Lyrics can move me as much as a beat and sometimes I use that to set a tone in my writing for myself and if needed for others.
Got Broken Halos playing and will most likely move to Wichita Lineman cuz I hear things and am trying to discern the reality of the permanence of an ephemeral dream.
It is the eternal balance between:
“I hear you singing in the wire, I can hear you through the whine”
and
“Angels come down from the heavens,
Just to help us on our way,
Come to teach us, then they leave us,
And they find some other soul to save”
Perhaps what we think is forever and inextricable is something different than we believe it to be and what we strove to bring about for 20 years has to be let go of.
There is vanity, there is sanity and there is reality and if you wish to see you much use more than your heart, more than your head and more than your eyes.
A Different Kind Of Tell-Tale Heart
Walked outside under a bright Texas sky and lifted my face, eyes closed to the sun and fed upon its warmth.
Thought about a conversation in which I was told my words would never fail to reach their target and smiled because they meant it at the time and things change.
Sometimes walls are erected, lifted up and others that had been torn down restored to shore up the defenses of the heartland.
Laying siege isn’t always the way to tear and or turn down those obstacles. Sometimes you take the yoke off of your shoulders and agree you’ll no longer plow fallow fields because without rain there is no reason.
You can’t make anything grow without help so you listen to a different sort of tell-tale heart. The one that says you are letting go and raising your anchor because it is time to let the current take you where it will.
Adventure time has arrived and if there really is magic under the moonlight you’ll be pleasantly surprised. After all what is meant for you won’t go past you and experience has proven that you can’t raise the Titanic from the ocean deep without help.
Let Erie keep the Edmund Fitzgerald and cue up Eleanor Rigby, where do all the lonely people come from anyway.
Write An Honest Story
Ten thousand years ago when I had taken fewer bites of the apples of life and had a less discerning palate a high school English teacher told me to accept my limitations.
“Write an honest story and share exactly what you want and wish for. Be honest, don’t cover it up with more words than it needs.”
It felt like a contradiction because telling me I am to accept my limitations when using language makes no sense. If we are supposed to use the keystrokes to paint a picture there are no limitations.
I can write about flying and cars that take me back in time so that I can revisit and review past decisions. I can manipulate reality in any way I wish.
And an honest story doesn’t have to be based upon what is. You can tell the girl that you want your shot and that she missed it, not you.
You can be the guy who hits the shot at the buzzer or the man who slays the dragon who would otherwise consume the world.
Or you can be the person that accepts having made a series of mistakes and determines to start life over to see if you can do it differently.
Those are all things you can write and they can be your honest story and the only limitations are upon your willingness to go there and the ability of others to hear you.
Hell, I have shouted some things for years and not been heard or listened to. Eventually that led to my making choices and decisions to go down a different path. Walked most of it alone, some by choice and some because there was no other choice.
And maybe that is something we all do.
Something In The Air
I was determined to prove that some things hadn’t changed and started a slow jog as I saw the edge approaching I sped up figuring if I ran at about 75 percent of max speed I would clear the gap.
Felt the familiar adrenaline rush that comes with muscles moving and awareness that if I fell short it was going to be more than a few days of bruises and ginger movements.
This was all impulse and there wasn’t time to change because there was no way I could stop in time and I leaned into it.
“You only get hurt when you let fear take over.”
Experience has proven the truth of it but I didn’t have time to consider it in depth because I had already committed. Smirked as I realized thought still moves at light speed for me and then I was falling.
That is when I woke up, moments before I was going to land on my back or side. Flung myself halfway out of the bed and realized part of me was trying to minimize the damage.
Took a minute to figure out where I was and what had happened. Reminded again of that time I dislocated my finger on the stairs and had to drive myself to urgent care.
Came within a short time of a bad cold with a fever of 102 and a body that felt like it had been beaten with a baseball bat.
Those were pre-Covid days when the delivery people didn’t like seeing a guy who looked like death but didn’t fear his leading to their own demise.
It was a moment where I regretted living on the outskirts of Grapevine and Flower Mound. It was almost impossible to get food delivered and there was no one to bring or cook soup for me.
So I gutted it out and reminded myself that has worked as a method for beating every bad day ever.
When I pulled myself out of bed I muttered something to myself about there being something in the air, washed my hands and went back to sleep.
Hell of a way to start vacation.
And now it is past midnight and I am one step closer to whatever it is in the air and whatever changes I have made and those that will come regardless of wishes or desire.
Sometimes you get what you want. Sometimes you get what you need. Sometimes you throw your hands up because you have done all you can and wait to see if you get what you want and or need.
Because life doesn’t always operate on our schedules and all you can do is take it as it comes.
