Morning is here. My current lifestyle is one of dragging myself to work and dragging myself home. It's tough. My life is out of balance. 

Last evening, I found myself hiking over to the Carpenter Nature at the north edge of town. It was quiet and I had the setting to myself (except for the occasional rabbit scurrying or bird flit from sage to sage). 

When I go out for one of these quiet adventures, I pause to take in the sunset. This was a special night though. Equally spectacular to the sun setting like a hallow to the "head" of the Sleeping Ute Mountain was a full moon rising over the La Plata Mountains to the east. I had my camera and took some pictures to post.

Speaking of the full moon, tonight I'm hosting a potluck. Since I'll be making some mango margaritas, I suspect the potluck will turn into a party. While I can appreciate the spectrum of quiet solitude to boisterous partying. Last night I needed some quiet. What I need tonight is a party.

Life is awfully good. I guess I can’t really compare it to anything…except maybe pre-life (can you remember what it was like before you were born? Me either.)

I have a couple of housemates. Tony lives in the basement. Jon is in the spare bedroom.

I connected with Tony by posting a little ad on Craigslist (something like “Room in exchange for your carpentry skills”). Anyhow, he showed up with a trailer of tools and a dream. He has helped with the home improvements a ton. He’s also a great cook and we’ve become good friends.

Jon has been a friend for about a year. We first met over a conversation at the local coffee house (shared our challenges of unemployment - is it true the new norm is plenty of middle aged folks who are struggling to survive?). Anyhow, we’re great friends. He contacted me a month ago saying he needed a place (as he’s navigating through a divorce).  While I’m at work as a teacher, he’s been helping Tony with the home repairs.

Anyhow, the house is really coming together! I’d not truly understood what kind of project I was undertaking. It is amazing through all we can accomplish with the help of friends (old and new). The big plan this week is to begin painting the exterior.

I’m sipping my first cup of morning java. Soon we will be dipping the brush in the bucket. I have a feeling it’ll be a landmark day. I am already having visions of big parties under the full moon…enjoying this big space I call home.

Be not weak my friends. Life is good. I am a writer. I am a painter. The writing is done. Now I paint. 

Sometimes it is important to just experience life. I’d gone for my morning jog. I panted at my doorsteps and decided the front yard could be watered. I turned on the sprinkler and experienced some wonderful layers- the sunrise beyond the playground beyond the sprinkler.

Life is in layers. Some are thick. Some are thin. Some have deep rooted fossils and some are fresh flooded mud.

I study layers of the earth, the rock, myself and others.

In my youth, favorite layers included the rainbow of jello in a family picnic, the discarded clothes on my bedroom floor, and the steaming mass of fermented organics deep in the compost pile. The calendar always felt like an unending ripple of predicted tides- a new school year, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Saint Patrick’s Day, Easter and summer vacation.  I remember the layers of my childhood as better than they ever were—there were many layers of complete crap.

My favorite layers as an adult seem more permanent. The layers between Heaven and Hell. The layers between love and fear. The layers between separation and connectedness. I guess these aren’t actually my favorite layers, they’re just the ones I think about the most.

Today I look at the sunrise beyond the playground beyond the sprinkler and think, This is how it is- life is layers- birth, death and the meaning we put in between. The lesson- live life and worry not.

Have you ever had a theme running through your head? I catch onto these every now and then. My most recent is one I truly love- it is “No Worries”.

The core root of most profound themes goes back to Disney (actually, it goes back well before Disney, but humor me by following my logic). We all walked away from The Lion King with a short lesson in Swahili and didn’t even know it. “Hakuna Matata” rolls off the tongue like some like the joyous tickle of a back-seat teen who has just caught wind on a bump and is laughing their ass off (you know what I’m talking about…right?). I actually first saw the movie with a large group of teens who I’d chaperoned to the theater. While we were all touched to near tears with Elton’s “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”, within minutes of our bus ride back to campus some were singing “Hakuna Matata” (little did I know I would eventually spend time living in East Africa and make use of the phrase daily).

Jump to the present.  A couple of weeks ago, I went to dinner with a friend and coworker. I didn’t have my vehicle, so he offered a ride in his low rider. The side of the vehicle slick with a large custom paint job of “Puropedo”. I try to pronounce it, and Marco corrects me then tells me, “It means ‘No Worries’. My brothers and I have a clothing company.” I began to wonder, Is this a theme?

About a week ago I subbed for a class at the Cortez High School. In my spare time, I was preparing for a job interview with the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe in Towaoc, Colorado. A couple of young Native American men in the back of the class were talking about living in Towaoc. I was curious and asked them, “What does Towaoc mean?”

One of them responded, “It means ‘No Worries’” and a couple of the students began singing, “Hakuna Matata”.

Yesterday, as I sat in a parking lot with a dead battery and six Mormons on missions looking under the hood, I thought to myself, No worries. One dripped ice cream on his tie as another informed me, “A police officer from our Ward is coming to help out.” God bless the Mormons on a mission. I’m charging my battery at this very moment.

Hakuna Matata, Puropedo, Towaoc…whatever the language, no worries is a theme to live by. Tap it on your forehead, put it on the fridge, or simply say it repeatedly each and every day. No Worries- now these are words to live by!