Having Gratitude

I miss writing. I don't know what happened.. An odd poem or scribble comes out of me like a random flatulence now. Unfortunately I have gas more often than I try to write. Even just jotting down these words feels like visiting an old stomping ground I use to frequent but forgot the path to. The truth is though I haven't forgotten, I've just grown lazy, uninspired, and complacent in my habits. Storing up your thoughts is no good. There are only so many cookies you can fit in the cookie jar before the lid won't fit on. Then, the cookies all dry up. Perhaps that's what I'm feeling? Dried up. Well, that's a depressing thought.

I use to journal my thoughts and ideas. Somewhere along the way of complacency my journal has become a simple daily log of actions and little more. It's only lately occurred to me that I've taken out all of the creativity of my journaling. What is the point in recording that on thursday, the 3^rd of May I listed 21 books, had pizza for dinner and felt constipated? How did I get here? What happened to derail my inspiration? I know I'm craving it because I read like a freak. I watch tons of movies and take in information like a sponge. The wheels are turning, I'm importing but not exporting much. I don't know if I've simply gotten lazy and unmotivated or the worse possible answer; I've just given up?

I'm hoping even by writing this little blurb of thought I'm digging myself slowly out of the sand. Perhaps I've just been in some stunted slumber? Perhaps there is hope in small epiphanies? For instance, it's 11:26 at night – an hour I'm not accustomed to, of all things trying to write, purge, force out thoughts in some semi-organized way, if for no other reason to simply do it. To remember I still can.

So, with the thought of thanksgiving soon I am forcing myself to dwell instead on the things to be thankful for. Not a usual place I visit in my head, but perhaps one I should. It would be easy to avoid this as life is an endless cycle of oopsies and unpleasant surprises where just getting through the day is often a massive feat. But just for a minute I am going to side-step the cringing reminder of my massive mortgage, ailing car and slow business. We all have things to be grateful for and even in a stunted slumber I can think of some. I am grateful NOT to be the following; blind, deaf, seriously ill, without limbs, incontinent, bald, homeless, jobless, friendless, fanatically religious or republican. I am grateful to my wonderful, frustrating, characteristic cat, Gertrude who fills my days with smiles and laughter and soft snuggles. There is no better place to land your head than a purring, warm kitty belly. I am grateful for my wits. For having them about me still and recognizing small beauties in daily life. I am grateful for feeling and being loved. That is a wonderful feeling and one that is not small in any capacity. I am grateful for the ability to love, even on my most cynical days. I am grateful for having the confidence to think for myself. I am grateful for an amazing mother, whom I miss daily. I am grateful for a few friends that renew my faith in humanity. I am grateful for teeth that are all mine, my back for not giving up on me, and my breasts for not succumbing to gravity. I am grateful to still feel like i have something to say, and manage in some fashion to say it.

It is easy to focus on the things to do, the many things that need fixing or change.

It is very easy to get down, frustrated and unhappy with all that isn't how we would like them to be. But, when life is often that series of unpleasant surprises, it can also have meaningful epiphanies.....still.

Well Versed

My hands are versed in the careful handling of fragile spine caps and brittle pages. The delicate separation of 100 year old, foxed leaves - musty and thin. One can read a books true condition with the hands best. To gently splay the covers before the binding cracks - and sense where it might is a learned act.

To run ones palm over the cloth or leather slowly like a lover's body, memorizing every attribute and flaw by sheer touch alone. To feel the weight of it, admire the craftsmanship and sustainability as unique as any person or snowflake.

Ah, to be let in to this beautiful binding. To dip inside the careful covers of a story. A Story. To touch the type as your eyes follow down the page - Tantalize your taste buds, traverse the landscape, tremor in the travels, but only (please) with well versed hands..

Cowardice

It hides in the folds and waits for the perfect time to show itself. That one time you need it most not to be there. Cowardice is the human flaw. The one we overcompensate with by false bravado and padded accomplishments. 

For most of us we show it simply, in little reactions or non-reactions we later kick ourselves for. For not speaking up, looking away, or pretending something didn't bother us when we secretly swallowed bile. For others cowardice takes on a larger precipice. It comes out at deal-breaking times when simply doing anything could have helped. 

When the scrambling tide comes to threaten all, and instead of grabbing for a hand, a raft or shouting 'help' one simply closes their eyes and convinces themselves this is not happening. When perhaps by reaching for that hand you could have saved one other person, or by moving you could have saved yourself – Cowardice will swell the insides and convince one that doing nothing is better than anything at all.

Should you survive your Giant crest of Cowardice, count yourself lucky and chose instead to grow a pair for future waves.

Challenger

Challenger of a turbulent tide

Please hand me the key

To your world inside

We'll sidestep the monsters

Welcome truth to peruse

Kick dark fate down the staircase

What's left you'll use -

Challenger of a turbulent tide

Know you are stronger than that

Dark fiction of unscrupulous ways

Your base mind is an iron flat -

Challenger of a turbulent tide

Filling your pockets

A most watery ride

Brilliantly broken

The last page you pen alone...

Framing dusty, dark floorboards

A Room of Your Own.

Ghosting

I went out on the patio and sat down on the front step. My glass swirled the thick red liquid around like a lost, dark promise forgotten. Soft footsteps made me look up to see small eyes glinting my way. A little girl about 10 with a bowl haircut and a ripped knee in her dirty jeans. She was holding a ball and stopped to say hi.

“Hi yourself. You out playing some basketball?” I shaded my eyes as the sun was just starting to descend.

“Yeah. Do you play too?” Her front tooth made a window in her mouth as her words curled around a smile.

“I use to actually. Not so much anymore.” I tilted my glass for a sip and met her smile.

“What position do you play?”

“Guard. I'm real good. I even got a three pointer once only the game was over.” She bounced the ball with her tiny hand and I wondered how in the world she could control the ball at all.

“Wow. Three pointers are difficult. You keep playing I bet you'll get one while the game is still on.” she shot a smile my way and shook her head.

With only a child's trust, she crossed the grass toward the patio with the ball on her hip.

“How did you skin your knee?” I pointed to her jean hole and she shrugged.

“I dunno. I climb trees and play ball all the time. I'm faster than most the boys in my grade. I probably did it playing.”

“I use to do all that stuff to. Well, you just keep doing it and having fun.”

“Why don't you play ball anymore?” her brown eyes asked the glass in my hand as I consciously set it aside to think.

“I don't know actually. It's different when you get older.”

“Howcome?”

I laughed uncomfortably and said I really didn't have a good answer for her other than priorities change when you get older and she would understand that one day.

Then, with all the maturity a 10 year old can have with a gap toothed smile and ripped knee, she made a kind of exasperated sigh and looked me dead in the eye.

“Sounds awful. You shouldn't ever stop having fun.”

Before I could respond, she shot me a quick pass with her ball and I almost knocked over my glass to grab it last minute, but I got it. I smiled in response through the one upping that had just occurred.

Then a thin voice carried in the air down the street and the little girl turned quickly in that direction and stated, “That's Mom. Gotta go.” Her skinny legs carried her down the street and around the corner before I could say a thing.

I stood up to remind the girl about her ball, and my ears heard a second faint call in the air -

“Amy! Dinner...”

I looked down at my hands with a strange smile and saw only a glass.

Serial Dating

Oh - the Therapeutic Message from a good book! To feel oneself drawn in and cradled from a simple s t o r y. We are given a voyeur's peek into a world unlike our own - or perhaps too similar to. We meet characters with details we can see, and voices we can hear, lives we can imagine inserting ourselves in. A good book is a break, a vacation, a pleasure. A seasoned writer will weave a truly unique web of words across each page to draw us in all the more. Lines we say over - out loud, paragraphs we must share with another soul simply because we were touched. We can skitter around the gamut of emotions until we reach that last chapter/paragraph/line. T h e n, a creeping strangeness infiltrates our psyche that states boldly; 'No, not yet-not the E N D'

But it has to come. The End is a necessity. The End is the author's way of tying up loose ends in a way so that you will remember them. 

If you read a lot,  you too are a serial dater. Someone who invests somewhat safely in the lives of others for a set amount of time. You will come to care for those lives, feel things and then ever so unsimply be told 'it's over'. You will move on - to another story, other lives and emotions will weave you into the fray until you taste the bitterness of those two inevitable break up words; 

The End.

Appearances

Appearances can be deceiving - we've all heard that. Often it can work in your favor . Let's just say you're a bit like me and your best attire is a pair of Docker pants without holes and a t shirt that doesn't say 'gone fishin' with a clumsy stain in the middle. So you put on those best duds, run a brush through your unruly, dyed-too-dark mane and saunter into a nice store.

You know the kind - the ones your mother drug you into when you were a kid and hated. She always said 'Stand up straight' and 'Don't touch!' As a kid you loathed them because 1) they never had kid stuff. 2) your Mom never bought anything interesting. 3) the sales person was always stuck up. Yeah, those stores. Now you look down and see bumps (when did those get there?) and realize you are an A-DOLT and can slouch and touch all the boring stuff you want to. Yay.

But because appearances can be deceiving, your wallflower meets Barney Fife look might just come in handy! when you walk into a posh furniture store say, and look like the priciest thing you've ever bought is a 2 for 1 X-Men T.v. Tray, you might suddenly find yourself hassle-free and walking through the suede and leather barcalounger sets like a ghost.  You might find yourself wafting by $3,000 price tags like an invisible wind if you know how to look poor enough.

The same can be said in Car lots, although those poor bastards could badger an empty bag blowing through their overpriced lot. So, this one might be trickier. I would probably suggest going into full combat gear and blackening out a few teeth, forgetting your shirt (extra points for a woman) or say talking to yourself and waving your arms around violently. This should do the trick. If this by chance doesn't work, i would succumb to giving them the sale and thinking highly of them for sheer courage alone.

I realize even pesky sales people are people too. I've been there and was never good at it. But i don't think I'm alone when i say "Down boy!"

I think it's fair to say no one likes being pestered, pushed or followed into a dressing room. (If you do there is therapy for that). 'Overly attended to' is probably the most appropriate thing to say, but appropriate is overrated and so are appearances.

The truth is, i can afford to dress nicer and drive a better car. I just chose not to. I could afford to look like i want to be bothered, but I don't. You can breathe new life in the girl, but her lifestyle will remain.

For now, i enjoy being invisible and hassle-free. And the sick part of me will enjoy even more when i go to make that boring, expensive purchase for something i think i finally need, in my plain wall paper style, and look up to see the confused expression of the sales person as i purchase my overpriced item outright, no financing needed thank you.