Sometimes you plan for some things and they don’t go as you hoped or expected.
Sometimes you click or do not click on particular posts because you think it is about one thing except it really is not.
There are people that read everything that is posted and never comment for a variety of reasons. Some of them are obvious and some less obvious but I still say silence is consent and that is enough for me.
Especially on a night of fireworks and Margaritas. The plan had been to go to one of the local fireworks show early so that I could park and be the master of when I chose to come and go.
Except I got a taste for a Margarita and poured one so large there was no question I was going to be home for the night.
Not going to use rideshares or cabs to go wander a crowd, even with social distancing there isn’t enough going on there for me to want to spend much time by myself.
I have no problem being alone, I have lots of experience with it and am capable of self entertaining so here I am.
Stood outside and listened to various noises and thought about fireworks shows I have been to and wondered if there was gunfire mixed in.
Thought back upon a time in Jerusalem in which soldiers responded to a terrorist attack and another back in LA in which neighbors displayed their love for each other.
They were shooting and it sounded like they might have been tonight, but I could be wrong. In some ways my ears are not as sharp as they once were.
But my sense for other things, well that is still quite sharp and I know what I sense and feel.
There are endings and beginnings coming, not a question of if, but when.
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Sometimes the words flow freely and I just run with them wherever I am at because you don’t say not to the muse when she chooses to bless you.
I posted them on Facebook, five minutes of free writing and will include them here so that they may be protected.
They may turn into a series or a longer post, don’t know, not sure but am just running with it.
Aches and Echoes
Twenty-eight years ago I stood in a bar in Deep Ellum talking to people who were ‘my age.’ I was in Dallas for a trade show and my much older boss (he was 40) asked if I thought the tall brunette was interested in me.
I said she already knew I was an LA boy and that Texas was a place to visit. He said you never know what life will bring.
He was right. I didn’t know I would come back for work multiple times and eventually move.
January 2018 it is just Dad and I in the car. I am driving him around Dallas and I ask if he wants to go back to Jimmy’s Food store.
“It’s the Italian deli, like Domingo’s back home.”
He shrugs his shoulders and falls back asleep.
We don’t know cancer has already wrapped its bony fingers around him and that we only have another seven months.
Don’t know that I would have woken him up, the snoring was soft, familiar and comforting.
A couple of weeks ago I was in Jimmy’s with mom, my niece and one nephew. I heard a shuffling of feet, turned and swore Dad was there but of course he wasn’t.
Last night I heard echoes from the past calling to the present demanding I look to the future.
Dug around old emails and felt a familiar ache. Sometimes you walk away from the fire because you know there is nothing there and sometimes you push forward.
Push forward because there is something in the flames or just on the other side and you need to understand and know more.
Sometimes life is a highway and sometimes a carousel and if your pony circles back around it is worth hopping back on for a moment.
Those aches and echoes sometimes point out what you missed or miss and why wouldn’t you follow up.
Who we were isn’t always who we are or who we’ll be.
Perspectives change and opportunities that didn’t exist sometimes come to life again but only for a moment.
Better to reach for the brass ring and see what happens than to spend life lamenting your lack of initiative.
My left arm doesn’t feel right and I wonder if I pulled a muscle. Doesn’t hurt enough to stop me from doing what I want to do, but it is just enough to notice.
Might be how I am sitting at the computer. Might be a simple chiropractic adjustment.
The door between the garage and the house got jammed shut.
I spent several moments examining it to see if I could find the issue, sometimes there is a simple solution.
After an indeterminate amount of time I looked at Dad’s tools and smiled.
“How many times did you tell me to be gentle and to not use my strength because it would make the situation worse. How many times did I answer your comment with an example of when strength was warranted.”
He didn’t answer as I knew he wouldn’t so I continued.
In a few weeks your granddaughter will turn 17 and she’ll remember that you died on her 14th birthday. She has been good about it and we can’t blame you, but know that in a moment I am going to use my strength to force the door open. What good is this if I can’t make use of it.”
This time I didn’t wait for anything. I lowered my shoulder, turned the knob and slammed into the door.
It didn’t shatter and the frame suffered no damage. I breathed a sigh of relief and listened to the 10 year-old boy inside complain that a superhero would have turned it into splinters.
Thought about throwing laundry into the washer and taking care of some other chores and thought writing some more and doing some reading I hadn’t yet done.
Didn’t do either and got on the treadmill instead with the net effect that I didn’t commit to any one thing.
So the two bears of my nature fight for dominance.
We’re in the in-between time when life prepares to change again. I see it all around me.
Friends getting divorced and friends getting remarried.
More conversations with new members of the club who tell me they had no idea it would be so hard to say goodbye to a parent and questions about how I have done it.
Conversations about what kind of life to live and who to live it with and everything in between.
Maybe I’ll pour another and to stand outside and look skywards and see if there are more answers above.
I’ll figure it out, always do, but it might get kind of interesting in the process and that is ok with me.
