I allow myself to look at the sky, east of course where the sun comes from.
I say this because this is where I am now and this is where I come from, the East coast, of course, as in New York, which is where I have always been.
I do not see myself back where you were, Hollywood or Los Angeles, or the long flights in business class, to which I wondered to myself, “Is this really me?”
I am not too far from you, my truthful and undisclosed sanctuary near the beaches at Point Lookout, or by the rocks at Jones Beach Inlet. I am keeping myself close to the vest or close to the heart, which is something I hold dearly, like a relic or piece of something so pure, like the dreams I have of an outgoing trip on my own boat, beautiful and big enough to take me far beyond where the world lives and deep in the ongoing sea.

And here we go.
I know that there has always been an argument about God, or which God is there right God, or if there is a God, is He or She (or They) listening?
Does God hear our prayers?
Does God answer?
Is God an earthly being, made up by mankind with the need to believe or to have some kind of character or some moral code, to keep us faithful, or to keep us in line?
Perhaps it was just a person who came up with ideas, like, The Ten Commandments, which are pretty simple and they’re pretty good too, if we think about it.
Don’t steal. Don’t kill.
Things like that . . .

Here’s a trick.
Stay out of your own head.

I love this saying yet, I know the difficulties which come when, of course, we need to stay out of our head or we need to stop thinking so much. We need to stop the movies from playing out in our heads.
We need to stop contemplating the worst-case scenarios or overthinking and overcomplicating the path ahead of us. We need to breathe, if anything, and stop the anxiety train from plugging along.

I think about something my Mother used to tell me.
And this was something my Grandmother used to tell my Mother.

There is no place to go, except for here. This is where the trick takes place.
This is where we do the groundwork and create the plan on what to do next.
We have a plan to consider. We have to figure out which way do we go, how do we move, and when we move, we have to move smart.
Sometimes, we have to move quick and sometimes, we have to exercise patience.
Patience. I like that idea.

I remember being told that the first shall be last and the last shall be first.
I remember being told that blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth. The again, I remember a line from a movie which questioned, “I wonder how meek they’ll be when they do, sir.”

I don’t believe that everyone understands. But this doesn’t mean that everyone needs to.
I see things the way I see them and you see things the way you see them.
And that’s fine.
No, really.
It’s fine.
I don’t believe that we need to see the same thing or that we need to know everything. I understand that there was a time when I was young, or new to things and, therefore, I understand that there was a time when I was learning and growing and seeing things for the very first time.

I never knew the answers to the question regarding the when, where or why we seek approval.
I’m not so sure why this is so important to us.
Why do we care about what other people think?
Why do we take so much to heart and, more to the point, why do we personalize the insults from someone who is unnecessary or essentially unimportant?
I think these are great questions.
Why we do we take on the sins of the world, or blame ourselves for the crazy out-of-control fiascos which we see on a daily basis?

The mind is an amazing thing. I can say that this is where we live, love, laugh and learn. I can say that this is where we store our memories and keep our secrets. I can say that the mind is the place where we store the arrows which we sometimes use to shoot down our dreams.
We can create and build here, or we can degrade and destroy.
The choice is ours.

I suppose the real trick is to make something out of nothing. But a trick is a trick. So, of course, there has to be something to this.
Right?
Or like any trick, there has to be something behind it, or something unseen, or some kind of method to the madness.
I know there has to be something to this, or something that can somehow alter or mystify perception and just like a spark or a flame that comes from nowhere, POOF!
It’s magic.
There has to be “a way.”
There has to be something behind the magic to make this happen.

I remember being told, “You have to give it away to keep it.”
I was younger then, much younger.
Maybe I was too young to understand this. Or maybe my head was someplace else, or perhaps I was too selfish to catch the irony.
Then again . . .
I suppose this can be true for a lot of things. However, the idea of giving it away to keep it was mainly tied to this thing we call sanity.