Someone asked if I specialize in silly headlines and posts I said it is possible and that it is also possible I write secret messages but you won’t recognize them unless…
“Unless what?”
“Unless you carry a giant black purse and have to been through a few decades or maybe a lifetime of changes, opportunities and chances that started with Norb, Tim and Willie.”
“That makes no sense to me.”
“It is not supposed to. That is the point of secret messages.”
“Does the person or people who are the focus get them?”
“I suspect they get them all but what do I know. I could be a wrong. I am just a man.”
“Where do you write them?”
“Upon the subway walls and in the places secret messages are meant to be read. And sometimes I see when they were spotted and how much time was spent there.”
“Do you get secret messages too?”
“Depends on how you define them. Some call it silence but I call it reading the crowd and using my gut to feel into situations in which I just know stuff.”
“You’re kind of weird, aren’t you.”
“Aren’t we all and even if we aren’t, I am who I am. Love me or hate me, not much room for in between.”
Just Write
Two or is it three miles on the treadmill won’t cover the crap I ate today so I’ll probably hop back on to do another mile tonight.
Pumped out a couple of sets of pushups and was pleased because they were easier and I feel myself getting stronger again.
One of the kids said something about me in my twenties but I was only partially listening so by the time it sunk in I didn’t remember the context, but I thought about turning 27.
Thought about who I used to be against who I am now and wondered what that 27 year-old would say about all that has happened.
Some things I am certain of and lack no confidence because it is myself I am looking at, but there are other things. And though it doesn’t matter because time travel doesn’t exist I am curious.
Curious if we would be more or less optimistic about some things and wonder if he would be confident or fearful about others.
It is surreal to think my son is 20 and my oldest nephew about to turn 21. To think about life 25 years ago and not know how close I was to the top of the roller coaster and how fast it would go careening down the hill.
Hit a point today where the weight of the last year collapsed upon me because I couldn’t see the shore that I know is closer than far.
Frustrated me because I can’t bull my way through some things the way I want to.
Got me thinking about other things so I went to the garage and took my father’s hammer in my hand and held it.
Remembered the day we packed up my uncle’s cottage and how Dad stopped packing the truck and asked me to take care of it.
I knew he was sad that his little brother had died but I was too young to really appreciate how young my uncle was and how much life was cut short.
Dad lost his mother before he turned 30, I think he was about 28 and Grandma was 55.
He was my age when my uncle died.
Fifty percent of his immediate family in 50 some years is a big loss. He didn’t speak about it often with me and really didn’t dig into much until I was around 40 something.
That was in the past and couldn’t be changed and he had other things to focus upon. But we spoke a bit about how he would have liked to have had them around to see us grow up and how Grandma really missed out on the grand kids.
Not just because she didn’t meet half of my siblings, but because he said if he had known being a grandfather was so much fun he would have skipped the Dad part.
Sometimes he would smirk at me and I would tell him he became a grandfather by not protecting his eldest daughter from that boy.
It always wiped the smirk off of his face. Eventually he told me to remember I had a daughter and that one day she would pick a boy over me and to enjoy that.
Later he would tell me not to worry about that because as long as she was happy it would be ok, but to accept there would be moments.
There are things I could say here that would be kind of fun for reasons I’ll label as just because but I won’t put them here as there are more appropriate locations.
I am not ready for some things to happen and impatient for others. It is past time for the world to feel stable and normal again.
The big advantage to having been through hell a couple of times is that I know this will pass and that normal, whatever that means will return.
Might happen solely because I make changes to make it happen or in conjunction with other things.
But I know it will and that this is just a temporary storm during a long voyage. I am a storm walker and fire dancer, this isn’t going to stop me.
Slow me down…maybe, but stop me, nah.
Got too much to do.
