More . . .
I like that word. Maybe I like this word because I want more too. I want to see more. I want to do more. I want to feel more and I want to learn more. I would certainly appreciate more meat on my sandwich and, of course, more ways to enjoy life on life’s terms.
I want to understand more about my life and your life. I certainly want to understand more about the world around me and, if at all possible, I want to learn how to get along more and fight less. I want to define more ways that we can overcome instead of overwhelm.
Since this journal an intention to be centered around the ideas of food or the connections with food, family and friends; and since the intention of this journal (whether I’ve achieved this or not) is to bring out some of the warmth I’ve encountered in my life and how food is more like a connective tissue or more than a certain frame or happenstance; – my intention is to show that there are times in our life when all was not so harsh.
There are times when life is simplified into a special moment where all the dregs and chaos and all the pointless arguments and fruitless moments or wasted ventures are sat down quietly for a meal. In that moment, there is a time when the head bows, not so in prayer or clasped like the religious hands in a holy attitude; but instead, this is a manner of a humble or grateful attitude. Whereas, at least for the moment – let us eat.
Let’s do lunch. Or let’s jot the pause button and have a meal without regurgitating the wasted debates and arguments on who did what or who said what to who.
Let us drink. Let us have a little more on our plate to feed the soul and say things like, Could you please pass the potatoes.
Would that be so bad?
I say this because I want more of this. I say this because currently, we find ourselves in a post-election time, November 11, 2022 in our great state and country. I say this because we again find ourselves where the right side and the left side are pointing fingers at one another. Politics has once more created another degree of separation. There’s more to argue about. There are more disputes. There are more reasons why we will not, cannot and shall not get along.
Come to think of it, I suppose there are times when the word ‘more” is less beneficial than say the promotion of certain comraderies that might bring us together. Man, I wish we could have more of this.
I wish we could have more time to connect. I wish we had more common ground and more reasons to relate than to argue or resent one another.
Maybe this is a moment of realization for me. Or maybe this is like the times when certain people in my life passed away – and when they left – or when they died, no one seemed to gather anymore. The family gatherings were less-family like, which only served to make me wonder –
Why did we used to get together? Why don’t we get together now?
Has too much happened? Did this expose something?
Have we gone too far in separate directions even if we wanted to get back to where we used to be?
Is it no more fun because people are gone, like my Aunt Sondra, to which I only offer a name to help you place faces of your own in this equation.
Come to think of it, Mom once told me that people are only lent to us in our life and this is time sensitive. This means time is finite. This means we have bounds and limits. We have unforeseen limitations and unexpected changes and like the sands of time, there is only so much time to achieve certain connections.
I offer this because of us and our obstacles and how the broken sediments of our heart can often build a wall between us and our better selves.
I have mourned losses in my life- most of all, I have mourned the losses of people who have died in a sense yet they still live.
I am thinking of a comedian and I can’t say that I remember the comedian well enough to produce a name – but what I remember is he took the stage and said something to the effect of, “I lost my job the other day.”
Then he said, “Well, I didn’t really lose it. I mean, I know where it is but it’s just that every time I go there, someone else is doing it.”
I get that . . .
I get that in more ways than one.
I’ve lost people in my life.
I mean, I know where they are . . .
I get the fact that our life is like a shell and like a shell, we shed our previous skin and grow into another plane of existence.
Our evolution through life is an interesting one and sometimes my unsteadiness amazes me as I am shaken (not stirred) into a moment of awareness. I suppose this comes after the aftermath of loss or like any moment of awareness, this comes to me as a post-lesson.
There are coming and going people who we are destined to encounter. This is life. This is what happens. There are people who will only entertain our time for a limited moment – and some things will be good. Of course, we’ll want more of that. Some things will be bad which, of course, we’ll want less of.
Either way, life is not always defined with a dependable menu – as in, I think I’ll have a little of this or a little of that.
I know that I am closing this journal now, as in today; as in here with you because . . .
well, who else would understand me?
I wish I could show you more or share more, as in the times where I found myself on the verge of craziness. Then in some way, somehow, something came to step in to save me from myself.
Maybe this is why I love the idea of a bowl of soup.
Maybe this is why I enjoy the ideas of taking a long drive to nowhere with no specific destination in mind. The only place I want to go is where I end up. Wherever that is, I want to find someplace to sit down at a diner or some little place.
I want to taste the broth. I want to sip the hotness from my spoon and allow a flavor to cover my tongue and have the flavors and seasoning to act as some kind of replacement.
And dig it, I get that not every place is a good place and I get that not every time is a good time.
I know all about this. I know about the benefits of having more as well as the degradation of having too much.
But I don’t want too much. I just want more.
I want more moments like the memories of Mom while I was a small boy – and she knew there was something off or wrong. While I lacked the terms to explain myself, Mom lacked the understanding of how to “fix” the situation; Mom would make one of my favorite meals.
I want more of this.
I want to create more cushions for the world; in which case, I get it. I know that the world does not come bubble-wrapped for our protection. I know that the saying is true: into each life, a little rain must fall.
I understand that no one gets out unscathed and in the scheme of life, no one even gets out alive – which is crazy, and which means that above all things; we have to live more.
We have to try more and sometimes we have to bleed more. Or in some cases, we have to bump our heads a few more times, at least until we learn to duck more.
It’s true, sometimes we have to hurt more or make wrong turns more. Sometimes we have to experience more turmoil to understand what it means to want more peace. Or better yet, sometimes we have to endure more in order to understand what it means to be pain free or at peace.
I want to allow us a cushion. I want to find a way to make peace or at least allow us a moment of truce so that for the moment, we can find a way to benefit one another and soothe the common pains maybe with a good meal and the intentional sentiment that brings people together.
I know that I have told you about my memories of family gatherings. I get that mine are different from yours or perhaps anyone else’s, which is fine. However, there is a sound of people sitting together, eating together and passing plates around the table. There is a feeling which coincides with seeing people we love and for the while, there is a connection to our emotional content which becomes connected with the chemistry of joy.
I don’t know much. I know that as old as I am, I am still a child. I am still a person who has yet to dance in a ballroom or maybe I’ve yet to see the starlight in places I’ve only dreamed of – and like I said, I may not know too much. I might not be at the top of the literary world. I might not have graduated at the top of my class to which, in fairness, I admit that I have never experienced a graduation at all.
To be clear, the only graduation that I’ve attended was my sixth grade class. I never had a junior high or middle school graduation nor have I ever walked in a cap and gown for a high school graduation.
As for college, sure I went to a college of some sorts. I call this life. I call this a misallocation of education and a misconception of intelligence. I can say that I have met some of the most brilliant people in this world yet they were never celebrated in ivory hallways or linked to a famous alma mater.
Some of them came from places with barred doors and guards. Some of them stuttered (like me as a kid when I read in front of a classroom) and some of them, as beautiful as they are, they never saw how amazing they were.
But I did. I saw them perfectly.
I write this to stay humble. I write this to show my version of truth and to show that I am only a person. I am me. I am someone who wants more time. I want more exchanges between us. I want more reasons to pass the potatoes. I want more reasons to smile and to find more ways to create smiles.
I want to understand more about us and our imperfections and how this makes us perfect, exactly as we are. That our little flaws are actually not flaws at all but more like a beauty mark. We are perfect examples that life does not come without flaw – and more, as flawed or as imperfect as we may seem (or believe) I want to offer you this as a means to avoid the snobberies of the unkind folks. I want to offer more ways to navigate through life so that we are heading “towards” something instead of always trying to get “away.”
In an attempt to estimate or in an approximation of days, I have spent the last 5,946 days writing on a daily basis to evolve and become “my voice.”
I am self-taught, much like we all are (if we think about this) so please understand that this effort of mine is not intended for every audience.
And no, this does not hit home for everyone. And no, not everyone digs my style which is fine because this is not written for them –
Somewhere out there in this crazy universe is you. I know this. I know there are others like us who “get it” or who live with these infinite questions about life or the way things happen. I know there are people who wonder about the limits of time which seem to be running out. Of course, there are those who are afraid to dare because of their absence of infinity, which is like gravity to the bubbles of our dreams.
But they want more
Just like we do.
In this journal, I know there is a shell around us which is my intention to help us shed our exterior skin so we can grow, enjoy a moment and find at least a semblance of peace –
Together~
The Written Addiction 