I hear music and the lyrics pull me in and take me places I might not write about here but would discuss in person…maybe.
Something happened a while back, can’t say exactly how or when but I can tell you a switch flipped in my head and now I am on a quest for answers.
Bells ring inside and that internal song pushes me to not settle for less than my best effort to find out if I am fucking crazy in the best or worst sense of the expression,
Got this fire in my belly that says I am not wrong and that my assessment is spot on. Some say that you can find the truth in the quiet of inaction or the clinkety-clank of a moment but that is not the way I intend to play this.
I want to see with my own eyes, hear with my own ears and touch with my own hands. And then I can make a more informed conclusion than what I have to work with today.
Somewhere in the ether I can hear the ghost of my long departed friend telling me sometimes you have to have the intestinal fortitude to accept you won’t get answers to your questions.
I told him then that wasn’t an answer that a scientist was supposed to accept and he shrugged his shoulders.
“I’ll take your shrug as acknowledgment of the veracity of my statement. We don’t stop trying to solve for X because we haven’t figured out how to do it. We pivot and adjust.”
Dad showed up in my dream last night and for the first hour I was awake it felt like he was somewhere in the house. And though I knew I wouldn’t find him I walked into the garage, stood there and waited.
Neighbor across the way turned on Emmylou Harris singing Goodbye and I laughed because it wasn’t quite right for the moment nor was it quite wrong.
I don’t think we ever said goodbye, not even when he told me to have a good life and that we’d find out one way or another if we would ever see each other again in anything but memory.
He wasn’t young in my dream nor was he old but I was clearly this age though he said nothing about it.
We moved some furniture together and it was only when I was driving around town later that afternoon that I realized how long it has been since we had done anything like that.
I don’t have to close my eyes to feel his hand upon my shoulder and for some reason that feels surreal. Our hands are identical in size and look so I have found myself staring at them.
Even tried putting my hand on my shoulder to try to recreate it but it doesn’t work because I can’t turn it the right way.
Almost asked my son to put his hand on my shoulder, but his aren’t quite as big as Dad and I. They are a hair off, not a huge detail but big enough to me.
Went to my tool chest and went through it, heard his voice again but this time he was speaking Spanish. Again, not unusual to me as I grew up listening to him and mom try to have private discussions that way.
“Eve handed me the apple and I took a bite. No regrets Dad, no regrets. Don’t have time for it, got to live. But you already know all that stuff.”
He of course didn’t answer and I just smiled and thought about what I need to do.
****
Kids brought home way too many pretzels from work and I eyed them and the treadmill. Pandemic weight is starting to peel off of me but I have got a way to go before I am satisfied.
The hard thing about being almost middle aged is diet has become more important so I have been working hard to focus on it.
Turn on Podrick singing Jenny of Oldstones and wonder what I’ll dream about tonight unsure if I will remember it or not.
Another work week, another opportunity for opportunity.
Time to throw more colors upon the canvas to see what we can create. Can’t keep all as it was because life is forever changing and can’t let fear of change prevent forward motion.
Smart people don’t let potential be wasted solely because of challenges and hiccups. They pivot, adapt and adjust.
The way through exists, even if we can’t always see it.
