Something about current events makes me think of a trio of songs so I take a moment to listen to most of each while trying to figure out what I am looking for.
I wander out to the garage and stare at a box filled with some odds and ends from my first apartment and wonder if it contains a missing shmata I haven’t seen in a long while.
The last song fades out and Time In A Bottle comes on filling my head with memories of being a 10 year-old kid listening to the vinyl copy as well as listening to it decades later with a different understanding of what it means.
What Words To Use
There is a hammer and channel locks on the floor, screw driver in my hand and a pair of reading glasses tucked in my shirt just in case I can’t see the smaller details.
I haven’t figured out what my subconscious wants me to know so I figure I might as well take care of fixing a few things.
That will keep me busy while working on something unrelated and the thought I can’t think of will pop right up.
The simplicity of the plan makes me smile but what pops up isn’t what I expect.
That’s because the playlist continues and a new song has a new old memory move front and center in my head.
We’re sitting in a car and I surprise myself by asking a much more direct and pointed question than I normally would.
I get the answer I suspected I would and part of me rejoices while the other part takes in the rest. It is a yes and a no.
Whatever does one do with a yes and a no.
Well, I find out the answer to that…sort of.
Again it is a bittersweet thing where my suspicions about some things are confirmed. I find out I am right and that at that time being right doesn’t matter.
Over and over I think about the reasons why things go as they do and try to come up with the right words to use but never quite do.
Reach Out & Touch Someone
It is hard to be patient, to wait for answers and information you desperately want to have because it is going to fundamentally change your life.
Hard to sit and wonder whether you’ll be able to contact Major Tom and for how long.
In the midst of it all the biggest joke of all is hearing someone ask if you ever get rattled or excited because my blood is boiling, my hands are clenching and unclenching all the while I think about tearing the doors off of the hinges.
The doors are safe and so are most people. It is not like I cannot do as I have been taught because I can.
But maybe the comment about my calm ought to be discussed over a pint. It is too bad my old friend Leon the Aussie isn’t around.
He’d like the Twain quote below and have some things to say about it.
You can’t reach old age by another man’s road. My habits protect my life but they would assassinate you.- 70th birthday speech, 1905
The moment of reverie leads me back to my comment about most people being safe and I laugh because there is a short list of dumbass attorneys and miscellaneous fools who I’d like to help down the stairs.
Hell, that old rotary phone would make a great tool for connecting with them. Guess that proves that Wilner men let go of some things and remember others.
Live In Memories & The Present
If I have learned anything from the elders it is the importance of dealing with reality.
You have to play the cards you are dealt and not get lost crying about what is fair and unfair because life doesn’t care.
So I do what I can to keep pushing forward and take the occasional moment to visit the memories that circumstances pull up.
Given all I know in spite of the lack of a medical school education I am hopeful that we’ll hear better than I expect but anticipating the possibility of otherwise.
There is a good chance I am going to be living out the two sides of this song because it is what is required.
Still until the word comes down and the reports are filed, accepted and agreed upon there is that little flame of hope to be nurtured.
Hope is what keeps us moving and how we maintain the intestinal fortitude to take one more step.
There are other words I want to use and stories I want to share but I can’t bring myself to do so today. Maybe later, maybe a different day, but not now.
Now is time for something else and so the pen is put down and the tools are picked up because the hands cannot be idle.
