I am told there is an amazing amusement park in Cedar Park but I have never been so I can’t say for certain whether the stories I have been told match reality.
Instead I hear a variety of songs playing against the clickety-clack of the car being pulled to the top of the hill it needs to crest so we’ll hit the loops, twists and turns with the proper speed to make it past.
That last song really sticks with me, because you could argue this waltz started today, two weeks ago or maybe 17 years ago and I would nod my head.
Nod because I know what reality is and I know what reality isn’t and the intersection between the two confuses me. It is sort of a mix of fear and confidence, because what unfolds feels normal and yet the uncertainty of not being able to control what happens once the car heads down that hill is…thrilling.
It reminds me of a conversation where we said I’ll carry you if you can carry me knowing if we so chose to do so it could be and yet knowing I hate being carried.
Or maybe I don’t hate it, maybe it is the concern that those who try will fail to follow through or be unable to handle the load. So it is easier to bear my own weight.
I am told I have a very expressive face and that it is easy to determine when I am thinking but perhaps not as easy to determine the topic of my thought.
If I told you this song was playing as I thought I can’t predict how you would interpret it but I don’t know if it matters because if I wanted to know I would ask and if you needed me to know you would say.
That is the premise I operate upon now, do I want to know badly enough to ask or am I willing to wait and see if you need me to know.
Perhaps it is tied into this gut feeling of Mr. Toad driving the car or maybe it is something else. Maybe the internal blueprints inside my head for the future that will be are vague enough to cause mild concern.
Hell, maybe it is the text I just received at 8:36 PM that made my BP spike another 98 points.
My head feels like it is both dizzy and on the verge of a migraine and my jaw is clenched. I just sent a mental note to Mr. Toad to slow his roll or to suffer my wrath because there isn’t time for this.
Not that it matters because the joy of life isn’t just what you discover about yourself and others during the journey it is the complete disregard it has for acting up when it is convenient.
Somewhere in the ether I can feel my father and grandfathers nod and whether that is a personal desire or an intuitive ability and psychic touch I wasn’t aware I have matters not.
What matters is how you respond to the current. Do you let it drive you into the rocks or do you find a way to harness the energy and make it serve you instead.
It doesn’t have to be one or the other but if you don’t act as the captain of your ship it will be something and that something might not be what you want it to be.
*****
There is a show on Netflix I started watching tonight called Shtisel. I have been meaning to check it out for a while but for reasons called life I hadn’t gotten to it yet.
Intermixed between the Hebrew and yiddish and the smile on my face because of the memories it brings forth is another memory, but I can’t say if it really happened or was just a dream.
A girl I know stares at the blueprints in my hands and asks me what they are. I say I am a Doctor of Destiny and it is the blueprint for a future.
“Is it our future you think you see?”
“Give me your fucking hand and find out.”
“You’re ever so romantic, aren’t you.”
“You haven’t run away, have you.”
“No, I haven’t.”
The needle skips a couple of tracks and up comes CCR’s Have you ever Seen the Rain and I know something is going on. This is traveling music for me and has been a part of the soundtrack between Texas and California more than once.
It is funny, every time I have done the drive I have done so alone.
Every time I have gone both directions I have loaded and unloaded the car and watched the sun rise and fall by myself.
Sometimes others have silently born witness with me under a starry night sky in a desert that seems endless but they have never been informed of their part.
They haven’t ever seen the things I thought they ought to see because they would appreciate it because though I kept them close to my heart I never spoke of such things, shared pictures or tried to describe what was witnessed.
I figured if possibility turned to opportunity and said thing was taken the moment would come again.
What once was will never be again so we wash away the past and walk forward into a different future than we anticipated or planned for.
A few hours ago I read a man’s account of his father’s journey towards death and wondered if I ought to stop.
He has been writing about his dad’s decision to stop dialysis and to move towards the hard stop for several days now.
For a while it was easy for me to read and offer support but today it touched a nerve. It is not his fault, he did nothing wrong and there is no way he could know.
No way he could know that talking about his dad drifting into a place where communication ceases sets me off because I remember my father’s face and the moment when his eyes stopped connecting with mine.
I remember how as he got more comfortable he became less communicative. The hospice nurses were amazing and they told us to keep talking to dad as they said he would still hear us.
It made sense and I believe it but I know that moment when he stopped responding has stuck with me. I know my friend is about to understand what it means for time to stop in a way he never has.
I didn’t welcome him to the club no one wants to join because there is no point in offering early admission, but I thought about it.
The silence is and always will be deafening.
