Zeniths by Dane Allred

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Bright Space

Zeniths

by Dane Allred

You have something you need to accomplish.
You may even have a good idea what it is.

It may be something you have been working towards your whole life.

It may be something that only takes a few days to accomplish.

But whatever it is,
The world remains changed forever after.

You are here for a reason.
There is something you have to do.

What does it feel like when you have finally reached that point?

There is that sense of satisfaction,
The knowledge you have made a difference.

The incredible surety you feel that what you are doing is right,
And you are doing it for the right reason.

It is an incredible and satisfying feeling,
A kind of euphoria.

When you have reached the highest point
The zenith,
There may be half of the trip still in front of you.

The culmination of a lifetime of work
Isn’t the end.

There is always something after.

The relief of having accomplished what you intended to do.

But often the glow of success is often followed by a letdown.

We all have those zeniths in our life where an incredible rush of excitement is followed by the lull of what comes afterwards.

We were all together in the Bright Space before,
Heady with the excitement of this new adventure called life.

We came here to learn all we can learn,
To someday return to that Bright Space
And realize we have accomplished our purpose;
To know all there is to know.

I am here to help you reach that zenith.

You are here to help me accomplish what it is I need to do.

In a life filled with possibilities,
There are so many things to be done.
We are here to do them.
Maybe we will have many different kinds of zeniths in this life.

Now there are seven billion of us on this journey together.
There is nothing we cannot accomplish.

What can I do to help you reach your zenith?

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Broken and Bloody

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I must have learned something about falling while I was in "The Desperate Hours". In this show, my job was to appear with a gun and as I was drawing my weapon to shoot the invaders, get shot and have to collapse as I did a forward roll down three wooden stairs. Then after landing face down on the floor, I would reach up and puncture a blood pack under my shirt and then be escorted out the house moments later with blood running down my chest and dripping between my fingers.

It was a pretty dramatic scene, but I found after playing this role that I really didn't like playing ingénues. While it is fun to be the love interest, there really isn't much challenge. I guess all of my experience falling during my formative years must have helped me stay uninjured during the show. Even though I repeatedly flew head over heels down the lightly padded wooden stairs, I never remember getting any bruises from the stair somersaults.

My luck wasn't always so good in college. I still have a kink in my neck from playing some pickup soccer. I really hadn't played that much, but there must have been someone I was trying to impress because I jumped up to save my side from a possible goal by kicking wildly in the air. The problem became evident when I landed on my neck. Then I decided soccer wasn't my game.

The only other problem I remember from Utah State was that I was getting a lot of roles as old men. Egeus (Hermia's father) in Midsummer Night's Dream and Fender in the Bespoke Overcoat. Egeus doesn't get what he wants, which is for Hermia to marry Demetrius. The funny thing is that both of those actors were at least three years older than I was. Fender was so old that he dies during the play.

Luckily, I get to come back in that show and get the coat I've already paid for. But the future didn't look bright. I was playing characters who were so old they died of old age in the show. I began hunching over and walking slowly at times when I didn't need to, and one day as I was walking to the dorms, I noticed I was hobbling across the lawn like I was ninety. I stopped and looked around to see if anyone was looking. Then, just in case someone was watching, I ran the rest of the way.

I’ve already told you about injuring my ankle playing a jester at a Tupperware convention. I made twenty-five dollars, but injured myself yet again.

After getting an ankle cast, I also got to see how fast I could run with one ankle immobilized. I made the mistake of showing my wife her birthday present before her birthday, and she grabbed it and ran down the street, pretending to open it. I think I believed she would actually open it since she had confessed to opening her Christmas presents early as a little girl and then carefully rewrapping them. I ran after her as fast as I could hobble, and as she ran faster, I tried to run faster, too. The cast broke right at the ankle as I grabbed the present and her.

The recasting of the ankle didn't get properly billed from the old Budge clinic and my wife and I got our first taste of a credit report problem. After I found out there was a problem I went and paid the bill which stopped my wife from opening her present early - - only ninety dollars.

Even when I do something as non-threatening as trying to start a tiller when I’m gardening, I usually find some way to injure myself.

Just this week I was trying to get the old Sears tiller started up. It was working just last week, and I was able to get some good tilling done. But when I tried to start it yesterday, it wouldn’t start. I’m pretty stubborn, so I like to keep trying when most people would have had the sense to stop.

The more I pulled, the more I wanted it to start. But it just sat there mocking me. As I got more worn out from pulling the rope, I started to get careless.

This tiller has a handle that curves back to the front, and there is supposed to be a cap on the pipe handle. Of course, it was missing, and when I pulled hard but kind of sloppy, I rammed the back of my hand into the pipe. I scraped my hand pretty hard from the wrist to my index finger.

It’s okay. I’ve had fake blood run between my fingers. It hurts less than the real thing.

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Abundance Yesterday Oct 23

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This is the complete episode of Abundance called Yesterday from Oct 23.

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Sonnet Fifty-five by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet Fifty-five


Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone besmear'd with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lover's eyes.

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Sonnet Fifty-four by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet Fifty-four


O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odor which doth in it live.
The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly
When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:
But, for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade,
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odors made:
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth.

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Sonnet Fifty-three by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet Fifty-three


What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
Since every one hath, every one, one shade,
And you, but one, can every shadow lend.
Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit
Is poorly imitated after you;
On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,
And you in Grecian tires are painted new:
Speak of the spring and foison of the year;
The one doth shadow of your beauty show,
The other as your bounty doth appear;
And you in every blessed shape we know.
In all external grace you have some part,
But you like none, none you, for constant heart.

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Sonnet Fifty-two by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet Fifty-two


So am I as the rich, whose blessed key
Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,
The which he will not every hour survey,
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,
Since, seldom coming, in the long year set,
Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,
Or captain jewels in the carcanet.
So is the time that keeps you as my chest,
Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,
To make some special instant special blest,
By new unfolding his imprison'd pride.
Blessed are you, whose worthiness gives scope,
Being had, to triumph, being lack'd, to hope.