MaMaLiRZ

When the idea came to me, it wasn’t completely out of the blue, it was more the culmination of many moving pieces, past, present, future. A convergence of ideas, beliefs and desires.

Past

Love of writing, I’ve written poems to express my childhood dramas, ones I’ve never shared because they cut a little too deep. Say a little too much and stand to be judged and maybe I still protect the little nine year old heart living inside of me.

Present

Word expression, I’m usually the one folks ask to rewrite emails and concepts to cut through the crap and help them get to the point. As a friend recently told me, with a smile and love in her heart, as if I already knew, “Matter of Fact”, that’s you;) Every now and then you need that friend in that moment that you can hear. To draw your attention back to who you are, which then transitions into asking yourself, who do I want to be. Is that how I see myself or for that matter how I want other people to see me?

Future

The future is unwritten, the endless blank pages of which there is one less at the end of each day. Every second of every day is the past, present and future in one, at once.

I read an article that asked, what will be written on your tombstone? Will it only be the beginning, the dash, and the end dates? Our eyes brush quickly over the dash between the beginning and the end as if it’s the least important. In reality, the Dash is the only thing of importance. How do I show up through the Dash? It needs to hold meaning.

The Story

In my most difficult times, thought provoking times, and total crisis times, writing has always been my secret outlet. Emotion held inside like a genie in the lamp. Trapped until the lamp is rubbed, pen to paper, write, release the genie. Writing is what I pick up and then put back down. I left poetry as an adolescent. But it beckoned me back like a siren to shore. This time, war trauma was the siren. It wasn’t because what I experienced was so traumatic that I was broken forever, but more because my job had me run to the mortar instead of way. I ran in the opposite direction as everyone else, my objective?: the Operations Center.

It was driving in rush hour traffic in the wrong direction. Running, breathless in shower shoes or combat boots, urgent and fast. The crowd attempting to turn me, not understanding MY mission. If I can get to the Opertions Center, I can reverse engineer the mortar trajectory. If I’m not there when the mortar is fired and then impacts, I can’t predict the follow on mortar bombardment. I can’t direct the Quick Reaction Force. I can’t advise the commander and recommend the path of the drones.

Wait, what? (I know, I said it for you;). I’ll give you a minute to read that again. When you are done, come back to me.

What you need to understand is that there is a twist of thought that makes sense in times of war, but nowhere else. There is no way that what we experience inside or outside of the wire, transcends to normal life. No normal person runs to danger <mortar>. Self-preservation should control body functions and brain patterns to move said body away from danger <normal>. But in war, priorities are different. Life is different. Everything is different in ways that words cannot convey <not normal, but normalized>. Something to consider and offer grace to, is that when a Soldier comes home, that mind-set doesn’t just disappear because the pilot announces that the aircraft has passed into friendly territory. It lingers like the smell of last nights dinner on your clothes or the hint of onions on your grandmother hands after a lifetime of cooking. The transition is hard, the confusion is real. No, it doesn’t make sense, but that doesn’t make it any less real.

Upon reentry to society, and different than Vietnam returning Soldiers, Iraqi Freedom had a significant presence of the yellow ribbon campaign. They bombarded the returning Soldier with options of how to manage everything that was happening within the Soldier’s physical and mental forms.

The Soldier’s poetry seminar was the only option I heard. It peaked my interest, my siren calling. The experience was transformative in so many ways. Soldiers sharing with Soldiers. No judgments, no assumptions and no questions of whether or not you killed anyone. What mattered was that we were not alone in our thoughts and feelings. The seminar was multiple weeks and concluded with a poetry reading where we invited in loved ones to witness the cleansing of our souls played out in the equivalent of a poetry open mic night.

As often happens after an event like this, a group of us, trying to hold on to the camaraderie a little longer, went to a local bar to grab food and drinks before saying final good-byes. There a met a man that encouraged my artist side and introduced me to the World of movies. He was the director, main actor and producer of the feature film, TROOPER, a film by Christopher Martini. He invited me to participate in the film as a military consultant which eventually turned into an Executive Producer credit. We hit it off and quickly became fast friends and ultimately lifelong friends.

As you can imagine, when I started leaning into the quest for 63 in 365, visiting all 63 of the US National Parks in a year, the poet and artist in me wanted to share it with my friend and ask for his sage advise. Long story short, during the discussion and brainstorming for my project, he invited me to Las Vegas to collaborate between my blog concept and his film school. Although I do love Vegas, pretty much all of my travel at this point needs to be centered around the National Parks. But, just maybe, I can incorporate both. The joy grew inside of me. My compass continuing to point in my present direction. And with that the planning of our visits to Joshua Tree and Death Valley began.

• Transforming Our National Parks Quest: Lessons Learned
• Enroute to Vegas
• Zion National Park
• A Conversation After Death
• The Best of the First Five: National Parks Review

https://wanderthroughwonder.store/collections/all?fbclid=IwY2xjawMMqktleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFmMmlqR0RUbUY5TkpUYkJyAR6eb1L5AvyuRqopwL7mY_A7i0OvPr4X5EOFu56WndZWURDW8BMcsDrG9XCU9A_aem_z4c2ubKxkHynQO-iHGfW4A