I’m leaving this here because I think now
is a good time to get ready and move on to the next one.
As for now, today is Memorial Day, May 29, 2023

I found myself on a post-sunrise drive,
heading inbound and over the George Washington Bridge,
once more, and making my way over the Hudson
while the morning sun left its shades of orange
on the face of the tall buildings.

It’s a pretty picture to think about
My City in the quiet of morning
I have been making this trip into the City for decades now,
and from either side of town or the other,
in any direction, whether Uptown or Downtown, Eastside or West,
there is something perfect about her to me.

I come back here, to this spot,
which is what I consider to be
the re-birthplace of self,
to where it begins and ends
and to where the cycles of life unfold
and then fold over once more.

I came back here to this place,
where I begin my ending,
and more to the point,
this is where I ready myself
for the new chapters ahead of me.

I suppose this was brought on by a dose of nostalgia.
This thought. This idea. I sip from my coffee,
breathe in and out
and then I sigh with an exhale before I begin.

The screen in front of my face is white and empty
but this is the one place I know
where I can come, which is open to me
and open to my interpretation,
and like the world at morning time,
fresh from the new sunrise;
Mother Earth is waiting, as if to say,

“Come on, son. We have work to do.”

To each their own and there we go,
each of us, going off in our own direction
and heading out,
on our way, separate from the crowd and unlike the others
because unlike the masses,
people like us want more than just another trip around the sun.

I know I do . . .

I want more than the usual and more
than the mediocre blasts you see on social media
to act out loud
or to act as if and say
hey world, look at me –
please accept me
or tell me
I’m good . . .

I walked alone during the early morning sunrise,
knowing full and well that walks like this
would be coming to an end.
We were approaching summer,
the year was 2015

I knew that while my reason for this trip
was to settle the affairs of my dying Mother,
that times were moving and that, in fact,
times must, will and do change.

I’m not sure when this was.
A long time ago, I suppose.
This must’ve been
but when, I don’t remember.

It must have been a realization which came in waves,
like the rides, rolling in and changing the face of the sands,
eroding the coast of life
and redefining the way I saw things.

There’s a word I hear all the time.
It’s a thing too, a way to be,
and maybe even a lesson for others or an artform of living.
The word is called selfless
As in, no concern for self
It’s not about “Me.”
There’s no “I”
Selfless
As in no need for repayment

As in without regard for self or reward
As in unconditional, no strings attached.
No pat on the back, no award ceremonies
or any kind of accolades.

So, I have been me for a very long time. In fact, I have been me, all of my life, since the day I was born.
Surprising, right?
I know . . .
It’s a shocker.

However, I have also lived my life a certain way for a very long time and with no regrets on this choice, I understand that my choice of living is something that suits me.

I’m not ready to let this journal end, at least not yet. But more importantly
and more for you to understand, this is my reach from a place here in fact,
I have either been held captive or been set free.

In part, my efforts are to explain ideas and thoughts and with hopes
to create a vision or something you can touch or hold and understand, I began
this journey to write my way into your heart and mind,
to help me understand life and, along the way, I hope to help people understand life,
which is currently going on, all around us.

Can’t you see it?
It’s right outside our door . . .
Life ~

(Written respectfully for the McGinley Family)

Thank you for teaching me –

I come from this. I am this and because I am,
I want to be this
especially to the best of my ability because
behold the worker,
the doer, the prime mover of the world
the one who aches and hurts yet
regardless of time or the weight upon their shoulders
because of them,
the gears of this world still turn because, in fact,
it’s us, the breed of us,
the workers and the working-class
who turn the wheels
and make this factory go round

I want to be this –

I would like to begin this with my hat in hand,
humble as I can be and with all I have,
I want to thank the artists who’ve taught me
inspired me, opened my eyes
to allow me the understanding
that it’s alright for me to be who I am
and that in my form
I do not have to adhere to anyone’s expectations,
except for mine.

I am not alone
but . . .
it has taken my a long time to understand
what it means to stand by myself

Be advised,
your words have more power than you think.
Be aware that you have more might
than you believe you possess,
and in your stance to fight back,
the remedies to your weakness are as follows:
if your will and intent can outweigh your fears and intimidations
you can withstand and endure anything.

You just have to keep this alive.
You have to keep this in mind because
I’m not going to lie, sometimes,
the fight is bigger than you think.
But that doesn’t mean
the fight’s not worthwhile –
because trust me
It is!

It was not the first time I had ever walked through electric doors
and motorized gates that shut with a loud slam
that sounded like a loud exclamation point,
which exclaimed about the absence of freedom.
Also, it was not the first time that I was escorted
or led through a hallway yet this time,
everything was different.

This time, I was walking through the hallways
and moving through the corridors to a specific wing
and led to a place in a correctional facility
as a specialist and/or quite possibly
a professional.

Let the drums beat.
Let the rage come out.
Let the music take over
and let the foot hit the pedal
so you can drive off
as fast as you can
and just go.

Let the sun come up.
Let the road be empty
and the mind go clear.
Let it go
Whatever “it” is
Or whatever this means to you –
let it happen.

What does it mean to be a pioneer?
What does it mean to be the first of your kind
to lead without being led
or to step away from the predictions that tell you,
“You can’t do it,”
yet when you go ahead and do it anyway –
See?

So then,
what does it take to defy the odds
or turn off the volume
on the voices that speak against you?

It is quiet now. Then again, of course it is –
quiet, I mean
The sun is up. It’s Sunday.
I can see the sunlight passing through the trees
and everything else is silent, like it’s supposed to be
I suppose . . .

What I do now and what I say here,
of course, I hope this is something
that we can keep here,
just between us – but,
here’s the trip –

I remember seeing a picture –
maybe we spoke about this
or maybe we didn’t;
however,
I think the relevance of this picture is true to life.

I think that the picture is brilliant –
no wait, the picture is powerful
and the reason why is the picture
is called
The Power of Stepping Away.

We have entered into these negotiations for life
with the best intentions. We are here to negotiate
the terms of our next chapter and
therefore, going forward,
we have to come to a clear agreement
and therefore collectively,
we have to come to a decision
that from this moment onward,
whether our motivation changes or our levels of discipline
whither or vanish;
whatever we choose to agree upon at this point,
we have to be sure of all we agree upon.

I go back to those dreams again,
in my youth, but not young yet
I am somewhere at a place where
I experienced somewhat of a rebirth,
like life coming back to us or
like springtime, when the northern hemisphere
comes alive again
and all that was wilted and gray,
returns to color.

Here I am in the soft hue of morning,
the sun is on its way,
and the sky is about to change,
which is pretty of course.

Then again, everything changes.
Everything moves, even when we are still,
all of us are moving, continuously, ongoing,
and endlessly around on this big thing
I call Project Earth
because nothing is ever still.

And, I begin where I am . . .
I’m standing here at the face of a new day,
waiting for the sun to prevail
and looking to make a move or two,
just to keep my hopes alive.

I am north of where I was yet
there’s a piece of me, southbound,
where the waters are pure and emerald bays
are prevalent in the landscapes around me.

And hope, you say?
Sure, I have hope.

1)

The horse moved through flesh that evening,
and another soul
forfeited its right to the kingdom the next morning,
just to feel a bit closer to heaven

Understand?

Before next, it was sunrise and in the absence of presence,
there would be no recollection of anything so perfect,
other than a nod, of course,
which tripped the lines of fascination
and taught the mind to descend
into slow moving pools
of absolute bliss

I remember what I thought when I got into this ride.
I know when this trip began and I know where I was
when I agreed to these terms.
I remember the promise I made to myself
which was more than just to keep myself accountable.

When I began, I decided that if I was going to write
then I would only write a certain way.
This was not for the crowd or to bring me to the reader
but instead, I decided that if I was going to start this trip
then there could only be one way for me to travel.

I want to be crazy. Yes, absolutely crazy
I want to be perfectly crazy
like we used to be,
way back in the day
before life took its turn
and age took away the chaos.

I want to be like we were
back when adrenaline and rebellion
would pulse through our veins
and back when our first and major function
was to be wilder than we were
the night before.

There is no then, only now.
Now that we find ourselves in the fold of something new
or now that we see
something developing right before our eyes,
we look back and wonder about what our life would be like
if only we paid attention.

I say this while looking at the sky
which is changing now from the night time to daylight
and as the stages of color come into light,
I think of the sun on the horizon
bubbling like a yolk in the palm of heaven.
I think to myself
Ah, this must be it –

The Moment . . .
. . . and it’s nice!

Whether I am right or wrong is truly of no consequence.
Besides, life is more than we think and half of the time, in fairness,
nobody knows about who was right or wrong.
In fact, in most cases, all we are is varies of opinion

Then again, we’ll all find out the truth at some point
and then we can lay our crazy little arguments to rest.
Hopefully, at some point, we can all move on to the next chapter of our existence.

This book of prose has been my way of setting the clocks back,
just so I can catch up with myself by returning to the basic aspect
of why I started this journey.
I am looking for something. I am searching for something
which is right here and with me now yet there is something
absent about this. Or should I say there is something absent about me
and, therefore, in my efforts to create a source of introspectiveness,
I have built this little shed of mine, which is a place of safety,
to address the elephants in the room.

Knowing

If we didn’t know or if we didn’t have the capacity to understand or the ability to see, deeply, or at least deeper than the surface levels, and if we were blind in the sense that we couldn’t see the world around us or know about the weight from the different calamities or chaos, or if we truly lacked the gene to know or feel then, at best, we would be unaware or unfeeling; and more, we would be unmoved by ourselves and unattached to our levels of self-importance.

Perhaps I am the same age now as my teachers were when I was a child.
I was young and precocious. And them, they were older and less hopeful, tired,
less than patient and more than anxious to get out of a life
that they never seemed to bargain for.

Perhaps I understand more about the intolerableness of a life or a life unfulfilled,
or unenthusing, uninspired, like a constant reminder that a choice was made out of haste
or that, at one point, a decision to reach a settlement instead of satisfaction took place
and years went by where we outgrew our surroundings
so our wings could never spread –
Perhaps, I have grown to recognize this
or understand this now that youth is now what it used to be.

I

What I am about to share with you is in some ways career suicide because
while I supposedly work in an updated world of diversity, equity and yes,
inclusive ideas that are supposed to help bring people together
instead of marginalize or separate us as different – the truth is,
I have my feet in different worlds.

I wear different uniforms for different tasks.
Depending upon the hour, I wear a blue collar and a white
yet there is other work that I do, like this for example,
which is neither determined by the color of my collar or defined
by education or degrees on the wall.

Section 1 –

There are so many different versions of me
which, at this point,
I suppose it’s hard to keep up with all of me –
at least for me it is.

There’s the old me and the younger me.
There’s the new me and the me who I want to become. But then,
there’s the professional version of me
and the unprofessional version too
but then there’s the dreamer and the hopeful version.

Verse 1:

For the record,
I do not condone or support the way “I was”
Or the way I “used to” be.

I laugh about this now.
I can do that because I’ve matured some,
at least a little.
Or, maybe only slightly
but at last,
I have learned to laugh at myself,
at my past,
at the things I did and what I said.

And . . . So . . .
I suppose this might be personal.
Maybe this is too personal,
Then again, what isn’t personal?

What is anything worth if there is no substance
nor earth nor depth nor sound nor meaning
behind the words we chose?

What is anything worth
if we deem it as otherwise worthless?

Then here we are, trying to pretend or trying hard
to play a role or fit the part.
Here were are with a brave face, facing the world,
and standing in the crowd, “As if”
looking to pull the job of someone
who’s supposed to know what to do.

Now, here’s a thought to remember . . .
I know that perhaps I paraphrase
but in each is their own internal strife or struggle,
which means that somewhere,
someone or something has gone wrong
and in the magnificent journey of life unfolding,
we find ourselves at the doorstep of different conclusions.

This can come from anywhere and from anyone.
Our life comes in different shapes and sizes
and whereas one sees something,
another might see something else,
as in entirely.

Sometimes you have to dig down deep
in order to let go.
Sometimes, I feel.
Sometimes, I want.
Sometimes, I wish and sometimes I weep
and oftentimes, I wonder. 

Sometimes I move in circles
to come back and overlap where I began
to see how far I’ve come or to recognize
where I’ve been.

My head smiles at the sight of the winds.
I can find myself here, happily empty without the need to fill
or be fulfilled and instead, or more obscurely,
to be found in the happiness of pure detachment,
as if to be away from the grind, away from the passive/aggressiveness
of our daily office politics or to be away from the hustle
and the need to be “on” as if to mean to be away
from the constant need to keep your cards close to the vest,
to watch your back all the time, or to hide vulnerability,
and to be away from the back and forth arguments-
This is the ultimate destination.

Let’s just call this what it is,
which is life in our head
or a place in the mind which, at times,
can be unrelenting or unmerciful
at best.
Let’s call this what is it . . .
Why not?

Head south, due west, and go . . .
I find myself on the verge of a ramble
which might only be something to me;
however, if this is for me then so be it –

Let this be me and, therefore, if you’d like
I can share this with you so that together,
I can show you a piece of my child at heart –

It was forever ago, it must be.
The younger days, the angst,
the energy and the deep wells of tomorrow
which flowed so deeply and freely
enough that you’d swear
there’d always be enough time for later –
or tomorrow.

We had more to fight in us back then.
We fought harder and with more reason
and more earth to our souls.

I

I hear this certain narration
or a voice from within,
somewhat speaking for me,
telling my story
but, of course, from the heart.

I have these ideas.
They have been with me for as long as time has kept me alive,
which, by today’s account,
I am alive far longer than I realize.
Perhaps I am more than I realize
or better yet,
perhaps you are more than I realize
or maybe we all are . . .
more than we realize

But what did I know
I was only me,
alive and well . . .
at 19

At some point,
you are going to see things in a different light
because at one point (or another)
you are going to be away
from the people who shaded your view.

You are going to see things, much clearer
and in a much different way
because experience is going to brighten your highway
so-to-speak
and then ah-ha!
the light of understanding
will open up its door to you.

They say the mind is just a record of the past.
But if the past is gone then we have to let this go
or do we?

I find there are times which have failed to be released
and me, I find myself diving into the unnecessary.
I find myself recounting the past or relitigating
something that is otherwise unchangeable

By the way, I think there’s a word for this.
I believe they call it . . .

So, it’s just another day.
Right?
It’s another day in the maze.
Get up. Get dressed.
Wash your face.
Dust off the sleep that you didn’t get.
Go to work. Punch in.
Pull your share and finish your shift.

There’s more to it than this.
There’s a world out there too . . .
There’s a great big industry
There’s money. There are positions.
There’s stock prices and crashing markets.
There’s a war going on too,
which is not the war you think it is.

Suffice to say that happiness comes
when we become comfortable
with our own ideas or with what we see
when we see ourselves.

Suffice to say that comfort comes
when we can see our reflection in the mirror
and be happy . . .