I Am Santo

So I’ve decided to collapse as many of my online ramblings as I could into this website and in doing so I’ve managed to create a bit of a tire fire in terms of organization. At the same time, I’m constantly debating with myself what’s actually going to live here and what isn’t. I guess the old adage of “it’s better to have than to have not” has won out, and thus I’m looking at a website consisting of 600+ posts, probably about 100 of which are redundant and many more which, to be honest, I probably don’t want you reading, oh great denizens of the Interwebs. So the next step is to get editing. And that takes time, a luxury I never have.

As a result, if you’re reading this, it probably means you’ve stumbled onto this messy collection of my writing either from a google search or I’ve gone ahead and promoted the site on Instagram despite knowing better. I do really want some people to read this stuff and while it’s on Tumblr – which was populated through Twitter and Instagram in some bizarre game of social media round robin that stopped working a while ago – I’m not really so hungry for attention as to sound the ramparts now and cut the ribbon. Yet this material has been in limbo for so long and even this small dose of organization is better than what’s currently available, so maybe it’s okay to invite y’all to roast some smores by the smoldering wreckage of my creativity.

Just be forewarned if I did toss you into this direction: it’s a sloppy spill of unedited stories and broken image links imported from Arresting Progress (aka jasonsanto.com) and my rather poorly curated Tumblr called Inspiring Progress. (Which begs the question, are there well-curated Tumblrs?) The formatting is inconsistent and I’m not even sure if things are dated correctly. But what’s perhaps most eyebrow raising is that there are likely a few demons lurking in here – raw confessions of anguish with self worth and life in general from a few years back when I was living in very tumultuous times. It was stuff I wrote on Instagram and later deleted, but stayed alive on Tumblr because I wasn’t exactly exhaustive in my clean-up. I’m not apologizing for those times or the quality of the writing produced then – in fact much of it helped me build the modest audience I now have on Instagram. If you know me in real life, however, or if you are a newer follower of my Instagram gallery, then there’s a lot of deeply personal work you probably never saw and maybe do not want to see.

It’s quite possible all of that is buried under the huge import of material, though and I’ll probably nuke a lot of it as soon as some time comes available, so maybe this is much ado about nothing.

Isn’t everything?

It’s been a long, long time since I’ve blogged. While I’ve dabbled with Blogger (well past the point any self-respecting web developer would), that was a six month experiment largely geared toward using my jasonsanto.com domain to get out some of the new writing I was doing. Four years or so later, I’ve been tasked with getting reacquainted with WordPress and it seemed like this was as good a way as any to do so.

As before with Arresting Progress, that Blogger space I inhabited for a while, I really make no promises to myself or anyone else about what’s going to happen here. At best, it’ll be a frequently updated repository of the work I compose over at my Instagram account, neatly organized and made more palatable than it is in that space where I am woefully too wordy to fit in with their writing community. At worst, this is it… a single post tossed into the Internet’s unforgiving ether and indifferently ignored by friends, family and strangers toeing the world wide wading pool. Either way, I’m strangely fine with it. I’ll write regardless, create in a vacuum if I must, and periodically hope that someone notices, although it won’t keep me up at night like it did so many years ago when I was young and terrified of never making an impact. Impacts are overrated, it turns out. Sometimes under the radar leaves a lot less mess to clean up.

My first blog was in 2000 or so and it got me into a lot of trouble with friends because I was far too candid. Next time I took a stab was during those dark “MySpace” years where I wrote whatever I wanted and it was more or less ignored. Now I’m cultivating a space in the immensely crowded, yet infinitely accommodating virtual world into which the Internet has evolved. It’s a flag stuck in a barren surface overrun by busy bees seeking their own fortunes and attention, and I have no expectations of either those multitudes or myself. I’m simply writing and sharing. Word by word. World by world.

If you’re there, just know I do think it’s nice to see you again. Cheers.

To Justin on the occasion of your third birthday.

I need to tell you, son: I love you in ways so unique they sometimes frighten me.

Your smile sometimes makes my eyes water, partially from pride and partially from a longing to be good enough to deserve it. The way you take in happiness with the entirety of your face – it’s a gift, my boy. You are life personified. You are the dawn and the dusk, but always the most beautiful of both and never mourning for all you represent is promise. Your silly games, the laughter that hangs from the corners of every room in which you let loose – if ever I thought such joy could be found in tossing a deck of cards or dropping myself off a couch, I’d have never stopped doing either! Regardless of whether it’s appropriate or not – regardless of whether or not I am being a good parent – I cannot stomach editing your joy because it’s the key to life. You’ve found it, little man. You stumbled onto the Grail without even knowing what you did, which is truly the way the best stories play out, or at least the truest ones. Live and laugh, they all say. Seize every day, every moment! And you do. You do what so many wish they could.

I long for you to know the wonder and love with which you infect others. Your reaction to music is chemical, it would seem. The movement of your body to each and every rhythm, always adjusting and unique, is perfect. Don’t worry about the steps. Never sweat the routine or the memorization others flaunt, for you understand the purity of the moment, you FEEL what others only know how to pretend to know.

And yet you do strive too for knowledge. You instinctively reach beyond the emotions that course so feverishly through you because you know there’s more behind every couch cushion unturned, every item you cannot quite reach and demand to be picked up to reveal. Your desire is a fire consuming everything, and I have never been more ready to allow myself to be burned because I want you to know it all. I believe you will too.

I’m circling the point here, so I’d better sum it all up. Your need to “talk about it,” coupled with your playfulness, genuine curiosity and the very sweetness of your giving personality make me realize there’s more in this life than my own needs, my worries or my hang-ups. You free your old man – and yes, I do feel so very old despite your youth (or maybe because of it) – of the phantoms of his own undoing and failures as you know light intuitively; you know truth as if it’s something with which you were branded as you entered this world. And the lesson you teach each day is that there is more to everything! There is more love than anyone thinks, more hope, more to understand, more laughter and more toys! I laugh, but it’s true – your mother and I, in cahoots with you grandparents have made your cup runneth over with playthings.

But you are not spoiled by life, simply hungry for the next moment and the next big adventure. You want to play every game and the blue of your eyes adds depth to the sea and the sky. You are life! You are the reason breath tastes sweeter and the day is more than the sum of aches and pains. It’s your passion and imagination that light my days brighter than any sun. And when we played in the bouncy house yesterday as part of your birthday weekend, I laughed bigger and smiled wider than I have in years.

Why? Because for a moment I let myself be you, and your energy and magic spread through me, woke me out of my constant worry and just freed me to be.

Your gift is that you don’t only know instinctively how to live life, but that you wake up everyone around you so they too will embrace this precious gift. You’re a catalyst, a match strike, and you’re the single best thing that your mother and I ever worked together for.

I adore you, Justin. More than angels love Heaven and more than science loves proof. You’re my best, greatest hope and I live every day with a need to keep your fires burning, spreading, and reminding everyone you meet that there is more to each day. All they have to do is want to look.

Just like you.

Happy birthday.

Daddy.