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.