I watch you go....

Heart wide open
Eyes firmly shut
Not with reason
but faith in...what?

Faith in the unspoken a feeling shared

Faith in a union but no armor to a heart bared

Fool or hero, neither or both

A trust given not earned on little more than hope

What could I do but gather more lines
for another sad tome of a union denied

My shadows her demons both tainting the air

So much promise, so much hope but no fruit to bear

Her love restrained  so shackled by shadows

Mine given freely but fearing the gallows

The day is over the night draws first breath

At the well of the unrequited again I mourn love's death

I mourn the truth more that two couldn't be united

I mourn one last time and for a moment, delighted.

For what it was, so much to me even for a little while.
At times the memory still brings a smile

There's no shame that to love I surrendered

That she woke a still heart with stirred embers

But now I am done and alone is no burden

What I seek lives not here, of this she is certain

Give to me now a moment of grace even if strength shows not on a tortured face

The heart burns strong but seeks not another to know love is to be love

and that needs no other.

Perspective: Your reality is what you make it.

No long winded intros, the video literally speaks for itself....

For all our efforts

Let me start with this...

Regardless of the popularity of my TWIT posts this isn't one of them although the message may resonate with that subject matter.

A few days ago it was very cold here.  Uncharacteristically cold for the part of the country I live in.  As such anything below 30F makes the local news for days.  

It was night and I went out on my back porch to have a smoke break.  I'm a bit of a neat freak so I don't smoke in the house, car or anywhere else enclosed.  I suppose I suffer for my vices for the sake of my compulsions.

As I stood there in the dark, feeling the chill of the night air permeating all 4 layers of my vain attempts to ignore the cold I heard a strange sound.

There's a pool in the back yard and at night I'm not used to hearing anything related to it except for the sound of the pump.  This night something was different.

I heard what could only be the sound of something thrashing about in the water.  Of course I had to see what it was.

Let me preface my actions with this; I've had stray animals from the feline and feathered variety end up in the pool on multiple occasions.  I can't count how many birds and kittens I've saved from a watery grave.  

I have a respect for living things.  Especially those that don't know any better and end up in peril from a world dominated by man-made hazards nature never prepared them for.

I flipped on the back lights and found a small bird flapping hopelessly near the deep end of the pool.  I knew the water was near freezing being only slightly warmer than the air above it.

I retrieved my leaf net and scooped the little bird out placing him gently on one of the benches near the house.  No longer in danger of drowning and out of sight and easy reach of any of the neighborhood cats, I felt he was safe.

The night air was cutting though and the little bird was wet.  I retrieved a small towel and picked him up briefly to get most of the water off of him.  He let out a soft squawk in protest but gave no further resistance.  

Satisfied that I'd at least gotten him mostly dry without traumatizing him too badly I let him be.  It was below freezing and while I wanted to bring the bird in the house to warm up a bit I could tell it would just traumatize him more so I did the next best thing and made him a little lean-to kind of structure out of an old stiff terry cloth mop head I'd found in a closet.  

I put it over him and he nestled into one side and after a short while went to sleep.

I checked on him throughout the night and in the morning I was happy to find that he had gone.  As in flew away BTW not lifeless on the pavement or a cat's dinner. 

It felt good that maybe I had a hand in saving the little bird.  Left in the pool he wouldn't have lasted much longer and I can't help but think that my discovery of his predicament was no accident.

To do a kindness to the helpless is never in vain but there was another lesson in store for me...

Tonight I walked out on my back porch again and while the air was still cold, it didn't bite quite as much as the night I found that little bird flapping helplessly in the water.

I noticed that against the dim moonlight reflecting on the pool was something out of place.  I'd thought it was just some leaves until I flipped on the lights just as I'd did that night.

If you've guessed that I found the same little bird again you're right but this time I was too late to save him.

He hung in the water lifeless but stoic with wings firm against his tiny body with head held erect as if defying his sad end.

It struck me.

I hadn't saved him at all only delayed what was an inevitable end.

I may have facilitated another day of life but the lesson hadn't been learned.  There he was in the same predicament but this time nobody to save him.

It brought to mind something that I'd been thinking about.  Not so much an epiphany as an affirmation of belief.

That as hard as we may try to influence the fate of others it is ultimately up to them.  Free will is the cornerstone of many belief and societal systems.  That we can do as we please even to our own detriment.  

Sometimes a gift isn't accepted.  Living things have free will regardless of whether we agree with it or not.  

If our moral compass is wrong it's up to us to discover it.  Nobody else can set it right.  

That little bird chose to fly back into the pool.  I can't know the reason but the choice to fly into oblivion was his regardless of my efforts.

We can't truly know the mind of another we can only guess.  

We can't really know if we've had a positive influence on someone else just because of the act of trying to help them.  We can only observe what they do with what we've offered.

It's up to them and only them to use or even ignore the gift.

I won't stop trying to help where I can but in the end I know that all I can do is offer an opinion, an option.  You have to make the decision of how you bear your own crosses and quell your own demons.  Your path is your own.

I'd have liked the little bird to survive but it wasn't my choice.  I'd done what I could do for him.  It was up to him what came next.

Just as it's up to you what you do next.  

Not a Role Model for your independence...

A lot has happened...

A whole lot of nothing...has happened....

I think about people and experiences I've known but in the end they all led here.  Just me sitting alone, late at night in a dark room typing essays that nobody's going to read.

Confidence is something that's always been difficult.  Made more so by people who think it should come easy to me.  I suppose I put on a good show.

Talk is cheap and I hear a lot of it.  I suppose the occasional accolade should stoke my ego but I tend to take long views both fore and aft.

What I see in all those dawns and twilight's look pretty much the same no matter what I try.  I never quite fit and never quite get where I want to go.

Bad choices fueled by bad experiences have made me wary in these later years.  Of course my options have always been rather limited.  Either by consequence or fear of repeating past mistakes ( which I inevitably do anyway ) I can never quite believe what I'm told or what I see.

Or what I feel, apparently.

Someone told me once that they didn't understand how I could live this way but admired and wished they could as well. They see it as some kind of virtue of independence

I'll let you in on a little secret...I hate it.

But as the consequences of my birth and beyond have  come into my life and I sit here once again in the dark pouring out my heart to no one I can tell you this.   This is nothing to aspire to.  

That I live a life that's barely lived and worse get chided for it does nothing for the ego.  To live this way is to deny all but that which is necessary. "Necessary" means a lot less than you think by the way because that's the way it has to be.

Someone once asked me where I liked to go on vacation. My answer, "I haven't been on one since I was a kid."  Shocked disbelief was the response...

It's not that I envy those who do such things it's just that the price for doing them was always too high.  Something wouldn't get paid, someone wouldn't get taken care of, something more important than me had to come first.

That last one I think is the key.  

I'm a great one for giving advice and comfort.  My reluctant martyrdom has essentially stripped me of so many of the  things that color most people's lives. That makes the world just shades of gray more often than not. On the upside a lack of color tends to bring out definition to see things more clearly.

That makes it easier to cut through so much of the inconsequential garbage that people seem to hold so dear.


No, I don't believe anything I see on Facebook or Instagram either.  Nobody's life is that amazing nor do they have that many adoring friends.  

But maybe that "garbage" wasn't as inconsequential as I thought it was.  

The difference between them and me is simple.  Throughout my life even if I  believed I wanted to do something for myself it was really to please someone else.  If I started down a path of my own making I'd abandon it if someone needed me elsewhere.

True, ultimately that was my choice but the reasons for making it were never really my own.

Every time I thought I was on the brink of escape I heard the hollow echo of the other shoe dropping and the illusion vanished before my eyes.  

Leaving me here...again.

So as I go on with baggage in tow it's hard to see how anything can really change for me.  The best I can do is appreciate what little joy I can gather but all the time knowing that even that can easily be taken away.

Indifference, an unkind word, ignorance, cruelty.   I see it and while I  try not to let petulance consume me, there are days when those things can cut me to to the bone.

It's worse when it comes from someone you care about though.  When you realize that what you thought you'd broke free from has just changed its face.  There it is again, same shit different DNA.

As I've found, every relationship has an expiration date and every moment is weighed against self-interest.  When you're of no use, when you don't fit the agenda I find where I may seek compromise they seek the nearest exit. 

Or I do...

There's been a few times when the writing on the wall forced me to be proactive but the shoe was still destined to drop.  I've seen it too many times to deny.

It's not sad, it's not self-pity, it's just the way it is.  It's my truth no matter if family, friend or vocation are involved.

I suppose I just expect too much from people.  I have an impossible standard that I may not hold them too but wish they could meet.  

I can't help it.  My own experience just keeps showing me how shallow the depth of things like compassion and love have become.  It's as though everybody walks around with little scales above their heads measuring every interaction to make sure they don't give too much.

Others have had far worse, I acknowledge that.  I'm always cognizant of that but I don't live their lives.  What's wrong is wrong but it seems I can't go without denying the relevance of my own feelings and desires in lieu of someone else.

I've finally come the realization that my feelings don't really matter. Mostly because they're too intense, too real and when revealed force others to look too far inward for their own comfort.

I'm not homeless, have bullets flying over my head or afflicted with some incurable disease but I've never really known comfort or peace.  

Not in the way it matters.

I thought I did once but like all my illusions the shoe dropped dispelling it into shattered memories.

That's the reward for being who I am.  

There's nothing here to aspire to save the fact that I still have love in my heart and a desire to do the right thing.

....for as much good as it's done me. 

This isn't independence, it's exile...

 

Money

"Get a good job with more pay and you're OK"

That's what it's all about.

Money

Solver of all the tribulations of a civilization.

Fame, friends, flattery....

All bought with the stuff.

I lust after it too.  I need things otherwise out of reach without it.

Things needed to continue the chase for it.

I'm denied life in its absence.

I'm judged by my accumulation of it.

My happiness a function of it.

So wrong.

Not a tool, a master...

So many promises, so many possibilities, so easy for some.

Never easy for me.  

Sociopath, Greed, Selfishness,  all kindred to it.

Communist?  Hardly, the stench of the beast without benefit of the struggle.

But the struggle.

My value defined by it. 

My simple desires outstretched by the need to retain my soul.

My idealistic philosophy beaten down by its lack of a listing on the NYSE

Do your best and the rewards come naturally

Naive

The rewards come only to those undeserving, without conscience.

I've known rich people...They give nothing without a profit motive.

More is all that is enough.

Modest desires, modest means, meaningless dividends.

Altruism, humanity, love....

Stained with the prerequisite of liquidity.

Peace of mind never a reality.

Even those with more can never rest.

Those with less never rest for want of more.

My value my own.

Meaningless to the rest.

Something's wrong here.

Generosity of spirit subjugated by generosity of wallet.

That I had riches to transcend us above this petty thing of paper.

That I could bring joy without a profit/loss statement.

That I could be so right but so wrong to survive in this.

That you didn't mock me for the truth.

Money.

Money,

Chains of gold, Diamonds and excrement.

My freedom has a price, so does yours.

We, all of us, commodities...Human resources.

Denial of the truth only at a price.  

What's your soul worth.

Mine, whatever they pay by the hour.

Is this what God intended?

You say no but you can't deny the game all the same.

 

Destination Unknown

  

Destination Unknown...

More fun that way.  I'm not looking for answers or worried about long term plans.  I almost killed my present by letting my past dictate the future.

I was none the wiser...

Take the step and just let the journey unfold.

Things have been strange the past few days having shook up what was my version of normal.  Not that I was that happy with it.  Not that what I've been doing the past few years was that fulfilling.

The more we try to isolate ourselves the more we fail.

I know this...I know nothing about a lot of things and slowly rediscovering that which I'd thought I'd never learned.

Is the Formula fixed? 

No, still on the side of the garage.  Still gonna cost a mint to fix.

Did I get a raise? A cool new job?

Nope, just an opportunity to practice what I preach and I'm glad I could be true to it.

So...

Is anything exactly as I wanted it? No...

But I see evidence of the divine in the way things have unfolded lately.

Credit where its due.  Thank you

I'm finding more reward in loosening the reigns a bit.   The desire is the same but the path is its own concern.  

Let the destination remain unknown.  The journey teaches.  I've been on this path for awhile now I just strayed off it for a bit.

Tomorrow is its own.  

Destination unknown.

Honesty

I'm not sure honesty is the best policy anymore.  I'm not sure that's what anybody really wants.

To be honest is to accept the burden of it. 

Nobody wants to live a lie but so too does anyone want to know everything.   It's just too much too soon.

Truth is something meant to be unfolded over time with actions supporting the words.  There are no shortcuts.

I know....

Words have power but action gives them substance.  Honest intent, honest action needs no words.

The most honest response is often silence.

What causes more pain, an unkind word or silent indifference?

What causes more joy, a compliment or a warm embrace?

Honesty isn't really the problem, however,  it's trying to use words so often inadequate to the task.

Honesty can exact a heavy price.  One often paid alone.

Lies have no value, deception offers no refuge.  Don't misunderstand, I don't advocate them here.

But too much honesty robs the future, destroys the magic and....

Everything in moderation or so they say.  

"If only I'd known"  A decision to deny an outcome that only resulted in the very outcome feared. 

A reason for honesty that resulted in a different kind of pain.  One I brought on myself.

Live in the moment, don't try to fashion the next.  Take the light where its offered instead of demanding it appear.

If only I'd followed my own counsel.  

Now I'm adrift.  Unsure what to trust, unsure if I care.  

In times like these all that's left is to search out the light and let it guide me.

It'll have to be enough.

It's all I really have if I'm honest with myself.  

Heart Be Still....

Positive Waves - Finding the positive in everything

It's very late as I write this so forgive the meanderings of a mind still stirring after most have long since retired.

The room is dark, Gordon Lightfoot's, "Sundown" plays in the background and I'm in a good place.  

Not that all is puppies and rainbows.  I lost an Uncle this week and in the process tested whether what I preach was practiced.

There's plenty of babble about positivity out there.  Lip service from the self-help set that seem to have an answer for everything.  Ready made solutions conveniently packaged for instant gratification like a candy bar from the corner convenience store.

We know better don't we?

Life's not about easy answers, absolute truths or anything that passes for divine insight. 

These days my favorite analogy has to do with waves.  I picture a sunlit day over some tropical beach watching the waves crashing against the shore.  In the distance I see a lone figure prone on his longboard.  

He waits for the swell, paddles toward the growing curl and when the moment is right stands up and rides his wave...

Or not...

It doesn't matter, there's always another wave and another opportunity to shoot the curl.  

We can't control the waves only how we react to them.  Do we submit or harness their power.  

That's up to you...

Life is the same.  I'm not suggesting any easy answers because there aren't any.  If there were life would be pretty boring now wouldn't it.  

Of course you could always choose to stay on shore.  No risk in that, no reward either....

It's so very easy to keep a death grip on what we believe to be true even if it robs us of the gifts that life offers..  

The echoes are familiar: I'm not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough or any of a 1000 reasons to stay in that safe place.

I've often said that we're prisoners of our experience.  Some misunderstand it as an assertion of some deeply held absolute truth that I carry around like a boulder strapped to my head.

It's not.  Instead it's an acknowledgement of the enemy we have to conquer before we can truly experience what life has to offer.

My mind works in strange ways leading to sometimes strange analogies.  One that I frequently borrow, from of all places the financial industry goes like this...

"Past performance is not indicative of future results."

Good advice whilst evaluating your portfolio but even better when you're in unfamiliar territory.

Experience is an excellent teacher but the lessons never end.  

I'll put it to you this way.  When I was in school Pluto was still a planet.

Now it isn't.

So should I reject evidence contrary to what I learned in school or should I be open to something new.

My "prisoner" phrase isn't meant as an absolute but rather a warning because it's so very easy to cage ourselves in the context of the past when dealing with the present.

Most people don't want to be in prison.  It's a place that keeps you in the past paying for sins real and imagined.

 
So do we always catch that wave?  Is the ride always sweet?




Hell no but here's the trick.

If we fall off that board at least we know we've tried and chances are we'll try again.  Eventually as we open ourselves to new information we'll figure out how to ride that wave all the way to the shore.

We don't control the waves only how we respond to them.

Does that mean I'm never sad, angry or disappointed?  Of course not!  I'd be some babbling idiot if that was the case.

But just like falling off your surfboard there's something to be learned.  Even in the worst situations you can find the positives.  Maybe that flat tire gave you time to think about something you didn't have time for otherwise.  Maybe the ending of that past relationship brought into focus what you really wanted.

There's always something to be gained from our experiences.  Let them be our teachers but not our masters.  

Every hero's tale ultimately finds said hero evolving beyond their mentor.


Positivity isn't about being a happy idiot.  It's about being open to the possibilities even if it they aren't immediately obvious.

Watch the waves, float along for awhile and when you're ready stand up and harness their power.

"NO"

No,

I hear a lot of permutations of the word.

You probably do as well even if you don't notice it at the time.  In fact the word "NO" has probably saved your life.  

What do you think a glowing red stoplight is telling you?  

Simply, NO...

Because of course if we ignored it, chances are we'd probably be involved in some horrendous accident harming ourselves and others and ultimately spurring a flood of negative consequences.  All of them ultimately telling you...NO!

The word will have its due one way or the other.  I suggest the path of least resistance...

So NO can be a good thing.  A guard rail protecting you from a sheer cliff.  An intuition about maybe not taking a stroll down that dark, sketchy street.

NO gets a bad rap for being negative.  Nobody likes to be denied something. Be it a favorite morning danish or tickets to a popular performance the last thing you want to hear is that there's just NO more left.  

There are other kinds of bad NO's too.  

NO, you didn't get the job.
NO, you don't qualify for the loan.
NO, you're not going to be a rock star
NO, she doesn't love you in "that way."

They say the trick to get through this mess we call life is to keep things in perspective.  Sometimes that's hard to do and even in an age of constant communication we can end up feeling alone even though it seems like we're in a crowd.

You may have 10,000 followers on Facebook but one careless quip can make you a pariah.

NO can be a lonely place.

A friend recently told me, "After awhile hearing nothing but 'NO' can take its toll on you."

We were talking about my recent difficulties in supporting myself and while what he said was true I also knew that instead of NO being a wall, I had to keep endeavoring to treat it as little more than a low hurdle.

To be honest, the word hasn't been kind to me lately but then there's that perspective thing again.

It reminds me of that joke that Garrison Keillor (controversy aside) makes about the Lutheran philosophy of life. 

"Things could always be worse..."

Which sounds kind of self-defeating until you realize that it's an admonition to appreciate what you've got.  

I often remind myself that you're never really at the bottom until somebody's throwing dirt on your coffin.

Which, by the way, is why I'm not a fan of zombie movies or Lazarus stories.

Zombies are gross and I'm more inclined to believe that Lazarus was less resurrected than  buried alive...  

Sometimes NO can be a guide.  It can show you the way when reason otherwise fails you.  Take the example of not getting that job you were after.

Of all the possible reasons that could be responsible the only one that matters is: Were you honest with yourself when you went after it?

Was it really what you wanted or just something to continue a lifestyle you weren't that wild about to start with.

NO can be the ultimate "tough love."  It's half of the equation when people talk about what's in their "heart of hearts."  

They say, "The heart wants what it wants." and there's NO denying it NO matter how much you try to convince yourself otherwise.

You know my story.  I've always tried to spend my time doing things in harmony with my passions and interests.  Sometimes that works, most of the time it doesn't but it's worth the struggle.

I want to be a writer so I write.  Nobody much cares about my work and I've received no accolades doing it aside from a few kind words from my peers.  

The point is that I continue to do it because NO is a hurdle not a wall.  I believe in what I'm doing and hope it brings some value to someone even if it's only me.

That's the point.  Take the adversity, the denials, the denouncements and use them as tools instead of letting them define you.  

Life doesn't always happen on a convenient schedule as much as we'd like it to.  Bills,commitments and mortgage payments all try to dictate what we're supposed to be.  It becomes far too easy to live according to someone else's expectations.  It knocks us out of sync.

NO wonder everyone is so miserable....

NO can be a good word.  A guidepost that forces you to choose what you're living for.  

There's a natural flow in all things.  Throwing rocks in its path only causes disorder and destruction.  

That may seem a bit Zen but it's the simplest way to express what I'm trying to tell you.

NO is just a tool, not a character assessment, not a valuation, not a condemnation.  

Just a tool....