I was there at sunrise, the beach, the warmth of the sand and there she was, the hot sun, rising above the ocean. It was not long before that darkness took the sky and somewhere deeper in the sands by the shoreline, I could hear the howls and calls from a small homeless camp with men drinking and shouting up to the stars. They were drunk beneath the nighttime sky and in the warmth of a South Florida beach.
I was here not too long ago; yet, this seems like it was another lifetime. I took walks along this beach during the sunrise. I let the colors from the horizon take me away. As the sound from the surf crumbled in waves, I walked along the beach with a mindful of thoughts and a heart filled with wonder.

This thought is written to provide a guided meditation. The script is to be read and then mastered by yourself. But first, you have to see it . . .
It’s daybreak and the sun is a bright orange yolk about to break the horizon. It’s a new day now. Everything that has come before is gone and washed away.
Are you ready? 

I go back to what my friend told me. . .
He was talking about successful people. He was telling me about people who strive in the gym or people who train in Jiu-Jitsu. He said something that was obvious and simple yet, so poignant and true. He told me a black belt is actually a white belt that never gave up. This is a person who rolled through the same moves, over and over again, until the body knew what to do without the mind’s input. 

So, keep pushing is what he told me. 

I miss music. Wait, no. I think I need to be more specific on this one. I miss live music. I miss shows. I miss going to a place from my younger years known as Mulcahey’s. I miss the bands that would play and the people I’d see. I even miss the promises I’d make to myself, to leave early so that I could wake up the next day and get to work on time. I’d make it to work on time, or just barely. But I never left early.

I don’t know. When was the last time I walked through Central Park? Or, when was the last time I walked through The Museum of Natural History? Or better yet, when was the last time I went to The Hayden Planetarium? It seems like it’s been forever. I think I have a plan. This involves an escape and a childish need to skip class and beat the responsibilities of everyday life.
Then again, I was never much for school and then again, I was never much for planning trips on the days when I would skip. Perhaps my intentions and motivations were different. Or, maybe it’s safer to say that my bank account is different now and so are my means of transportation.
I think now would be different though. In fact, I think if I were to plan a day to skip town or play hooky and “Cut class,” so to speak, I can think of a few ideas that come to mind.

Sure, I was bullied. The worst of it was more than the bullying itself. The worst part of bullying are the remnants of what was said or done. The aftermath was the killer for me. I had to live with the shame, the guilt and the regret that I was unable to protect myself. The worst are the conversations we have in our head after the event takes place. This is what makes matters worse because next, we relive the insults and keep them fresh like a picked scab that never heals.
And dig it, I know that no one wants to talk about this. I see this all the time. Nobody wants to hear about this, which is why bullying goes on. But “Ah, they’re just kids being kids,” right?
Wrong. This is only their training grounds because I have met more bullies in Corporate America than on the playground or in the locker room at school.

I remember a scene in a movie. The movie is from when I was a kid and the story itself is not important enough to mention. Plus, a little piece of me is shaking my head because of a silly movie, which I remember all too well.
In any case, people had to pass through the gates to meet the Southern Oracle. My memory of this is a little hazy but one of the gates was a mirror that reflected your true self. Most people faced this gate and ran away screaming from what they saw. Maybe this part of the movie was more real than I thought.
Mirrors do have a way of reflecting things that we’d rather not see.

I see myself in this dream. As a matter of fact, there are many dreams like this, which come in similar variations. It is cold but I am not affected. I can tell the dream takes place in wintertime. The sky is gray and the trees are empty of their leaves. I am in my hometown again. I am walking around the pond at Eisenhower Park. I am dressed in a gray sweat suit with white sneakers, which is odd to me because I have never worn nor owned a sweat suit that looks like this. The ducks and the geese are gone. The water is dark and the cement around the pond is somehow dim; as if the entire view of everything around me is slightly gray-washed or nearly black and white.