message out while we watch TV. Not only will is it a dedicated "Twitter" device, but it will have "canned" messages on the remote that will tweet a standard message.
"I am watching....(name of program will appear)" Too lazy to tweet or tap out a text? Just hit the #7 key and a pre-existing tag will tweet out your micro blog and tell your network of just as lazy friends that you are watching the latest episode of house, and you are luvin it!

I write for me.
I write because I love the art of words; the language.
I know that social networking is here and big, and I won't change that, nor do I wish to. I am on Facebook, and love to be kept in the loops of my friends lives.

I just don't need to know the minute and mundane details of their television lives.

I love the art of the story, and hope it never dies! I will always read your full account of lives journey with all the warts and speed bumps. I will laugh with you and cry with you, and savor the scents of the day with you as you describe in wonderful wordy detail the beauty of life!


Warmest,

David

And In The End The Love You Take Is Equal to the Love You Make

Forty years ago this week, the Beatles released their final album. With little argument they were the worlds greatest band at the time, and arguably still are. They never recorded after the final album was released.

The song "The end" was the last song on their last album.

The last line of the last song is one that stayed with me for forty years, and became a philosophy of sorts; almost a creed to live by.

"And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make".

Simple philosophy, really, but for many of this planets denizens, we live by greed and take. The world full of Ponzi schemes, selfish motives to look after only ourselves at times, and a philosophy of who ever takes the most, will have the most; gives our wonderful world pot holes!

I first heard the song which is appropriately called "The End", when I was 12, and thought that it made sense then. Even as a young boy the idea of giving to get things was part and parcel of my life. If I loved my dog, then he loved me back. if I helped my friend carry groceries, he would help me down the road. If I respected and loved my Parents, it made for a happy day.
Always.
Pretty simple.
Quid pro quo.
You get what you give.

I lived my live always giving selflessly. Rarely were there or are there motives to my selflessness. I have always lived with the ideal that love is right.
It takes work to hate, and it accomplishes nothing other than dredge up a pile of vile to sit in our bellies and fester. Loving is easy, or it should be. Not exactly an Ivory tower philosophy, but a simple one.

If a relationship requires constant work, and self help books, then I believe it needs to be re thought.
Love is simple. Or in my world it is.

If we go through life only caring about "US", this would be a pretty nasty world. Thankfully there are good and charitable people that go through life helping others. Giving a leg up to those who need, and a drink of water in the desert of greed. For every rogue trader that scams the good people out of their hard earned dollars, there are ten people that donate time to help. Give to those who need. Donate excess of goods or money to the charities that use the clothing, bedding, dishes, food, or money; to assist those down on their luck.

There are churches and missionaries that spend hours and dollars travelling the globe loving in all the corners.
God Bless them!

I like simple, and I believe that life and love can be simple.
If you give love, you get love.
Because in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make,

Along the way

Warmest,

David

Deaf Swimming

Our last day at the Catalonia Bavaro Beach begins the same as the previous days:
I wake at 6 and fear a day of rain as it appears dark. But as I have now learned from the past week here; the sun rises much later than it does at home.The sun seems shy and perhaps a bit bashful at first. It fools us tourists with it's early morning feeble and almost anemic like power, that in hours will heat the sand of the beach and render it too hot to walk on.

By 7, coffee is made and drank in our resort condo. Mary and I have, for the past week, have enjoyed the eye opening brew our balcony. Our condo number is 19. 19 of 22 on our road or path. we are 3 away from the ocean and a brief 1 minute walk to the beach that we do daily first thing to secure prime real estate for the six or seven hours that we will spend each day.

The ideal location/location/location is a spot that offers a palm tree. Not too tall as to not offer shade, and not too short as to whack ones melon on each hammock exit! (Done that!) The prime spot must be close enough to waters edge so view is relatively unobstructed, but should also offer a short walk to offer refreshments that provide us with fresh squeezed cold juices in the early day, and scrumptious cold coconut slush iced/laced with dark rum, for afternoon mellowing out.

Once real estate is secured, a short walk for breakfast is next. Ingredients for omelette's are selected today.
In previous mornings, eggs, sunny side side up with sides of fried salami, bacon, or ham were chosen.
Alternate days fresh fruit and French toast is chosen for the break in nights fast. Today, being the last day here, Mary and I opt for the "Full-on/mega loaded" omelet. I add to little remaining space on my plate, a sugar coated donut that moments earlier was plucked out of a hot fryer by one of the many chefs that toil to treat us daily. Still hot to touch and taste, the "oh so bad" donut will be be a wonderful desert to end our last breakfast here on Bavaro Beach.

We will board a bus at 5 this day, to take us to Punta Cana airport. It is 15 minutes away.
I am not sad to be leaving, as sadness is an emotion that I have not felt in some time.
Yes, I would love to stay longer. I so love it here!
I love the ocean, and the peace it seems to bring me.
I love the "Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather", if I may borrow from Disney's "Sleeping Beauty". But my yearning for more time here is based on my current peaceful and contented mind set. All of the writings that you have read from our Dominican stay (assuming you have read the past 4 instalments), has been written in pen, in a journal, on the beach.
Each stroke of pen has been made as I face out on the gentle ripple of a spectacular blue and green Caribbean ocean.

Much of the time, in the past 7 days, my mind has been void of any and all thoughts except the view in front of me. It is at that moment. That sweet spot. or that Buddhist/Zen space of "NOW", that I pick up a pen pen at write.
And that moment is analogous, to opening a vein if you will.
Word and thoughts spill like blood once that mindset is achieved.

To really get into "ones head", one really has to get into "ones head".
So you see, today (last day here), my premature melancholy is not for the the sun, rum and sand, although they all will be missed. My despondent state is based on the mindset that I have recently achieved, and the worry that it will go away.
That place where I wanted to get to and succeeded!
My goal will be to maintain this place as best I can. To stay in this zone, or as close to it, upon return to the rodent race.

I have thought much about, but concerned little for little for Dan (Guitar Boy) while here.
He is in week 2 of "School of Rock" This has been his annual Summer day excursion, every July, for the past 4 years. He will be in his rock n' roll element, as well as looked after before and after "school" by Mary's adult son, who has moved in for the week to be Dan's "roommate".
I am anxious to see how the boy is, and for him to regale stories about making music. He is the love of my life, and I miss him. I can't wait to hug him!

This trip was many firsts in my deaf life that now approaches 23 months in length, and fourteen months in the digital sounding world of my implanted cochlear device.
Deaf swimming was a first that is most memorable.

On day one (July 26th) I sat on oceans beach with shirt off, but magnet of cochlear processor clearly strapped on. I took in all the sounds of laughter which despite the diversity of nations here in this resort, is the same wonderful sound in any language. After three or four hours of unrelenting sun, I tucked away my processor (those very expensive suckers cannot get wet!) and walked down the beach that moments earlier were filled with noise, but without my CI on falls into an eerie silence.

I can see the same children running and laughing, and I watch the same adults chatting and playing beach volleyball, but my soundtrack is gone! I am once again Deaf as the coconut shells that lie on the beach.
Deaf as the wheel of cheese that I see nightly at the buffet.
I instantly go back to the ever popular brain created auditory hallucinations of "Dave FM"

When I walk into the ocean, I notice that my balance (which has no inner workings) becomes more challenged. With no inner balance I have trained my brain to accept vision and the touch and feel of my body, its only GPS.
So when ocean floor enters the equation, David's brain gets pissed off, and makes me fall many times. For the most part it goes unnoticed, but some afternoons the barkeep looks a worrisome that his "Coco Loco's" have made this patron "Poco Loco"!

When I dive underwater I expect the same sounds from memory of underwater play over my life. The sounds that I heard when I was a child, exploring the underwater . That eerie underwater noise or sound. (Or is it a lack of sound?).
But in my deafness the underwater world does not differ an iota from the world above oceans surface.

The ocean is clear, and the schools of fish are constantly visible and plentiful. For the most part, the bottom is sand, but there are areas of rocks that can be seen and noted.
Mary and I walk out one day a good 1/2 a kilometer, exchanging soft sand for underwater plant growth under foot, but it is an amazing walk out into the ocean!

In the water I am a carefree nine year old again, when the days seemed to last forever at the beach, and summers lasted for eternity.
So today feels like labour day. That feeling that a young boys stomach gets, on the last day of summer vacation.
It will hit me again when I board the airplane tonight; and again when we land; and no doubt when I wake up tomorrow at home.

It will really hit home when I realize that the only man who will fix me an omelet....

Is MOI!

Warmest,

David

Hitting The "Sweet Spot"

It is jut after 8 am on the Friday of our Dominican vacation, and the white pristine beach and it's Coconut palm tree citizens is waking up.
The sun is low, but rises so quick that I imagine it on a string that is pulled like a window shade or a curtain, rising to give us yet another magnificent day.
The ocean seems so calm this morning. Even the never ending and never changing wave breaks that happen about 1/2 a kilometer out from shore, seem tiny today, and I strain to recognize the spot that has been so familiar to me the past 5 days.

I think that perhaps the ocean is an extension of me this week. Choppy on day one, and a bit rough, but becoming increasingly calmer as the week progresses.
Today is the calmest.
As am I.
Mary, my soul mate is also in a Zen like state, and I have never seen her so at peace.


Yesterday I hit hit the proverbial vacation "sweet spot". That zone that many of us set out to achieve during our vacations in life. That place where relaxation pours over us, and paints our bodies with a glow of calm. The pinks and browns from the suns rays are just part of the special effects. It is the aura of calm that is the real magic.
There is a calmness in that "sweet spot" that whispers "mañana" in an oh so quiet voice whenever I attempt anything that resembles labour or stressful activity. Nothing seems to matter except the air that I now feel traveling all the way to my belly as I breathe the calm ocean air.

In typical annoyance (although I truly can't see myself ever being annoyed again in life) it takes Thursday of my vacation to shed the mental images of excel spread sheets, unpaid electrical bills at home, emails that I envision racking up on my Blackberry and waiting in a cyber space cue for my downloading pleasure.



In this vacation and mental "sweet spot" that has arrived, I have stopped the anguish and feelings of guilt and remorse that were part of past life. I stopped the lying in bed and going over the "could of" and "should of" that I have been doing for the better part of my 51 years on this earth.
I did it!

I stopped the shit that I have been trying to put an end to! In the past two years I have come close to reaching that spot. That place. And my Buddhist readings and teachings have brought me oh so close. Teaching me that change happens is another way of saying "shit happens", and it brought me to a place where I "hit" this week, that subtly said to me that I should never have any regrets, no more remorse, no bitterness, no hard feelings, no guilt.....over anything in my life.

By midday Thursday, the gentle and ever present ocean breeze had kept and swept all the remaining crap away. Those old feelings were blown away by a proverbial and literal wind. I can't imagine a therapist couch that would provide me with that "sweet spot" that came over me on an island in the Caribbean ocean.

My mind was mind is now where I wanted it to be when I started this journey; this wonderful vacation: At peace with the past, content with the present, and uncertain but not worried or fraught with doubt about the future.

The sun will rise tomorrow, that I know for sure.
But if it is behind a mask of dark clouds, or an orange naked ball of magnificent glory it matters not.
That we know for sure!
It will still rise.
Warmest,

David

Deaf Aerobics And Other Firsts!

The continuing journal of my seven day holiday and journey.

It is now day five in our vacation. For me it has become what I had hoped: A seven day discovery of David. The thought patterns and process of self diagnosis are neither planned nor thought out in advance. They occur at random.
For seven days I will be out of the home and work environment. I am four and a half hours by plane removed from my home and native land. This in itself helps me look down at where I am at this point in my life.

I can't imagine a time from from memory where I have been more content or at peace with me. To be sure, the Caribbean ocean that lulls me and the waves that dance before me daily have been a catalyst in the gratification I feel. But the peace that resides inside me today, has been manifesting for months. It is good.

In the past 23 months I have weathered great storms, and if I am honest with myself, the last five years have had hurricane and tsunami days. 2004 was the diagnosis of Janet's blood cancer that would take her life 4 1/2 later.

If I am really honest I suppose, I could find great gusts and micro bursts in my 40 odd years of memory, and 51 years in life; but I dealt differently with life in the past. Often I would view change as a tragedy. It took me 51 years to realize that change is part of life.
In previous versions of thought, I viewed "lack of things" as reasons for depression or unhappiness.
"If only I could make $10K more a year, I would be happy and out of this funk" I thought constantly years ago.
Years later when earning a much more substantial income I was now saying "If I could only make another $40K a year more, I would be happy and out of this funk" !!!!!!
We all know the life lesson about money and happiness. I only wish I heeded the advice back then.

So is it then fair that I lost so much (loved ones, hearing) yet found a wonderful peace within?
Not sure.
This I now know: Life changed. Always did and always will.
There were huge changes in my life, many of them physical, and many of them emotional in nature.
Always will be as well.
Babies were born and people in my life died. My father died seven years before my son was born.

I lost hearing and ability to walk for a time, but I gained a love of life and a new found patience that at one time was as foreign to me as natural hearing is to me now.
All storms subside. First into a gust and then into a clam and perhaps without the hurricanes, cyclones, tornadoes, tsunamis, micro bursts and clouds of impending doom, we might not have any calm, or perhaps we would not recognize the calm for what it is.

The peace I feel here on the last Thursday of July, in the last year of this decade, could only be a result of storms that have subsided in my life. I have new hearing and new love. I walk and fake balance (but my God is the beech here ever throwing my walking for a loop).

I am sitting under a palm tree that thanks to a vigilant resort staff armed with machetes to trim, would drop coconuts on us unsuspecting tourists. If heaven were a traveling summer theater group, it is indeed playing here: on this beech.
Four shows a day!
Evening performances as well!

Life lessons are often learned as if by osmosis, but the lesson never sinks in until we use the absorbed skills in one of our life storms.
I know this now.
Two years ago I would rage against any darkness in my life, choosing to fight or flee a storm that I know now cannot be defeated or retreated from.
I now choose to light candles in the darkness of the storms to guide me through. It is a better place to be.
Perhaps deafness taught me more than my hearing life did.

The sun shows me that it is now noon. It is directly overhead now and without the ever present gentle Caribbean breeze, I would fry like the proverbial egg on the sidewalk in July.
It is the dogs days of summer I suspect, and this morning we saw our first dog in the Dominican Republic. A cute and playful puppy frolicking at oceans edge. It is a reminder of the wonderful pets that have been part of life, and the change that saw them move out of my life.

After lunch I lull into my unplanned but not surprising afternoon siesta. In my REM stage my dreams today are of food. Again, not surprising based on my buffet prowess thus far at the resort. I am startled into an early awaking by Mary. She has jostled me awake because the puppy from this morning has returned and is paying the two of us a visit that breaks both of our siestas into a shortened nap. Dog days!

I made reference to the "many firsts" that this journey would serveup. By day one in my holiday I had my first cochlear implant through the airport security; first flight with my C.I.; first time in the Dominican Republic.
I have been to the Caribbean before. Twenty one years ago I ventured to Cuba. It was in December of 1987.

Single then, and going through through one of those life questioning moments, I spent a week on the island. It was over Christmas, and I remember most vividly pushing a broken down rented Lada automobile through the hillsides outside of Havana, trying to get the car back to the resort where I rented it from. This was how I spent Christmas eve in 1987.

One month prior to that trip, I had been at the funeral of my Father. A man who I had not seen or spoken to in 15 years. So this was Caribbean Island visit and round one. It was one of many "rage against and run from the darkness and storms". It was how I did the "why me" in life's earlier journey.

This trip, Caribbean round 2, is a candle lighting mission of sorts wwhere I dare to ask my self the questions, learn answers through thought provoking and introspective meditation, and discover more love and life again from Mary; my beautiful traveling companion and soul mate.

It is now after 4 in the afternoon here , and we have traded the breeze and blues of the white sand stage named "Bavaro Beach", to kick up the action pool side. The beach lays back and the swaying of the palms lulls it's remaining denizens to sleep after 2 pm. The wave breaks never vary in their location. The playground of the morning is now a nursery for overfed, over sunned adults.

The pool, just meters inland from the ocean and a break of coconut palms is a daytime frat party and aerobics club. Music pumps and thumps from high strung speakers, as Dominican's in hotel attired t shirts and shorts, walk the pool deck, attempting to cajole us lazy folks into joining in the fun. There is now Salsa lessons, and they don't take "NO" for an answer. I eventually get brave and join Mary in the shallow end of the pool for an aerobics workout. I tuck my magnet and processor into a case and head for the water.
Deaf as a coconut shell I wonder how I will keep beat to music I can't and will never hear without the aid of my "gear".
Matters not!
I am here for seven days of life, love laughs and many many firsts.
Deaf aerobics just adds to my list!

Warmest,

David