Sometimes you think about cooking a meal for someone you have broken bread with but never cooked for because you want to use your culinary skills to tell a story.
Perhaps you sit there listening to music thinking about what you would make and offer the kind of smile that encourages people to ask what you are thinking knowing that no one can see your face now so it doesn’t matter.
Maybe I could quote or hum a few bars of Empty Chairs and see if it moved me to do more than just sit with it all.
Or maybe I would continue to do no more than let what lies stay where it is until such time as it found it’s own spring reawakening or until the grey of winter buried it under snow.
What Happens When Peter Is Singing Time To Change?
Teenagers help identify whether you have mastered the art of patience as well as your ability to ignore having your buttons pressed.
If you are lucky that is the exception and not the rule and you spend more time going along and getting along.
But sometimes it doesn’t matter what you do because they haven’t lived long enough to understand that time to change is a permanent state of existence.
They don’t always recognize how fragile the tendrils of life are or how easily they can be cut.
That is not a bad thing and I often wonder if it is better to extend their innocence or to gently rub it away so they learn how to just roll with the changes that come.
I haven’t come to a conclusion but I do know adults aren’t necessarily equipped to roll with the changes either.
****
“Josh, that Neruda quote about the carousel at sunset is so damn sad.”
“That is one way of taking it. Another is looking at an empty carousel knowing that it wouldn’t take much to fill it with people, music and laughter.
It is a picture of potential and opportunity.”
They shake their head and I tell them they don’t have to agree with me. The world is big and we don’t have to hold the same opinion on everything to be friends.
Five hours later a different guy posts a couple of status updates on Facebook saying if you support certain Democrats you ought to just unfriend him.
I almost do so and then it occurs to me that I’d rather keep him around so that he can see my comments about the dolt.
It probably won’t make him rethink his position or stop supporting him, but it might. We’re not likely to ever hang out in person so in many ways it doesn’t matter, but for the moment I like the idea of making him do his own dirty work.
Ain’t social media grand.
Lives In A Dream
Ever ask where all the lonely people come from?
I have and sometimes I still do.
Lately conversations about nursing homes have had me thinking about the people that end up there and whether it is a brief visit for the purpose of regaining strength or the last place before the box.
My memories of them aren’t particularly warm and while I am sure there are those that would cause me to rethink it the finances required to be in such a place are prohibitive.
Perhaps it is easier wonder if I could be amazed instead of focusing on such things.
Lower your sights, focus elsewhere and heed the words of the musical prophets.
In the days of my youth
I was told what it was to be a man
Now I’ve reached the age
I’ve tried to do all those things the best I can
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