Category / Journal

by Brian E. Holbrook

NFQ

When I decided to start this blog a couple months ago, it was out of desperation. The sense that I was running out of time was palpable. I had butterflies in my stomach constantly and I was an emotional wreck, being crushed under the weight of impending doom. I had no hope and didn’t expect to get any.

In just a few weeks, my outlook has improved dramatically, even if my situation hasn’t.

Writing has been a big part of that. I had things inside that needed to be outside, even if I didn’t know it, and finally getting them down on ‘paper’ has really improved my mental health.

A bigger part, though, has probably been starting pulmonary therapy two weeks ago.

When I started, it had been years since I’d done any sustained physical activity, and I just didn’t think I had the ability anymore. I envisioned nothing in my future but a rapid, unchecked decline in my lung function that would eventually lead to my death.

But in just four sessions at the gym, I’ve already seen improvement. Slight, it’s true, but improvement nonetheless.

More important than the measurable (if minor) physical improvement, has been the immeasurable boost to my confidence that has come from being able to push myself past my limitations –to exceed what I believed to be possible.

That boost in confidence has given me hope and a renewed desire to keep pushing, to keep fighting, and to Never Fucking Quit.

So, tonight, I’ll watch the sun drop down into the sea, basking in the last rays of the day, and luxuriate in the beauty of my lazy little town.

Then, tomorrow, I’m gonna drive that hour-and-a-half up to Astoria, walk into the therapy gym, and I’m gonna get to work.

by Brian E. Holbrook

Letter from Facebook Jail

I just finished up my first Facebook jail sentence, and I have a couple thoughts.

First, I deserved it. No doubt about it, I earned my sentence. In fact, I’m surprised it took so long for me to get put in the virtual hoosegow.

I feel like the Internet I started on back in the early 90’s was the Wild West –anything went. You could say whatever you wanted.

The first time I logged onto Prodigy (that’s right, Prodigy!), it took approximately 4 seconds for someone to insult me in chat (I was typing in all caps). I don’t remember exactly what was said –something about my parents, rat poison, and a slow death– but I recall being impressed by the wit, vocabulary, and vicious beauty of the well-crafted barb. It stung, but it was also funny.

“Oh!” I thought. “Words are weapons here!”

Being good with words, I loved that idea. Within a few months I was jumping into Internet arguments with both guns blazing -my barrels spitting out cutting, witty, and deliciously profane clauses.

In this world, I was a gunslinger.

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by Brian E. Holbrook

The Langoliers

I’ve been serving my first stint in Facebook jail, so that has given me time to do some sprucing up around the blog. I updated the theme to match my house, fixed how posts were displayed, and updated the ‘About‘ page. It was an afterthought of jumbled text, and I wanted to clean it up and make it concise, but still information-rich. Ya know. For my eleven readers.

Part of what I wanted to do was link to my music on the web, but I didn’t want to belabor it, so I was going to choose a single representative site. I did a quick search of my name, trying to find the best site to link.

And it was like I’d never lived. Half-a-dozen scattered links over the first few pages of returns. My music all but erased from the digital Rolodex.

As late as last year, it wasn’t hard to find. If you had Googled ‘Brian Holbrook‘ then, the first few pages would have contained links to my albums and singles on Pandora, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, etc…

It was kind of a comfort to me. I would tell people, “At least my music will live on after I’m gone.”

But nothing lasts, really –certainly not this library of imaginary ones and zeroes.

It made me think of that old Steven King story, The Langoliers, and I imagined my digital past being ruthlessly munched into oblivion by laughable CGI.

It also got me thinking, though, that the only way to outrun the Langoliers was to stay in the present and not get trapped in the past. So, that’s what I’m going to do. It doesn’t matter what last year’s Google might have shown, it only matters what I do today.

So, I’m shifting gears a little bit here on the blog. I’m still figuring out what I want this thing to be, and what I want to accomplish with it, but expect more informal, short entries about my life, health, observations, poems, and even music. I’m still going to write the more long-form essays, but I also want to focus on a couple other things, not the least of which is more frequent, diverse, and shorter content.

More to eat, but in smaller bites, for future Langoliers.

by Brian E. Holbrook

The Comforting Roar of Eternity

Sometimes, usually at night, when the tide comes in, I’ll be sitting here in my living room, windows open, watching the TV and wondering:

“What the hell is that roaring noise?”

Then I remember it’s the Pacific, just over the berm, clawing at the beach, just like it has been for 200 million years –long before any of my kind were around to hear it.

It puts me in my place, this ocean.

So I mute the TV and listen to the closest I’ll ever get to eternity whisper in my ear.

“You don’t matter.” It says. “You are nothing. This is all nothing. None of this means anything. I will be clawing at this beach 200 million years from now, long after your kind are gone.”

There are people I know who would consider this discouraging, or terrifying, or even a form of heresy or blasphemy. But for me? It is a comfort like a mother’s embrace.

“It has all been OK.” It says. “All you’ve worried about, and fretted over, and tortured yourself because of during long nights of doubt? It’s as insignificant as beach sand. It all gets washed away, eventually.”

And some part of me wishes that it weren’t true; that I’d somehow carved something indelible into the time or space that I have occupied –some proof that I’d mattered somehow. But I’ve seen enough of death to know that the ocean isn’t lying.

We fade within two generations, often sooner. We are sparks from a bonfire: beautiful, blazing, unique, and soon forgotten.

But the longer I live here next to this unimaginably ancient sea, I understand that it is OK. It’s OK to be a spark that is born, rises, touches nothing, and fades away. That is the cycle. That is life.

That’s the truth the Pacific knows.

And sometimes, when I mute my TV, it whispers it in my ear.