Dear Mom,

There are so many things that I haven’t seen. There are so many places I haven’t been to and things I haven’t done. But I’m here. I’m waiting. I’m ready, Mom.
I swear.
I’m looking to experience, smell, touch, taste and see new things. I swear that I’m ready this time. I think age can be a problem — not to be too young or too old, but either can be the culprit of why we cease or desist. I think this is a mindset. You know?

I think this has to do with the way we see things. I think this has to do with our fears, our concerns, our wants and needs. I think what holds us back the most are obstacles in the mind. It’s our thoughts. It’s our ideas and our worries that the worst will come true. 

It rains today. The sky is gray and the morning is quiet. The streets are wet and the blacktop on the street in front of my home is sort of glistening beneath the morning light. The white lines on the side of the road and the double-yellow lines down the center are a stretch down the country road where I live. Spring has sprung so the trees are exceptionally green where I live now, which is up in the mountains but not too far from the streets of New York City. I’m just over a bridge now and farther north. There is something peaceful about this morning. The grayness and the rain is fitting and comforting and yet, this is sad as well. Perhaps this is an acknowledgement of what this day means. Maybe Mother Earth knows. Maybe this is why she rains sometimes because she weeps too.

I recall the sunrise on the beach in Fort Lauderdale. I remember the warmth and the breeze that moved through and palms in the palm trees. I made sure to be up early to watch the sunrise. Ever see this before? Ever watch the sun come up in the sky with the ocean below? The horizon starts with a band of orange, which grows and eventually overtakes the sky.
There was a somewhat old man with tanned skin. He was a little more than middle aged, wealthy, spoiled in some ways but mainly drunk and someone that always seemed to find me in the mornings. I didn’t know the man per se. I only knew him because he was staying in the same motel as me. He would drink all night and sleep most of the day.

I have a strong belief in the visualization process. I can put this as simply as this; if you want it then you have to see it. I believe in the value of our visions but more, I believe in the hunger this creates. I believe in the need to see things to whet the tongue and have the taste for more. I have to see my dreams. I have to detail them. I have to know what they look like so I can build them. Otherwise, what am I looking for?

Another thing I believe in is the need for support. I believe in the cheering section and how this needs to begin with one. namely me, or you, or us. I believe that in order to find motivation, we have to create movement. Otherwise, there is only stillness in which case, where do we go except for nowhere?

I go back to a place in my mind where I keep memories like colored photographs of times when we were all together. God, I miss so many people.
It has been years since we’ve all sat at the table as a family. I miss those times but years have gone by. No wait, it’s been more like decades. Apparently, life happened along the way. A few of the chairs became vacant. Some people moved away. Some tried their luck on the other side of the country. Some passed and left an empty void, which could never be filled.

I like to think about the times when we were all together. I like to think about the family get-togethers that no longer happen. I swear, these were good times. In fact, they were the best times and some of the only memories I have of my family.
I have pictures of these get-togethers somewhere. I keep them all in a crate with boxes of little doodads from my early childhood. There are pictures of me when I was a very young boy. I used to be pretty cute too. However, I keep some of those pictures hidden of course because some of them are certainly blackmail material.

This one comes with a warm sentiment and the kind that comes from the purest station of the heart. I will offer this before moving on, in the toughest times, there is something called comfort food. And there is a lesson here to be learned, which I’ve learned this gratefully. And here’s how.

It is morning in purgatory. . .
It’s strange to realize where we are sometimes. The way things are and the way things have been have certainly changed throughout the years. Life is different now. Then again, this is not to say life won’t be different in say, two years or maybe less. All I know is the world I believed in is less than what I had hoped it would be. We’ve gone crazy down here. All of us.

I think about these late-in-life success stories. I think about people that have been grinding and grinding their entire lives, knocking on doors, and having them slammed shut in their face. I think about the people that lived this way for decades before they found success. I think about writers that put out manuscript after manuscript only to realize that nobody cares. Every idea you have has already been had by someone else. And somewhere is a room with boxes on shelves that contain every thought or idea, from music to scripts, to paintings and sculptures. There are patents in there which will never see sunlight. There is genius in these rooms but they will never be unearthed or read. I think about the artists and the creators. And all they can do is move on. Write another one, build something else, keep pluggin or not, but either way; life is life and this is the way it is. If life was easy, everybody would be a pro, right?

1)

There is this great big world out there. There are places that I have seen in my dreams and places that I keep in my memory. I have these mental pictures which I keep like tiny artifacts that make up my history. I have dreams sometimes. I have old connections that reappear like a visit from the spirits of my past. And I call this love. I call this something. Maybe I call this a visit. Or maybe this is my mind connecting to an old need. Maybe this is me connecting to an old recollection that links me back to a sentiment, which I miss wholeheartedly.
Let me ask you, what do you remember from your childhood?