A Dickensian Moment

Chuck says it was the best of times and it was the worst of times and I agree.

Inside my ears the music plays a song that I know will lead to a particular path and I wonder if I ought to go here and listen or think again.

One doc says six months are all you get so you might as well be comfortable and I say nothing has changed from yesterday to today.

I say it is the same as it ever was and push back with whatever strength I have knowing in many and most ways it doesn’t matter.

My force of will is strong and my ability to weather the storm is both earned and learned but that comes with the knowledge that we all have an expiration date.

In the echoes of my mind I hear my grandfather tell me he’ll fight and know that he did but we cannot last.

Time will wear us down and eventually catch us, but we usually don’t know the how or when.

So I sit and wonder when I’ll find out what mark I’ll be given to match or beat and hope it is much farther down the road than I fear.

These words are for you.

Your ears are who they are meant for.

Along with the hope you’ll hear, understand and listen.

No one knows for certain what will happen if we walk down one path.

But we know alone and apart is an unwanted companion.

Fear says they won’t be heard or understood.

Hope says fear is foolish and far too anxious.

Patience.

Hope says be patient and what will be will unfold.

Maybe.

A Dickensian Moment

I know I am torn up a bit and that some could say I lack clarity and perspective on some things but I think that’s incorrect.

Patience and tolerance are short on supply, but perspective not about things like how we are treating each other.

People cry about unfair comparisons to horrible regimes in one breath and the next say terrible things about other people.

They wag their tongues and fingers about the other and say they like them just fine as long as they don’t come here.

When you question them and dig deeper some offer signs of humanity and say they wouldn’t have a problem with these people if they came over the right way.

Sometimes I think I am naive to think maybe those that say such things really mean it and that they don’t see the hypocrisy in saying that people who come legally aren’t thieves and rapists.

It is hard not to hope they aren’t so very dumb to think that legal means all the bad people are kept out.

I don’t believe all that beg for asylum are automatically good/bad anymore than I believe all that come legally are good/bad.

But I do believe most people are good and have faith that we can retain our humanity and decency in trying to protect ourselves.

I worry more about other things, like the guy I saw stumble out of the sushi bar towards his car. I worry more about car accidents, falling down the stairs or getting hurt in some other innocuous fashion.

One Day At A Time

Sometimes we sing about love daring us to care for people and sometimes about a last dance.

Hell, maybe we ought to be dancing in the moonlight except my legs don’t want to work right now. Pushed them really hard at the gym and now they are angry with me.

Stood in front of the mirror at home and confirmed some of my clothes are starting to fit the way they should, but the progress is slow.

Slow progress and impatience are a bad combination.

I tell myself to take it one day at a time and to keep pushing because good things will come but part of me worries.

Every day forward is one less and every day less brings closer culmination and completion of things I am not ready for.

There are clubs I don’t want to join and whose membership I would turn down but something says eventually they’ll force me to accept their card, regardless of my willingness to carry.

All I can do is take it one day at a time and see where it leads.

There are still cards to be played and tricks to be used, but it is not easy.

No, it is not easy.