Transitions being considered for another Alzheimer’s library in Florida. This will make three.
Thankful for the new audience!
Three Wheels Out
So excited to be up to 69000 words on the new book! It will be a doozey for the YA crowd and those who remember what it was like to be young and free.
9 Day Release
I’m wrapping up the last of nine days off from work, it was a much needed break from the grind that is the regular regular life life that I live. It is interesting to drive in week-day traffic and see the struggle; it is so apparent in the traffic, grocery store lines, etc. The more time went on in this relaxed staycation, the more I was able to let go of the anger of unfinshed work, disagreements, unmet goals and more. I viewed the facebook posts of young poets, angry racists and the, “My politics are better than yours” crowd. In the release I can view the hypocrites, and the wonderful and talented people I feel so blessed to know, with new eyes. I can also see in myself that I have all of these same yucky and very cool qualities, depending upon my mood. The focus on what I am accomplishing and the acceptance of my current placement in life is fuel for happy reflections in my mirrors. It is good to let go of the constant label that the Society Afraidy Cats give us. It’s so good not to worry about the fact that I’m a certain color and I prefer a certain type of sex with a certain type of human. It’s good not to worry about skipping a few Sundays of church. It’s great to go a whole day without guilt and judgement and without feeling the need to convince everyone that they should look and live like me. It feels good not to think I know more than the President of the United States or my wife. It feels great to love being a man who loves his family. It is awesome to not want to be twenty something anymore. It feels good to go all day and not fix a problem or to wonder when I will die and what that will feel like. In my release, what others are going through and their opinions bundled with the baggage that they drag along is not for me to judge and point out. It is for them to carry and to learn from. My honest and relaxed mind is able to see my own successes and lack there of just fine on a sunny day off like today. The release I’ve experienced these past few days has been a long time coming. I wonder if this is how the cows grazing away in the country pasture feel. I wonder if this is how the the frog that shows up on my porch each evening feels. I wonder if you feel this way. Tommorrow I go back to work and I hope this release follows me into the new week. I hope I can stay colorful and dare to keep smiling like a kid with a secret. I hope
Goodnight friends
Today was a good day and tommorrow is Friday. Life is working out just fine.
Looking for photons in this rusty town
The light is so bright just up a ways. I can tell that something good is just up a ways. I will have to say that these days the bags drag low from the damage done from way too much fun, more than my fair share of dancing through long nights with spirit friends. I danced just this side of the devil’s ballroom and lived to learn to move away. Now I’m on the way to new light, working as a carpenter to make all the ends meet and greet my good wife with a kiss and more. I’m also writing again but not that well. I never needed to be great just fluid like photons. Fluid like fluid. This rusty town has used up it’s useful radiant ways and fresh light is needed. The next light up ahead appears to be better than the strobed flash glows that were so prevelant back in the day. The black light mirror ball watched our hips sway to and fro. We were stars on the go and nothing has changed. The disco lights were witness to the flash music and first kissing and the crackling of innoscent boys gone wild. Those pumping good days were filled with the a well lit and well hung moon. Those swinging zoom zoom days were a good time filled with great wine but now it’s time to move on.
I’ll pack up nothing but my good wife and go on a seeker journey for fresh photons, towards the new rock star in my being that is ready to be a new human being with all it was meant to be before God initially said the word GO.
I’ve kissed enough girls and my wife is happy for my big boy evolution so while everyone is happy I think it’s time to go again. This institution of political correctness is no place for a Texas rebel not unlike myself. I have to race towards a new light. I need to find a place that plays all the Steve McQueen movies and serves a friendly drink or two that doesn’t need a fruity twist to be marketable. The next light must offer the freedom to twist and shout like that song from the old days. My good wife and I are arriving in a new light now and trembling with joy. It’s like getting a new toy. I arrive in the new light and clothe myself with the merits and lessons of youth town so as not to repeat them. Glad to be here and dancing like a big dog. The new light is a new reason to fight. I’ll throw a punch at the here and now because I’m not one to sit around like an old brown cow. I fly to the next new ready light and screem MOO! That’s how I rock and zoom. It’s how I look in the mirror and smile and walk a mile in my own shoes. Now I’m ready again.
Shaken not Stirred
So last week I went to a friends funeral. I’ve known him for over ten years and I didn’t even know he was a Buddhist. When I walked into his service there was about thirty minutes of chanting. My chest was vibrating and I felt the urge to join in and chant right along but I had no clue what they were saying. It was beautiful though. I know my friend Bob would have been proud. Another old friend came with his wife to see our mutual acquaintance off into the beyond. He and I were so close for many years. I hadn’t seen him much for the past year or more. His face had grown a bit older but the man that I thought so highly of for so many years was still in there. An odd feeling of who’s next came over me. Would it be me or one of my Facebook friends. Would it be a family member. It took a couple of days for the numb feelings to subside and for life’s busy bee behavior to kick back in. I am reminded of the fact that life is short and lessons should be learned the first time and not after multiple times, when possible. Things are going really good for me these days except for the fact that as soon as I started getting back into the rat race and smiling again… well…my cat passed away and I stayed up until almost midnight burying him in the back yard. I lowered him down into a pine box that I had made years ago for a Christmas gift. Our cat had died of old age so I wasn’t overly sad at the time, just shaken a bit. As I covered him up I began to miss him and knew that I would only see him in pictures and the stray memory echos that he would leave behind. For the next few days I would almost hear him meow in the wee hours of morning as he always did. When I would get up late into the night to use the bathroom I would still find my feet feeling for him so as not to squish him. I’m better now. This cat of ours was a member of the family and will be missed, but nothing gold can stay and life is serving up something new most everyday. I think sometime soon I will find a quiet place and come up with my own chant. I will hum and rhyme and vibrate a good rant for kitty, for all those who are struggling today. For the things that God sees when he looks at our vast predicaments, our vicissitude.
Permission to smile….. Granted
It seems that all the front page news is all to familiar; it is alive and well, like yesterday. The pages of our stories are thankfully endless. Starting over is our minute by minute choice and gift. We smart humans can be predictable except in our own personal changes and revolutions. As we analyse the days of old and the constant series of struggles that have passed, we see the unforgiven moments unfortunately remain along with the valuable lessons we were suppose to learn. The old mistakes fade and make way for new ones. I see my son becoming a man more and more and my other children quickly follow in his example. My young man son looks about wondering how many mistakes he will have to make before getting it really right. I look at him and smile with the experience of forty-nine years I have been blessed with and assure him that time is our friend and mistakes are the ingredients of fine armor. This wiggle road that we travel is full of things to trip on and we do. We also find valuable perils on the dusty trail worthy of smell, a touch and even a kiss if she likes us and offers a glimmer of hope to our journey. The calluses of lessons learned are our right of passage and I recommend smiling as much as possible. Life is funny, mean and beautiful. Move on with courage my children. Seek out someone who loves the real you and cook colorful food and kiss a lot and go to the beach and call your mom and smile back at the mirror and more! We are blessed.
Seeing Amazing
How serious are the current set backs really. As I laid in bed this morning and contemplated three new dilemmas that I face as a man, as a father, as a husband, I realize that it is a never-ending thread of good and bad situations that attach themselves to us on a daily level . I’m thinking that if I’m breathing, the bills will keep coming in; if I’m foolish then they will keep coming in even after I am dancing in the afterlife. I have to remember to clearly see the amazing. The amazing happens in most of our lives every day. Maybe we train ourselves to see the set backs and forget to see the amazing. Maybe I’m the only one who does this. That would be amazing though unlikely. Answers always come and the sticky bad is usually not such a big deal as long as there are propelling efforts to right the wrong. Once the covers are pulled back and both of my happy feet swing over this comfortable bed, I will spend at least the better part of the day looking for the amazing. The fact that I can see at all while some cannot is amazing. Things like my kids and wife love me are amazing; that I have a job, that I had a hamburger with cheese last night all good things. My dog things I am amazing! I’m thinking that there is a burning devilish set of thoughts that swirl around our lucky brains at any given moment and are constantly draining our joy, robbing our amazing like lazy takers. Today is a good day to hit the sad mute button and see the amazing. Today is a miracle, and an opportunity. That is worth our precious and limited time.
Looking forward to Oct. 26th Walk!
rmilstid 