I knew better than to look for my father at the airport.Knew that unlike years past he wasn’t going to be trailing her, but I did it anyway.
When the kids were little sometimes they would ask why grandpa was moving so slowly and I would say he moved at his own pace.
It wasn’t an exaggeration because even when his entire body worked as it is supposed to work he moved at the pace he thought appropriate for a given situation.
The man might have been famous for moving deliberately but I have plenty of memories of his moving at speed and demanding I did too.
****
As we drove through Grapevine back towards home I thought back to the last visit 12.5 months ago and how different things are now.
Thought about how some people forever gain our trust and how others are kept at a distance. Our favorite night owls understand things, situations and experiences in ways others don’t.
I had a conversation with the old man about that once, said some Virgos had an uncanny ability and how it never made sense to me why so few could see so clearly.
Do Cats Taste Like Chicken?
Some people be infuriated by those five words and others won’t care because they’ll see it is just a goofy guy doing goofy things.
Some people follow what you say and do with little effort and some don’t.
You can share 10,000 words with some and they’ll never get it. Give those same 10,000 words and say you have two different songs to share and you might not have to say one word about why you shared them.
And if you talk, well there is a level of comfort that comes with the understanding you know is there, regardless of everything else.
It isn’t something you find just anywhere and I have often wondered if it only happens if you don’t look for it.
Often wondered if the magic in the night that delivers such a thing can ever be harnessed and controlled or if the strength of it lies in its freedom and unpredictability.
Maybe it is because I hear the fucking bells going off in my head as if the volume knob is turned all the way up and a moment later they are gone and all I have are the echoes.
Echoes that make me wonder if I am crazy and find me chasing shadows to confirm the level of sanity or insanity relative to that particular moment.
****
Add a dose of anger, frustration and grief and you get an interesting mix.
It’s the devil’s cocktail straight from the ring of fire and it burns, burns, burns.
There is an internal war going on in which one side says don’t open, don’t offer and don’t chase. The other side is adamantly opposed and wants to take risks, invite others to walk through the internal garden and go for it.
One of the boys asked how many friends I have made in Texas and I said a few…sort of.
It is not because there aren’t opportunities to do so but because I haven’t put much effort into it. Don’t need many people, never have, but am starting to recognize the current situation doesn’t make sense.
Blaze A Trail
A thousand years ago when I moved to Texas for the first time and life was different I got a taste of one potential future and confirmed I wasn’t crazy.
Never knew the path would diverge from something clear and well lighted into a swampy mess that at times spun me around and turned the world inside out and upside down.
Sometimes I look back and yell at that guy to do things differently but he never hears my warning and does the same thing over again.
So instead of finding a different set of circumstances I am stuck with the same old one as before.
“Work the problem old man and stop letting the past dictate or limit your approach.”
I do my best to follow the suggestion and push forward as best I can.
My father’s situation forced a number of changes in how I approached some things and gifted me with some mementos.
Some of them sit on a credit card where they help me focus my attention on ways to say goodbye as fast as possible.
While I am not grateful they exist they are a temporary reminder that there is a cost associated with life and had it been triple I would have done as I did.
But they weren’t and I have made decent progress in ridding myself of their presence.
The other stuff isn’t tangible and I am not sure who can see it and who can’t. Not sure if people recognize the doors that closed in some cases and the others that opened.
I thought about opening one door at around 2 AM last night but got caught up in a book and didn’t follow the thread.
But tonight,well I am staring at a map and looking for a path that doesn’t exist. Tonight it is clear the only way to get to that next place is to blaze a trail.
So that is how it will go, time to blaze a trail and see what comes along with it.
