End of November

How often do you get to comment on the end of November? 

It’s an odd sensation to feel, yet alone ask.  I was thinking of a boy named Andrew.  He was the eldest son, so inherited all the unspoken hope of his parents.  He lived a comfortable life striving to win his father’s approval and his mother’s affection.  His body grew strong and able as his heart was fertile for giving and loving.  His obligations closed in upon him when he neared the time to make his own choices; he went away to war at the ripe old age of eighteen. Sent off with the sounds of pride and adulation; he was selfless and wanted to make a difference; to his friends he had succeeded. Two weeks after arriving to the front lines his vehicle slid off an earthen embankment and rolled into a reservoir. He was knocked unconscious and perished in the murky waters between towns his family could never pronounce. It is a sad tale of loss, of unfulfilled hopes and dreams. Most of us couldn’t mourn the loss because we were invested in private concerns that consumed our attention.  The tragedy of life requires feeling it up close and personal. 

   I was thrust into heartache at random.  It was my turn to be the flesh and blood representative who would look a grieving mother in the eyes and deliver the blow that would change her heart forever.  It cost us all, as I mourn that boy every year since.  Mostly I mourn the fractured dreams of the surviving family, each and collectively. It pains me every time I go back there, back to my last and final duty before retiring from the military.

  I used to worship power. The kind where I thought having command would change lives in an instant; I would point and speak my orders, and they would obey.  Only when I was involved in the loss of a soldier’s life did I comprehend the price of such a privilege. I have lost the taste for controlling others.  I have no desire to instruct anyone to do any of my bidding.  I only hope to never have to bury another loved son or daughter.  I may not have pulled the trigger or pointed to where death was the price for winning; even enemy have parents…but I grieve for all of those who are involved in such a deadly dance and are unaware of the burden of it until they’ve had a piece of soul stolen. 

   The year closes its ambition on the 1^st of December, laying aside those goals that are clearly too grand to accomplish in the dusky fleeting winter days.  I feel the weight of those past months where mistakes took such a horrible turn in the unexpected and unintentional end of life.  There is no pall of regret, nor lament, life ends without preamble all of the time.  I was never asked to judge, but I am humbled by knowing how fragile each day is balanced upon the other.  How continuing happy contentment is so delicately unaware of change approaching... as it arrives; at the end of November.

Honeysuckle Summer

The chain of thoughts were engaging ~ tend the garden of your knowing.
Share the preciousness of your secret ways; your quiet hopeful joy.

In my personal journey finding a philosophy for living, beyond adherence to a private dogma promising safe, is this pressing desire; A wish to discover for myself what is the issue with belief systems, faith, and possibly even yes, the fundamental character of the big L, one-over-the-world, type love.

   I'd be less than forthright, in unbiased sort of inquiry, if I didn’t mention that all of this curiosity is predicated on pain, prodded by fear, then suckled into living-breathing-questioning by a prickly sense of urgent discomfort. But for a sprinkle of understand did I see if I deny the effect of change in my personal perspective, then I would be relegated to remain on a path of uncertainty and misgivings; short translation doomed to repeat the process.
   So in exploration, with appetite to discover answers, I felt compelled to gather to me for the journey, some companionship. This I do acknowledging the ancient disposition towards comforts, reassurance, and all around regular type of being human desire to not be alone. Too often that impoverishment drove me to desperate clinging and excessive attachment.   My need so prevalent I had forgotten the whole reason why I had bothered to act in the first place. Recalling the details was becoming more elaborate and defined; whether I was willing to admit it or not.  Soon it became so clear it was undeniable. That reasoned place where being swept along was no longer good enough.

I found out for myself reality was a distortion from what was actual. My perception, no matter how much I claimed was valid, was influenced by values and belief systems. I came to appreciate belief systems were but a gatherings of thought processes born from my personal experiences. They were in effect, my expectations; my private paradigms that kept me living in the past, fearing similar experiences in the future, or basically~ tools to resist facts that were contrary to what I wanted. Only in that self examination and inner unraveling was I able to arrest my habitual reactions. I wanted to wake up to living as a response to actuality. To stop living in the past, or dreading the future. If I wish to own my power I must first stop sabotaging it with illusionary investment into events that cannot be effected, (the past) or avoiding those that don't arrive (the future)

   I'd not be able to express this far if not for the company of others. Sometimes it can be true where each person becomes the prayed for angel; to listen and empathize with. We're living when we're connected....it reminds us of home.  Allow me to express, "I love you" as a new and vibrant celebration of support to our exploring days...the divine connection...the comfort that is as fragrant....

as a honeysuckle summer.

Fixing Unbroken

Sometimes I drift.

I make comments about fleeting thoughts and just as quickly poof, I can’t recall that I uttered a word. There are times I am alarmed at my slovenly fashion of navigating precious daily allotment of time.  I can scarcely recall what my objectives were at the beginning of the day when I lay my head to rest.  I’d say the greatest amount of my time is spent reacting to impulsive thoughts.  If I’m lucky, Montse will echo her thoughts on the topic and we’ll converse for some time in a direction. We pluck at fragments out of a familiarity with inefficiency in a flawed expectation of life needing to flow in order to make sense.  I read a poem, and I so wish I could credit the author because for me, poetry rarely hits me between the eyes.  Heck, I’d say I am more than most, able to get the message all wrong, or I’m guilty of assigning a deep emotional meaning to a subjective observation:

 “It’s the artist rendering a bleak result from heartfelt hope?” 

The Red Painting by Jimmi Win

“Nope, he liked red”

   When I captured the title of this posting it was because I was weary of listening to reports of dire need and necessary suffering for the local news to stay in business.  When they fail to find the natural missteps of human beings trying to be happy they’ll focus in on events that have no real bearing on the public well being.  Does it matter that a deer crossing in the foothills is dangerous for deer?  Why waste my time.  In fact, why even introduce a topic I have no influence over at all?  Enter this poem.  It begins with an obvious occurrence in our daily lives…the objective of our intention until the ceasing of our struggle.

TO FIX THE UNBROKEN

The red sun strangles the moon

From the sunrise to sunset

Do I really hear it choking?

This feeling I dare to feel

Diving out of bed

To jump back again

Wake me down

So I can put you up to sleep

Just knock for me when

Belief has gone broke

Only if it’s broken.

It’s the cycle we can’t fix

Yet we keep on fixing

Author unknown

So I resonated ~

My Kinship

I post this from nudging angst my thoughts suggests

where ideals fade into obscurity;

but then, so will all words I cherish.

I claim to make it matter, if only by assigning what is important;

when I brought this to the forefront of my attention.

Only these moments,

when I draw breath can anything exist

We commonly speak of governments, economies, politics and health

as if they have power over

us

they are distractions.

What can I affect?

just the distance I feel…away.

What A Curse

I thought driving for UPS would be so cool.

Then I delivered flowers, and grew weary of the monotonous short jaunts around town; so then concluded ~ 

  "What a curse" 

  When I was in the Army all the young officers hungered to command, it was considered the consummate job for a leader.  Once selected for company command I discovered the confining demands of higher headquarters were so constraining that it was no fun at all, in fact, I surmised;

it was a curse. 

  I used to think long haul truck drivers had the best; they saw the great unknown, the frontier.

Then I drove across the expansive nothingness that fills much of this country and concluded;

"What a curse" 

  I had conjured; web design would be such a cool profession to express creative artistic talents. Then I cooperated in the building of web page. As the indecision piled on capricious changes the chaos was  overwhelming the stated intent, I was deflated as it slowly drove me crazy, I finally deduced;

  "What a curse" 

  I loved being outside, watering my lawn, contemplating the big questions concerning the world in Toto. I found my relaxing moments compelled me to ponder landscaping as a routine, that'd be cool to do full time.  Until one day a sinkhole in my yard demanded me dig several days in the hot summer sun, it exhausted me. I though, to do that all the time?

  it would be a curse. 

  When I began painting the inside of my house, I found it rewarding and satisfying to see the progress of my effort. So I thought how cool that'd it be to do for a living. By the fourth room I was convinced if convicts had to do this as punishment for breaking the law, crime would stop;

  a definite curse. 

  When I gave myself away to fantasy, be it occupation, or any endeavor, even loving, I discovered I fabricated with the hopes of only the best of all things. I would relish the idea because the situation appeared to possess attributes I found desirable. Only when I sampled did I discover the real and actual conditions I so early found perfect.  Excellence is wrought from those disappointments. 

 I eventually learned perfections is fleeting and never obtained; rather find quality in the moment and make it shine as if the best dream were present.  When that happens, as I allow myself freedom from expectations for perfection, the curse of delusion 

disappears

The Wild Untamed Heart

            Because we've been conditioned to the way we perceive, the success of applying a predictable version is in no way a guarantee that following our conditioned belief  make us happy; once we understand its roots.   It is commonly agreed what man as a species has in common, is a desire to be happy.  Just as categorically proven, most of mankind's efforts to be happy for any prolonged period have been abysmal failures.  Yes?

So, from macro to microscopic truth; what is it you want? 

   I sense the ideal and the idea of freedom is the key, the parched thirst that afflicts us all.  How we achieve that most elusive state of being?  Much of how you and I converse and explored are but shared steps in an effort to be more than a legacy of settling for someone else's experiences or dogma on how we're not ready to be rewarded for our good behavior of not complaining about the meager allotment to us individually thus far. 

  Understanding, as I refer to it as 'awareness,’ can be the concept of duality between physical and metaphysical properties.  In effect; what is concrete as solid material, to the touch, and what has not become sensory-experiential.  We travel on psychological jaunts along with physiological and philosophical dialogs in an attempt to discern what is the 'truth' 'real' or actuality of it all.

   Comparing and contrasting the external and the internal can be a sort of course correction exercise, where the changes to direction are implemented by our reasoning; or our feeling that something profound has been added.  If we wish to change the recipe then for sure the resulting product will ultimately be more than what we have grown accustomed to.  Why do some ask and others are complacent? 

Lower threshold of comfort? 

A renegade disposition? 

   There are pirates and there are princes.  A romantic fashion of expressing the simplicity of our symbolism that leaves room for ambiguity is liken to this:

     To stand in the darken hallway and allow the shivers of the unknown to taunt you into entering. Or, to react in fright and find light.  It can be said it’s something in order of the thrill of abandoning social constraints and restrictions in  pretending polite dialogs while ravishing occupies a back room of mental insatiable want.  Pure physical sensation of blissful pleasure, sounds and sensations are ever seeking expression. 

This, the ancient starvation of anxious need to fulfill, is  an all consuming drive to be free from self imposed restraint.  To instead die to the conditions of ordinary; to thrive with a racing pulse, cascading physical quivers of delight  while ecstatic moans of gratification gurgle upward and out from upturn throat;  The unfettered howl of liberation ~ the kill of compromising resignation. The unmitigated overwhelming victory by the pressing, unrelenting, and undeniably savage untamed ~ wild heart.

Would You Believe

I was going through my past journal entries, and I mean from way back.  I stumbled on this one and toyed with posting it several times, but ultimately decided to find something different.  Today is perhaps that different day.  We're putting up the holiday decorations outside, and this will be the first of getting it done so soon before Christmas.  That's promising.

So, echoes from the past ~ 

   I was awoken at 5:30 this morning by the clock radio, I can't recall the last time it was a song, most times some overly chipper commentator comes on blathering.  He has learned to ratchet up his radio personality happiness quotients with constant doses of caffeine, I know the type, I'm familiar with the technique.   But that's not my commentary to How are you today.

I ache, from the renewed exercise program. 

Of course, yesterday I also ached so I excused myself from working out and went straight to the sauna to tend those persistent reminders of my frailty. 

Its not much better, I turn to my conclusion that I need another hour of sleep. 

I stretch over and make the adjustment to the radio and fall back into my cubbyhole of pillows.  Almost instantly erotic ideas begin to parade my thoughts keeping me from regaining a few extra moments of rest.  Just like the glittering baton throwers preceding the band, they pass glittering to be followed by mundane details that have been left unattended or partially completed.  Self accusations of being a malingerer and slacker.  Countered with the realization that others are involved and I just am unable to obtain resolution to any of my self appointed tasks without their help, or that the objective is complex with many unknowns. 

In either case, I notice I'm writing as if Nicholas Cage were speaking in my head as he portrayed a writer talking to himself in his head and writing as he was developing his story. Oddly, that would be the general everyday situation for  many of us, certainly is for me...right Nick? 

He agrees. 

Few have the luxury of sole charge of an action from beginning to end. 

I relax to the notion to give it time and like a pulled knot, gentle fingers release the bindings. 

I reheat some coffee, and am surprised once again how much of it bubbles on to the glass retaining plate in the microwave.  I wonder if I'll master that technique of predicting to the point of filling the cup only a percentage of its capacity.  Then congratulate myself on the art of that, followed but mutterings that I need to get a life if that's the height of my success for the day.

I figure by now you are listening to Nicholas talking in your head too, and consider if my Nicholas Cage said hi to Your Nicholas Cage we'd be able to prove you could be in two places at the same time.  But really that's not true, because I didn't consider the Real Nicholas Cage and his own inner dialog, so that's like at the least four of him roaming around in the ether. 

Is this like being John Markowitz? I wonder if I spelled his name wrong, I wonder if Nicholas Cage knows John Markowitz.  And if they ever meet for lunch. What would they talk about? What would they eat? 

This Nicholas Cage thing is really beginning to rattle me.

I ponder these distracting needs to do, in an effort to convince myself I'm taking care of me. 

Renew the Web site, call this guy, at this extension and I'll get a twenty per cent discount. 

Remember to drop by the store some time and get a light bulb for the refrigerator, can't have skittish food afraid of the dark don't you know. 

Thursday night should be laundry night.

I don't want to do laundry on the weekend. 

There will be other pressing chores that I'd want to tend, the ones I don't accomplish during the week and stack up. 

Not that I'll start new week any saner.

That kind or mental negotiation with self appointed tasks that appear to make life run smoothly, but in fact are leaching attention and become running my life period. 

I had a dream where I had escorted a friend's kid to a martial arts class. 

The kid was hot on the idea. 

All around me were people being beaten, or rooms with signs of internal explosions going off, as if the plaster of the walls were windows shattered by bullets. 

There were hushed cries and muffled whimpers of pain; me knowing that in the martial arts to admit to the pain was a sign of mental weakness. 

In this Dojo, it was down right blaspheme.

The lad was merrily distracted with those things young children are, and scampers off joyfully.

I recall he was wearing flip flops and I tried to keep track of him by the volume of the sound.

Meanwhile a smiling greeter was regurgitating the benefits of their center and how glad they all were that we chose to come by to visit. 

I made agreement noises and faint interested questions but all along I slowly rounded up the child and steered us towards the door. 

I didn't want to be rude, but I was getting this kid the heck out of this hell. 

Oddly the greeting young man would not relent. 

He climbed into the back of the sedan and continued to give his spiel as we drove off towards what was supposed to be home in dream land.  I can't recall if he even resembled Nicholas Cage or John Markowitz, I don't think so.

Leaving with a thankful feeling I didn't subject that kid to such torture.

Time to make my way to the dungeon tasks.  Perhaps find some meaning in the moving of ideas.  Yeah, that's like....creation....Godlike....now that's a job!

John Markowitz and Nicholas Cage are eating salad and nodding agreement.  That's totally unrealistic.  Heck, the west coast is three hours behind us, so it’s only 7:06 am there....who has salad at that time?  Unless they were out all night...but still...that's not lunch.  I think they're agreeing on not letting Charles Bronson raise the ante on food named after them.  Me obsessing on this will be seen as not working on real business again.

Wonder if anyone will notice. Probably not....unless Nick or Jack snitches

What Do People Want?

            They want to find something they are passionate about. Often, that is their work, and in that choice, their labor transforms their identity.  Or perhaps it’s their relationships with people that they share their daily lives and efforts with? Some even substitute what they have, what they own, as a proxy for being honest about who they are.  So we want to do something that matters to us, meaningful experiences; more than meeting an income or other material need. Incentives and benefits are just trade-in-kind for life’s precious time. Doing it well promotes a sense of authentic. Educating people is important but not enough. Many of our most educated people are operating at quarter speed, unsure of their place in the world, contributing too little under the pretext they perceive themselves as spectators, isolated from feeling connected to the reason of action.

    Encouragement to aspire is by far the greatest primer to enthusiasm I can think of, and its roots are deep within the hearts of those who readily and easily care. It’s a travesty to settle for less than a life we love.  We seek our homes, where our hearts and minds can rest, and in looking for our place feel the unease at how many choices do not sedate our need.  Slowly and unwittingly we become afraid of the unfamiliar.  We anxiously settle. 

Why am I here?

What should I do?

Where is my place?

Should I go? 

What should I do now?

  Questions that suggest peril should we error, as we acknowledge we do not have a ready reply.  Vow to not be scared of what you don’t know.  Get rid of the paralysis of dreading punishment for trying. Taking comfort in the familiar over a thirst for discovery is abandoning the very essential skill in exploring.  Doing so is an acceptance of less than our daring hearts desire. So whenever we come across the revealed truth and its wonder, let there be a pause of relief and laughter.  Finding out there are no monsters coiled to pounce, only shadows cast by the items we leave laying about.  Then, once more, feel at home.

“….I used to treasure the innocence of first love.  Now I treasure the hard-fought.  I used to want to change the world.  Now I’m open to letting it change me.”

Wayfarer's Faith

The course, to which you and I share, follows a chart of acceptance, gratitude and compassion.  Like any seafaring voyage, there will be times in which the progress appears to be lacking, yet the engines churn, as the screws continue propelling the vessel on its appointed course.  There will be rough seas, tempest even, as complement to the periods of calm.  The dark storms will invoke fear and doubt, but perseverance is a seasoned wayfarer’s faith; navigating as they must, the harsh winds and angry weather along their way.

   I will not finish with an uplifting end, for that would detract from the message I wished to convey. The point being: change is the journey.  Change affords us the opportunity to comprehend the law of impermanence; it is the fundamental-basis of the world of form.  It is for each of us to accept the fact on our own.  As each island along the passage is met, and then left behind, clarity becomes more pronounced; as the lesson becomes invariably more profound. 

   The ultimate objective in any journey is its destination. In this case; compassion.

   That is not to dismiss the obvious, which is that the place we are at now is the only real journey at any given moment.  I used to embrace the ideal where compassion would be towards others.  Where it would be for me to love them for who they were, what they had been through, while resisting the temptation to judge them in rigid terms of being closer to right or further from wrong.  I had a mental idea of that character, of what charity of heart would look like.  But I must be honest with this neat and tidy concept; I was always in the position to judge.  I retained the vaulted authority to evaluate them from my perspective of unquestioned and exacting legitimacy; so thereby default; right. 

   Instead, compassion is the manifestation of inner acceptance at its deepest level, and that would be surrender away conclusions fearful minds need. This demonstrated by critical and judging ways for surviving a competitive mental struggle to be right, to be safe, in the illusive effort to obtain the state of being secure. 

   A seduction of belief is one where we ourselves are not subject to the very standards of performance in which we hold the rest of the world to perform to; which is what our living situation is mostly about.  Mistaking that contradiction in our day to day living is the conflict that disallows us to become satisfied in our comforts; we know something is out of kilter. 

   The invitation in living is that we open our hearts to life, and in that become love. An opportunity to release our resistance to what is, and abandon need to be right as substitution for acceptance which is bias that keeps us inauthentic, so then woefully unhappy. 

   You can place any of the age old adjective after need, and it will be applicable; to judge, to pity, to influence and manipulate the external world in order to meet the thirst of self delusion. Prodded by a deceitful nature resistant to the truth of things independent of subjective values.  To truly be, is presence in all moments; of not just 'peace' but fully the passion of what freedom offers in opportunity: to feel anger, to savor sadness, of any emotion that comes up in the healing of dis-ease with one’s self. 

   Our challenge to not 'act out' as in taking events being indictments waged on us personally, but release this reflex notion is a maturing of individual self esteem; as self monitoring calls for trust, the very exercise of freedom known as  liberty. 

    Grasping the abundance of being is to welcome everything, being genuine as we gain authenticity without biased judging degrees of lacking anything, including others being inferior in their perceptions. 

Each journey is a sacred occurrence, as a gift for wisdom's sake.  Events arrive from many different ports; like seafaring ships from exotic places abroad. They come without excuse, on subtle breezes, so we can realize the actual source need not be charted to be accepted as influencing our travel; nothing real can be threatened is the gratitude of loves presence.  "I see you."

Traditional Festival

 As with all cultures,

there are traditions and festivals to celebrate significant events

in its development.  

With the United States, it's the commemoration

of that fateful and needful assistance which helped

a fledgling community survive.

Rendered by hospitable Native Americans

whose compassion was unconditional. 

We can never repay kindness. 

Ours is the task of inculcating that quality into our being

Practicing it daily

until it becomes

Our very nature.

My Thanksgiving will be a small affair.

We shall follow with the traditional meal,

spend time in good humor with some frivolity.

As the day wanes,

we shall tarry on the topic of those we cherish;

those we miss.

In the telling, relive events that drew us near.

Cultivate those moments that keep us dear.

The smells and sights that gently anchor

 hearth to those precious hearts.

We set a day aside for humility,

gratitude for our prosperity

of health

and comfort,

our very freedom from oppression.

Aspiring in our demonstrations

a great hope to kindle a taste

for practicing generosity;

the giving of ourselves,

as a natural

every moment

practice

Wet Ink

What of past hopes, past dreams?

They dissolve ~ as do hurts and disappointments. 

Isn't that our quest? To invite love to wash us clean? 

To forget?

There is this paradoxical relationship with recall.  We don't want to forget the good, we only wish to get past the so called ‘bad.’  Without remembering it whole, the pain as well as the disappointment, it is as if we have lived a fragmented existence; or worse, as if we never had been more than a fantasy of unsatisfied desire. 

Yet this is our shared heritage-living of contradicted truth.  Whatever mark we leave, it will be temporary.  We can only love in this moment.  That might suggest a sad state making for a heavy heart. The childish resistance to the unfolding real cries out

   'I don't want to leave all that I treasure and cherish.'  

Inspired to comment on my human experience, I desire to share.  I have appetite for it, as well as means to lay out a banquet for others who may be as famished as I am for comparisons; or parched to do the same from the point of not feeling abandoned.  While confused in seeking the refreshing nectar; that milk of human kindness, we grow anxious for evidence that whispers we are not deluded in our hoping.

A single life can be as a mere drop in a sea of tears, but my voice will call out from the end of my anguish, “No more tears for sorrows sake. I will not get over loving well"

Just as most certainly will follow, a contented sigh.

Spanish Bread

I humor myself with choices on the topic of titles.  I’ve no intention of diving into the variety of breads in Spain, (My wife read the title and mentioned perhaps I should have changed it to Cataluña Bread). I also had not intentionally learned about the nuances of the many differences in the country of Spain.  Growing up, for as far back as I can remember ~ well into my adulthood even ~ I thought Spain was a homogeneous society; sharing the same language and having the same customs.  It was only until I married a girl from Catalonia did I realize the complexities and stark differences of that mystical alluring country; with the many distinct different qualities of its individual regions.  I suppose I had suspected it from my lessons earlier in life about generalizing the world when I was stationed in Germany, but the reckoning came obliquely.  My German friends would often conjecture on topics of emotional issue as if all Americans thought and felt the same way.  Sure, our language was more or less English, but it held key regional inferences as well; different enough so when someone from the East might be perplexed with a phrase known well from the West.  I’m unsure if I captured the relationship of comparing the big country with the smaller parts that make it up.  I’m just as certain the same could be said for the villages within any region of any mentioned country.  Some shared qualities to be sure, as well as individual distinctions which are very specifically unique to a singular place.

  Which brings me to bread. 

When we visited Barcelona I could not eat enough of their bread. It seemed to me to be steeped in history. I’m sure I was assigning some mystical characteristic to it, but I would swear that I had never had bread before I ate Pa amb Tomàquet, (Bread distinctly prepared in a Catalan way.) Clearly distinctive ethnic dishes reflect the culture, but I didn’t expect it with a staple I was so intimately familiar with.

   Pa amb Tomàquet is simple. Rub an as newly picked tomato as you can find over fresh bread, spread the juice of the tomato over the face of the cut slice of bread like you were grinding cheese; then add a little olive oil and salt. It’s a delight I just cannot re-enact here in the States. It must be the bread. Or, perhaps, it was the fresh tomatoes? We can get Spanish olive oil, so it’s not that ingredient. For whatever the reason I can’t make Pometomarket , (I call it), here.  

   I think of Pa amb Tomàquet now and my eyes tear up, I miss it so much.  Perhaps I’ve attached my affection to that food and my second home with the delight I experienced with the friendship and intimacy that greeted me on my first visit.  Where subliminally I assigned the food with my initial positive impression I was washed in when introduced to my new extended family.

   That could be, just as a host of other reasons as well.  What I am aware of is my feeling that there is no other bread like it on the planet. Just as certainly, we could line up expats from their regional home towns from around the world and they’d get misty-eyed talking about a favorite dish, or the healing welcome to their soul with a bite of their home spun bread.

You human beings humble me sometimes with your very tender hearts. Some of the very best of the innocent child remains in you, even when you act in deplorably selfish ways towards one another.  I wish us better.

Far From Here

There are times that just descend, when I project myself out towards the west coast.  Usually it’s on a cloudy day, like today. But then, there have been times when I'm walking to my car after shopping and I'd pretend I was in Newport, or a sunset would have me near Laguna, on the beach even.  Sometimes, its the sounds or smells of people around me that spurs a memory of the places I've known, or grown up near.  What I'm saying is, its never the same situation; it just  happens.  I'd wonder about a girl I knew, what she’s doing at the moment, whose in her life. It'd be a sudden missing piece I needed to know the details.  I'd wear those possibilities as if I were writing a script. I'd wonder, how much forced laughter would be used to gloss over awkward times when no one knew what to do next?; like here. Things that really had no bearing on what I was doing at the moment. 

   The busy was palatable in Southern California.  Everyone seemed to have it.  It was like suddenly noticing the frequency of tattoos on the limbs of people you passed on the street; so many people rushing around in haste; in pantomime of important.  Then another notion kidnapped my attention: The word important. 

  I remembered that was the word earlier in the morning that had eluded me.  I make myself promises to check out the meanings of words that happen to sprout out of nowhere when I'm talking to myself.  I've noticed, I’m prone to explore the meanings of words I hear every day; so that I'll have more clarity. I take so much for granted; I notice it’s a shared confusion around me. We use words to convey our thoughts and feelings under the assumption that everyone shares the same definition for words.  That's totally bogus, so we all flounder around in a paranoid thrashing around between extremes of not knowing that we've been heard, to even being understood  if we had been listened to. 

   But back to this word, important. 

I allowed my mind to linger on that word and noticed how hard people try to be important.  Covertly most of the time, since rarely would anyone admit they were feeling insecure or inferior.  And never mind the new age premise of everything changes, which of course it does, so that even when we feel insignificant or unworthy, its only for such a short span of seconds do we really need to make a big deal out of it?  Is feeling that way, I have to laugh, so important?  So, then we go about manipulating situations so suddenly we can be the deciding ingredient, crossroads of activity, then we're the ones sought out and can dispel this whisper of our former shadowy analysis of being nothing or a nobody.

  I had a dream where I was with the military.  I wasn't actually in the military, but I was someone important.  They gave me a helmet to wear and everyone I met mentioned how cool it looked on me.  I knew they were just sucking up, the fit was horrible, it kept sliding over my eyes and blocking my vision.  But its common to see that when meeting someone important; its a desperate act of finding something to offer that they might find interesting; an effort to establish some kind of report.  The camp was shelled by enemy mortars, a lot.  I stood in a cluster of soldiers and watched tents flying up in dusty debris.   While that was happening, as dreams are not constrained by time or sequence of events, I somehow knew that someone had been taken prisoner.  They tortured him to death. I watched the medic examine the body uttering in distress, "Oh no, Oh no" There were holes in the back of the corpse neck, I could see tendrils of muscle and nerve, I also noticed where the ear had been torn off, as well as other nasty digging things had been done by the hole bored into the crevice of his skull.  It was amazingly free of blood, but perhaps I'm squeamish in my dreams.  What a way to go, I recall thinking, screaming in pain. 

   I was then suddenly escorting a young soldier to a mental health trailer.  He had rebelled and cussed out his superiors.  For some reason I was responsible for making sure someone talked to him. I met an attractive woman counselor.  Not the headliner beauty of a movie showcase, but an easy on the eyes sort of beauty.  Her honey brown hair was pulled back, her face open, clean, well proportioned eyes that were welcoming.  The soft approachable look of a person who'd be working in the field of calming war stressed soldiers.  Her manner was direct, but not curt. She asks intelligent questions, I admired her professional air; she was skilled at not wasting time without being rude.  She was on the case, driving toward the heart of his affliction. As she asked her question she’d look straight into me, I felt increasing tremors shutter throughout me each time she’d glace from him, then back to me, lingering longer in our gaze. I wanted to stay there in her eyes, but it was obvious she’d work to do with this young man; I had no recourse but to smile and try to disengaged from the gravity of the notion that she was as powerfully attracted to me as I was to her. I shuffled towards my departure, despite her inviting stares that seemed to plead for me to stay. I had to leave her; leave me, to my thoughts of holding her in my arms while gently gliding into our first kiss that would echo over our combined remaining life.  Such are the romantic fantasies in dreams; you never see it coming.  

   I wonder how often it plays out that way?  Opened to a possibility, but for one reason or another the moment passes; the opportunity evaporates.  Be it fear of intimacy, or sensing of a threat; perhaps even fulfilled conditional promise necessary in order to get close; It doesn't matter, there wasn't time, and time is an illusion; certainly when it comes to possibilities of fit.  There’s a real affliction too. Continuing to play with those past details in the ‘what if’ afterglow time. 

   Tomorrow they'd be on your doorstep and you'd have to face the wrenching reality.  After all that invested chewed over options you still have to face the fact that you're no longer interested. Introduction to the real; everything changes, even your taste. Was a time I'd say all of that was a frigging waste of effort.  Now I see it differently.  I see it now as seeking evidence to support our conclusions. It'd be all that much sadder if we didn't get there; instead continued to lament, or regret our past choices. 

  I think it’s honing the method of being happy with values rather then in obtaining measurable results.  Since quality is a state of honoring those values, then being true to yourself while realizing it’s your way of becoming aware; of being present any of the time. It’s the whole value in any quest.  Well then, I guess it’s all a question of how much dreaming is necessary before we wake up?  It's nothing extraordinary, I do it all the time. Just like everybody else.