I know. Or at least I believe that I know.
I know you have to find a way to somehow detach or unwind. And I get it.
I know what it means to need to get away or to want to break free.
And so, if I know this, then I also know what it means to be stuck in a maze or to get caught in some kind of a game with high stakes. You know?
Your life is on the line.
Your survival is on the line too and all you can do is either fold or bet into a losing hand
Thursday afternoon or closer to the evening.
I am not sure what the time was.
I stood with my coffee like the others who await a train to take them home after their daily grind to make their daily bread. I live and I die and in-between, I work for a so-called living so that I can pay my taxes and I can pay my way and I pay my share.
I was thinking about the lopsided and the unfairness which seems apparent at times.
And then I stood there . . .
I waited for my track to be announced so I could go home, shower, eat, exercise, sleep and then repeat the same thing the next day.
I stood contemplating the days ahead of me> I considered things, like the life I have. I thought about the places I’ve been to, the life I’ve lived, and of course, I thought about the money I’ve spent.
I have never seen much more than what I have seen. But then again, no one knows and no one sees everything, and least of all, no one ever sees life unlived and never viewed.
I suppose that I am allowed to be fair to my truths. And the truth is . . .
I want to see more.
I have never been tough. Never
At least, not really.
Then again, I do not define toughness or being tough the same as I used to.
No, this word has taken on a new meaning for me.
And you go and you try and you fight and you grind.
And you wake up. You eat. You work and you come home.
And we hope and we wish and we dream and we pray.
This is life.
God, grant me the serenity . . .
This is the life for all of us and yes, I agree that we are all growing and moving in different directions. We all have different backgrounds and histories and cultures that make us unlike anyone else.
We are all perfetly unique, which us a great thing to be.
But in the case of life; everyone has a path and a plan and a light and a way.
Everyone will experience heartaches and heartbreaks and death too.
Yes, because death is part of life.
Do you want to know what’s hard?
I have not seen my Father since the hour of his death in the month of December back in the year of 1989.
And yes, I understand that dying is part of living. I know this all too well.
But I was just a kid at the time.
I had yet to live or live enough to understand the terms of life or manhood or what it really means to be a man.
And who would show me now?
I had to pick this up as I went along. I was only a boy at the time. I had more scars than most adults and the above average of my scars were deep but equally invisible.
I was young and 17 with too many things to confuse me.
Labor Day Weekend –
The waves were quiet yesterday. The wind was nice and the sun was strong. Somehow, it seemed as though the beach at Point Lookout knew that the summer was officially over. Not that the beach has any sentiment or emotional attachment to the seasons. And it’s not like the beach cares whether we come or go.
No, I believe this is something for people who are of the flesh to be concerned with. Yet, I somehow feel a certain attachment to this place, the waves, the sands, the sunshine and the way sunlight glistens along the surface of the ocean.
I love this
I go back to that thought which my Mother tried to encourage that life is life and there is only one chance to make this life what we want it to be.
Mom used to try and push me with an attempt to make me think differently but of course, I was younger then.
I know.
I was older in different ways too, of course, and now that I am younger in many ways, more than ever, I realize that perhaps I was too young to see things the way I do now.
Hence, this is why they say maturity comes with time
And the same goes with awareness too.
I go back to a song from my youth and to a dance with my Mother, years ago, and to a song from Paul Anka simply known as “times of your life.”
And no one thinks.
No one flinches until they wake up one day and find how their impossibilities became possible.
Of course.
No one believes this happens to someone like them. “Not me!” and yet, we find that our impossibilities and became all too real.
I admit it –
The city has changed over the years.
The landscapes are not the same and the people are different as well. And still, I have the same old memories and the remnants of proof, such as the leaning junkies falling slightly and dangling near the clinic by 35th street.
So much has changed.
But not the game.
I am north from where I would rather be and south of the sun, south of the clouds, and I am south of the moon, which was hidden last night, due to the clouds.
Something is coming my way.
I don’t know what this means or what it is, but I can feel this in my bones and down to my care.
Something is coming and so, I have to prepare myself.
Prepare.
Yes, prepare.
And when I say prepare, I do not mean this as if some kind of impending doom is on the way and nor do I say this in the fits of some kind of paranoid fear.
No.
