Went back in time to 2006 and read a few things that felt like they took place in a different lifetime and yet felt like they could be the present too.
Didn’t go back because I felt nostalgic but because I was looking for a photo that I know I have, but didn’t find. It is in a file, maybe a different one than where I looked.
Never did print out hard copies of that one, but maybe one day I will…maybe.
Read about aching and being apart and remembered being so in sync and smiled, not wistfully nor bitterly as I might have done in a slightly different time or place.
Thought again about how important it is to find joy in the journey and that inability to predict or plan as we might want. Was funny to see thoughts about moving to Texas expressed as a maybe s0 many years before it actually happened.
Not that I had forgotten, because I hadn’t, but because it was another sign that showed up during the past 25 years or so. Might sound silly, but when I look at the crazy squiggly lines of life between then and now it’s almost impossible to think I wasn’t going to end up here.
Sometimes people ask for how long and I shrug because I can’t answer. I hadn’t ever imagined living anywhere besides California and then I thought Israel had to be on the list with the occasional thought about Texas.
And here we are…now.
What You Miss When You Don’t Read
Family and friends who don’t read frequently reach out to ask for more details about stories, people and places contained within these walls.
“Joshua, I am serious. Please tell me what is going on.”
“Nothing is going on.”
“I hear the smile in your voice. Should I call your wife and ask?”
“Beats me. Maybe you ought to call the other wife, she probably knows more.”
“Stop talking in circles, it is aggravating.”
“No, what is aggravating is you refusing to accept nothing is going on. Sometimes words have no other meaning than the obvious and sometimes they don’t. And you ought to remember you can’t bully or beat me into speaking when I don’t want to. Can’t offer, cash, drugs, sex or rock and roll to change my mind.”
I pause to give them a chance to bang their head against the wall for a moment and ask if they enjoy being disappointed ‘cuz they pushed hard enough to aggravate me and I believe in sharing.
“What you miss when you don’t read are the references and background to the stories you ask about. You miss the details and you miss seeing sometimes I integrate fiction into these pieces. If I want you know something I haven’t any problem being direct and if you don’t need to know, well you don’t need to know.”
“Joshua, I still hear the smile in your voice. Must you be so gleeful?”
“Sorry, allow me to try to weep and speak.Dammit, I don’t cry so I can’t do it.”
Hanging With Mr. Dylan
Played around with writing far more here than I have tonight but I have been hanging with Mr. Dylan and his music is taking me other places and I figure you have plenty here to chew upon or not.
All depends on how you consume information.
If you are like me you swallow huge volumes and take time to process, think and consider what you have read.
You value an ongoing education and prefer to be described as overthinking than un.
So while I am tangled up in blue the times they are a changing. Can’t be positively 4th street if you are lay lady laying you are way through serving somebody now can you.
****
I keep replaying a few moments from the past two weeks trying to figure out where things went sideways on something important.
Keep staring at spreadsheets and reviewing information so that I can confirm I understand what happened and why. Can’t improve if you won’t look at your own shortcomings and think about what you can do to improve or adjust.
In between it all I hear a voice whisper, ‘be gentle’ and I laugh, there is no bigger critic.
