Ten thousand emails flood my inbox and I wonder how much content I can consume before it makes me choke.
One of the emails contains a blog post that says we ought to stop censoring our writing. It makes me nod my head and I read it twice, something I rarely do and think about how I ought to do a better job of living those words.
If I did maybe I’d do more than provide links to music that tells some of the tale.
Some being the operative word because you have fragments of fiction, parts and pieces of truth and a hesitation to do more…at this time.
Maybe it is because I came across another old post about a contemporary who died too young or maybe it is because Cancer is wreaking havoc in people I care about.
Or maybe it is because I don’t care whether people are moved, motivated, irritated or annoyed with these words on the page.
Read or don’t, I have to spit out some of what floats inside.
You’re Just A Memory…Now
A million people want to know about me and my old friend Shola so they flood the other place and that is what led me back to the old post I mentioned above.
A post where I intentionally masked the real name of the deceased because I didn’t want their friends and family to find my notes there.
Not because they were bad or good but because they were…neutral.
I hadn’t seen them in years and had it not been for Facebook the only memories I would have had were those of high school and before.
That seemed sort of sad to me, to have nothing to remember but things they did as a kid. But the thing is that Facebook didn’t really give me that much more to go on and all I got was the same shallow perspective.
All I got was a sense of someone who was unhappy, who never quite found something more.
Maybe it is true and maybe that is all some of us achieve. Maybe it doesn’t matter that I don’t know enough to say whether they did more and got beyond the limited view I had on Facebook.
Hell, if all you do is read my Facebook posts there is no telling what you think. At times I am very angry and quite bitter there, but that is not all I have.
I have accomplishments that I am proud of and achievements that are meaningful and not in the sort of facade some like to present others.
Life has been a mixed bag and some of it has been as they say, really fucking hard.
But I can also say it has been really fucking good.
If you are lucky to have shared some of it with me you know all those things to be true. You know that intensity isn’t optional–it is me.
Maybe it works for you and maybe it doesn’t. If you can’t hang, if you get burnt out well that is not my problem.
I tell the kids all the time to find their people and hang with those who find it easy to hang with you and who you find it easy to hang with too.
Life is short.
“He says, “Son can you play me a memory
I’m not really sure how it goes
But it’s sad and it’s sweet
And I knew it complete
When I wore a younger man’s clothes”
Piano Man- Billy Joel”
A Few More Words
Got just a few more minutes to tell you how Elvis is singing Kentucky Rain and I am laughing because time was a song like this made me want to stick a banana in my ear.
But those days are gone and I am focused on trying to make a few more things happen before I hop on another plane again.
It is going to be another quick trip but the magnitude of some things take chunks out of me and they aren’t always easily refilled or replaced.
Stuck somewhere between the magic of All I Want Is You and Happy is a secret I hold onto because it is a key I use to bring the words to the page in ways that paint a story only a few appreciate.
That is not snarky or sarcastic, just an observation sometimes you don’t gain the gift without dancing in the fire.
And the funny thing about said gift is it never looks exactly as you expect or anticipate. Hell, if you don’t learn to open your eyes and your heart simultaneously you won’t even recognize it.
But if you do so without expectation or promise you find magic lives and it doesn’t matter whether you are just a memory or something more.
