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Rolling Pebbles

by ZacharyWGilbert

I love that moment, when the words begin to flow onto the page and my keyboard sounds like a gentle stream massaging rolling pebbles.  I have finally finished a journey of earning a degree as a non-traditional student.  There were may late nights and over 100 of mile round trip commutes.  In the end it was worth it.  Writing I feel is not much different than working out.  Number 1, you have to show up.   Number 2, you have to have a plan and start.  Number 3, when it burns and you want to quit, keep going.

I have several stories that have been sleeping because of Water Statistics and Capstones.  It is time to wake them up, to show up, plan, and keep the pebbles moving.

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Copyright © 2019 Zachary W. Gilbert

Floating Metal

by ZacharyWGilbert

The cold metal handle brushes against my sandpapered chin.  Sweat coats me like a warm summer rain.  The weight pulls me toward the ground.  The drumming of life fades and focuses into the center of the orb I hold.  Sixteen times I must lower to my knees and stand.  I lock my bellybutton into my spine.  I tuck my shoulder blades into my back pockets and I lower my heavy body down.  I think about all of the things in life that are heavy burden.  3, 4.  I consider how relaxing it would be to quit.  5, 6.  I pause and drop the kettle bell on the floor.  The rubber floor welcomes the hit with a muffled thud.   “I drink your sweat, and I devour you QUIT,” it mocks me in silence.  The floor is failure, I pull myself up and away from it.   I realize that I am here, in this moment, right now, and I only need to lower one knee at a time.  Then stand up, one knee at a time.  I hold the weight close to my chin.  I place everything I am battling in life inside it.  Lost promotions, the hopes and fears of graduating with a 4 year degree at 42, my failures, my family… I load it all in.  Keep moving.  7, 8.  My body begs me to quit.  I think of the moments of the 4th quarter, the moment when losers falter and winners finish.  9, 10.  Six more.  I think about all those times I should have been writing, and I sat the heavy weight down and stopped counting.  I let that dark floor swallow me whole.  The world left silent and without my fingers dancing, telling the tale the hungry reader craves.  I take a deep breath, my shirt is stuck to my chest.  Kneel, breathe, stand.  11.  What if I took the finishing energy I have now, and study for that final. Finish!  What if I made myself sit and write, in pursuit of 1,000 rejections.  No!  1,000 attempts.  12.  I can see daylight.  I am fully inside of the moment of quit, I see the finish line.  My body hurts.  My weight falls from my chin, I pull it back.  Belly button my the spine.  Shoulder blades in my back pockets.  Back tall and strong.  Down! Up! 13.  Sweat takes flight as my hot breath grabs it.  Back down, come on.  Everything worth having in life is like this, DON’T QUIT.  Down! Up! 14.  My butt aches, my knees hurt, but I find strength in the reps lying in my wake.  Down! Uhh uhhp! 15.  Finish it…  FINISH IT!  My arms are burning.  My head is throbbing.  Am I going to feed my dreams or feed the floor?  My inner voice is yelling, “QUIT!  STOP! ENOUGH!” I take a deep breath, and close my eyes, and in that moment, I make that metal float.

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Copyright © 2019 Zachary W. Gilbert

Ferrari full of groceries

by ZacharyWGilbert

In 2003 Professor Dunsmore pulled me aside in the 4 fourth floor stairwell, “Zach, it breaks my heart watching you pursue useless things.”

I was a few hours late to class because I was busy finishing some extra work at the print shop.  I paused in confusion on my way up the stairs.  “What do you mean?  I am a hard worker, I always…”

He broke my words with a caring smile, “You are wasting energy on the wrong things.  You are a Ferrari stuck in gridlock traffic hauling groceries.”

Now 16 years later, I realize that Professor Dunsmore may have been onto something.  I have been playing it safe my entire adult life.  I pour energy into things that I know I can win.  Simple things.  Grocery things.  I apologize to the weak when I attempt to excel.  When I don’t get the same fair treatment others get, when I am confused as to why I scare people, when I get that ache in my chest that feels like my heart is trying to fold itself into my spine, I realize… I don’t belong here.  I belong on the open road.  Writing books.  People can not define my reality or choose where or when I will be successful.  God gave me a gift, and gave me that job.  I have been foolishly handing the reins of my life to someone else.  “Here take this.  Define me.  Guide me. Promote me.  Love me.  Compliment me.”  I only hope God forgives my stupidity.  The reins of my life have been tossed to the ground yet again.  This time when I pick them up, I am going to hold onto them.  I am going to get to work, and I mean really get to work.

Professor Dunsmore was an ex-FBI agent / attorney that knew a thing or two about people in the world.  He saw me sticking out like a sore thumb from the abundance of mediocrity.  Yes, my drawing skills were sub-par and I was average with my 3D animation skills, but he saw something in the way I could tell a story.  He could sense the potential lying dormant in a safe locked up storage room deep in my heart.  I though I was keeping it protected,  by avoiding difficulty and potential rejection.  In reality, I was killing myself slowly inside every day because I wouldn’t let my talents live.  My purpose is not to play it safe, and that will always leave me skewed and disproportionate in safe places.  God made me tall.  God made me bold.  God made me an encouraging story teller.  Every second I avoid doing those things 100%, I am a thief.  A despicable coward.  My gifts were not given to me to be locked away in storage.  They belong to other people;  to inspire, encourage, and protect them.

Talent is only a tiny seed, genetically formatted to grow into something massive.  A seed needs nutrients, sunlight, water, and time.  A seed encased in concrete will never do anything.  One day someone is going to come looking for fruit from a tree that is not there.  People will be starved and without my contributions to the world because I was scared.

I ask God for things that would violate my purpose, and I get crushed when I don’t get them.  All this time I have wasted chasing easy things has to stop.  Writing is hard.  Telling the tale of ‘what was it like to be human’ is a daunting task.

What if the 17th book I write will be the one that gives my readers a good representation of the question?  Aren’t those 16 failures bigger victories than any mediocre prize I might scrounge up playing it safe.  The thrill is in the journey of letting talent rise up and live.  Fear and ache will dissolve with disciplined repetition, muscle memory will take over and endurance will rise.

The groceries only make me fat and slow, wasting my time.  It’s time to feed this hungry Ferrari the open road it was built for.

. . .

Zachary W. Gilbert

Copyright © 2019

Light left behind

by ZacharyWGilbert

In a dark space, light fades among translucent beings.  My brain, seen clearly through a soft membrane has a glow.  I whip my fingers over the dusty keys of my keyboard like a stage coach driver whipping tired horses to move faster.  The filament of my thoughts begins to grow, and I panic because I know that light that isn’t captures fades in the blink of an eye.  Peopled Worlds fall out of my fingers, trickling light.  I capture the glow on dying paper or cast it into the fathomless waves of the internet.  I watch it drift away, while my fingers grow still.  I hope someone finds my light.

I pick up my book, light fills my eyes.  I commune with people I have never met.  Perhaps they are passed away.  I feel honored basking in the dim glow of the light they left behind.  There stories fill my darkness.  My mind is alive, drinking the sacred glow of human thought.  I smile, as the glow in my mind lives for but a moment in the endless darkness.

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Copyright ©  2019 Zachary W. Gilbert

Fading Dance

by ZacharyWGilbert

Knotted fingers made of gray smoke,

choke the sunlight from weary eyes.

The sun drowns behind mountains,

always falling when doomed sleepers wake.

Muscle turns to sand and spills,

onto a cold floor, kissed by the night air.

Mind becomes a weary boulder,

on a faltering mountain covered in fog.

Forsaken by the light,

 in darkness, emptied hope walks alone.

Joys of the illuminated world

dance in fading memory.

. . .

Copyright © 2019 Zachary W. Gilbert