The face in the mirror asked “How long can you dance in the fire” and received two responses, “until I get an answer or decide I am done.”
Same face asks how many times you can make like Charlie Brown trying to kick the ball only to have Lucy pull it away at the last minute and says one day Charlie is going to take Snoop’s Dog House out and shoot down the Red Baron.
“Old Chuck has a few tricks that people haven’t seen and endless faith in his ability to make things happen.”
The back and forth is interrupted by Thunder Road and he says to no one in particular that he has a new appreciation for pieces of the lyrics.
Don’t run back inside, darlingYou know just what I’m here forSo you’re scared and you’re thinkingThat maybe we ain’t that young anymoreShow a little faith, there’s magic in the night”
Time passes, could be a minute or it could be a day and he is lying on his back throwing weight up and down than he has in a while.
It makes him smile because the number of reps he pumps out makes it clear he can add another 20 pounds and still be good.
That is a sign of significant progress and proof that a tortoise like approach may be rough on his patience but it is good for other things too.
Maybe You’ll Hear Me Here
The texts come in fast and furious asking for a variety of things ranging for a request for mentoring to complaints about promises made by others.
Eventually a nasty email generates a strongly worded response with a subject that says “Maybe you’ll hear me here.”
That generates a response that makes him smile because it is clear the message got through and he won.
Reminds him of a different life when he went back and forth with others online. Sometimes he wondered if he was better at the game back then or if memory was skewed.
Hard to say or maybe impossible to do so and probably meaningless. Cue Springsteen again singing The Rising.
“Can’t see nothing in front of me
Can’t see nothing coming up behind
Make my way through this darkness
I can’t feel nothing but this chain that binds me
Lost track of how far I’ve gone
How far I’ve gone, how high I’ve climbed
On my back’s a sixty pound stone
On my shoulder, a half-mile line”
Second trip to the gym in the same day is nothing but cardio and it makes the face in the mirror ask if it is 1999 or somewhere like it.
“Better fix the diet.”
He rolls his eyes and says “love me like I am and like I am trying to be or take a walk.”
****
Lived a year during the past three days and cursed Mercury retrograde, assorted people and objects more than once.
Looked for signs, buried treasure and laughed at the idea of karma, fate and destiny while embracing the certainty that some of those things were taking place.
“You’re the hero and the fool walking into the unknown. Better embrace fear and wear it like a cloak of invisibility, whatever the hell that means.”
Looked at pictures sent and received twenty years ago and laughed at how different some things were and yet how some were the same.
You just never knew what lay beyond the next bend or where the river would take you. Sometimes you were running and gunning and sometimes you were dodging bullets, coconut shells and or banana peels.
Never dared to stop because if you did that fire might do more than burn, burn, burn.
