Play Me At The Crossroads

Saw a comment someone made and it made me think about how I could tell them a story using two songs I know they like.

Wouldn’t be hard to write it but many wouldn’t understand it and some who did would shirk from the sheer intensity because sometimes it has the same comfort as staring straight into the sun.

But not for all, some don’t notice or don’t mind because what comes like a comet isn’t frightening because it is as familiar as breathing.

You know I’ve heard about people like me
But I never made the connection.
They walk one road to set them free
And find they’ve gone the wrong direction.
But there’s no need for turning back
Cause all roads lead to where I stand;
And I believe I’ll walk them all
No matter what I may have planned.

Can you remember who I was?

And so it was that I came to travel
Upon a road that was thrones and narrow
Another place, another grace
Would save me

You are the sun, I am the moon
You are the words, I am the tune
Play me

Yeah, I could do it because I took less than two minutes here and saw a way to weave and layer and perhaps I might go for it.

Perhaps I might dive in as I have elsewhere, with the sort of raw honesty few are interested in because it is easier to wear our masks and walk through the woods without wondering if we are truly seen.

Deliveries

Two weeks from now the doc and I will have our first visit in quite some time and I’ll find out if those who say I haven’t taken proper care of myself are onto something or if my own sense of it is correct.

Two weeks from now I’ll find out if the changes that have begun are enough or if more is required and I’ll ask the doc for some assistance in a couple of areas because what I am doing isn’t working.

I am not big on asking for help and prefer to figure it out on my own but I am done gutting it out and ready to see what options exist.

And if none do, well then it won’t matter because I will go back to doing it my way which might not be perfect, but it seems effective.

So I wait for delivery of news and for the people that work for Bezos to send me the fancy toothpaste I ordered and replacement ear cushions for my noise cancelling headphones.

I played around with fixing the headphones and passing them on to another family member so that I could upgrade to a newer and better pair.

Felt my father smile at the thought and looked up and around to confirm he wasn’t in the room with me. He would have appreciated it.

He would have enjoyed hearing me talk about reducing expenses elsewhere and knowing that I could snag these without using up all the savings.

I’d look at him and say they are a work expense and as important as having work clothes and he would have asked why I was trying to sell him on something I’ll probably end up doing anyway.

That would have made me laugh and I would tell him it is true but it probably won’t happen before September, if not December.

There are other priorities but this is high on the list because I need better equipment.

****

My middle sister turned 50 last week.

I saw many of the Facebook birthday wishes and saw pictures of many of her old friends and in some cases shook my head because I remember some of them as they looked at 17, 10 or 5 and they of course are all middle aged.

They probably look at myself and the camp/youth group crews in the same way.

Chunks of time float through my head. Go back 40 years to 1981 and I am a 12 year-old kid with dreams about playing for the Dodgers or maybe the Lakers and no idea the future will look like it does now.

Go back 40 more and it is 1941. The country is seven months away from Pearl Harbor and neither set of my grandparents are parents yet, but they are on the verge.

That accordion like creature time can move so damn slowly and yet compress it and decades fly by at light speed.

I Am Still Him

That guy is 18 and I am told by some he doesn’t look like me at all.

I laugh and tell people to look at my eyes and the smile. Some say they see the connection and others don’t. It is not just the hair or the clean shaven face.

But maybe I am biased.

Thirty-two or three years late.r the kid turns into that guy but I can promise you he remembers the kid and that wisdom and life haven’t beaten all the dreams out of him yet.

Sometimes he has to go back to the kid to figure how to move forward because experience can make you think that you’re stuck dancing in the fire and the kid can remind you it doesn’t have to be like that.

You can get to the crossroads and find passage across.

That is the beauty of wisdom combined with youthful memory, you can find the strength to learn how to fly and use the confidence of experience to figure out how to land.

Final Thought

I heard Hans Zimmer in my head while I was writing those last few lines and couldn’t decide if I wanted to use the clip from the movie or the clip from the concert.