Infrared in your arms.
Erosion. It can be a problem. It can be a solution. Usually it is somewhere in the middle when it comes to the erosion of life. Brilliant blues are lighter and reds are closer to pink. The world of memories isn't the problem. There is something more. There are too many dreams left unfulfilled. The promise of a new day wears heavily on the pockets you used to fill with silver before you went off looking for gold.
Enchanted. Look away.
Moments in your life can make you long for when things were different, even though your view in the rear view mirror tends to omit much of what the past really was. When you are thinking poetically about "the good old days" you always leave the pain and sorrow on the doorstep. In the depths of despair you only reflect on how bad things were and the good times fly out the window.
Are we super-connected?
Turn on a dime. Friends come and go. People come out of the woodwork. There is an oasis in the desert of time and we raise a glass to celebrate. We recount times that have been and boast of our plans for the future. Some people we trust with our pain and sadness. Others we only go to when we have something to brag about. It is the way of things. I am the one people have come to, for the past seven years, when everything breaks down and falls apart. I welcome it, and I feel it is part of the reason why I am here. Yet it is not always easy. Sometimes the bridge breaks down between here and Mesopotamia.
How does your garden grow?
Herbs in the forest may not really be herbs if no one ever sees them. They are simply life amongst life. There cannot always be life. Sometimes the meter runs out. I knew a girl once upon a time. When I was playing the field and meandering through the wasteland of my philandering interests, she turned me away and told me I was so much more than I pretended to be. She kissed me and told me that she loved me. Then she got up to leave. She refused to be just another girl on my calendar of events. Yesterday her sister died. There had been a fatal traffic miscalculation having to do with someone using a turn signal when they never intended to turn. The two sisters saw each other before one departed. I could not be there. I was never meant to be.
A bird in the forest beats two on a rowboat
Sometimes I want to be the princess instead of the knight on the white horse. Sometimes I want to uproot a tree and throw it across the road. Sometimes I just want to sit down by the old reservoir and drink beer like the old days. Sometimes I still want to be that fifteen year old boy bringing his crappy manuscript down to the post office on his bicycle mailing it out to another completely disinterested publisher.
You want to know why I can't sleep at night.
You want to know why I can't sleep unless I've got a belly full of wine.
There are those times when no matter how much you believe in yourself you just want to throw in the towel and buy a train ticket. I've known too many people who quit. There is The Muse, hiding out somewhere and feeling sorry for herself while she continues to tell people she's too much for them to handle. There is that friend in Indiana who is the best fucking guitarist and songwriter you've ever met who comes home from work and smokes himself into oblivion because he just can't do it any longer. There is that guy in the park who chases pigeons who used to be a nuclear physicist. Sometimes you just can't fight any longer. I have to. I already played the trump card and ended up trumping myself.
And the band plays on.
As a postscript I must note:
Yesterday my wife received the rules from her school
where she is paying to take seamstress classes
There was a list of policy violations that would result in disciplinary action.
The last three items on the list were as follows:
(1) Littering
(2) Wearing hats or bandanas
(3) Hate crimes (including but not limited to suspicion of murder)
I kid you not.
The world is truly insane.