Safe Haven - Part 10 - Blame it on the Rain

 The bus ride would never be long enough. When it was over, uncertainty abounded like never before. Jus had lived like he was pulling the handle on a slot machine, waiting to see what the next moment would bring, but this. This was someone else who was totally in control. His over-the-top form of diplomacy scanned for ways to blend in without making waves. He would find out quickly that that was not even possible.

When the doors opened, it was cold outside. He shuffled out into the slushy snow on the ground. Screaming voices barked orders from all directions, and he and his travelling companions were taken to quickly eat and given a bunk to sleep on. Voices and footsteps echoed through the cement-block hallways. 

Jus dreamt about this back in December. But in the dream, he was hiding in a closet, and the same noises he heard now were around as he hid. Maybe it wasn't him in the closet. Perhaps it was someone else. Whoever it was, they were troubled, deeply. They were very alone. One thing was certain: Jus was alone now, too. He also knew now that the answer to the question when he woke up in his bed this morning was clear: this is where he would be tonight.

Fluorescent lights turning on at 4 am is one of the most significant levels of cruelty you will ever experience. The boy jumped out of the bunk as forceful voices screamed at them, as if the building were on fire. He and a large group of people he didn't know were hurried to the showers, then to breakfast, and finally to a desk, where he was surrounded by many others. He learned very quickly that he had been lied to. Belongings that he thought he could bring on this journey with him to make it easy, even his final addiction, were contraband and had to be surrendered.

As the hours passed, the things that made him who he was—an individual—were taken away one after the other. Incredible threats were outlined that any attempt to turn back now would simply lead to an even worse life in prison. There would be no, "this is not for me." Forward was the only way. Last year's breakdown and rebuild, the assassin and his surety, believing that all change was possible, were entirely knocked off balance. None of it could be used. This was an unforeseen rebirth of which he had no control. When his old man had heard that he had done such a thing, he told Jus, "Well...That will be an experience." It was another way of asking him if he had lost his mind.

The riot act kept coming with every room visited, every stripping down of facade and attitude. Jus was with people he would spend the next few months with and, fragmentally, a lifetime with. Because so much had been taken from them, they only had to look forward to eating meals, which was a 3- to 5-minute experience, and so it happened with incredible savagery. Sleep would also be nice, but there wasn't much of that, and their captors found interesting ways to disrupt it.

Since Jus was an adventurer at heart and had moved around a lot as a child, he had never really understood homesickness, and for the first time in his life, he felt it. It was much worse than he had imagined. It made him look at others with new respect. As the days passed, he tried with all he had just to follow the flow. The job of his captors, however, was to teach him how to deal with life when the flow is broken and chaos is everywhere. He was used to chaos, but even so, he was always creating it, which gave him a license to apply the brakes.  Here, he controlled nothing, there were no brakes, and if you were caught trying the path of least resistance, they would suddenly inflict a challenge on you.

Two weeks into his nightmare, where music was not permitted, Jus thought he could stay off the front lines of attention. Of course, when detected, he was put in charge, and now the actions, words, and thoughts of those in his charge were all on him. He was accountable.

Overall, this worked for Jus. He had always been adaptable. It became apparent that his actions would not turn him into something else. It would only magnify and define the person he already was. Each week was a month long. He was kept tired enough at all times so that his brain, which could normally run several tracks of unrelated thought at the same time, could only run one. It was the one his captors wanted him to focus on.

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and it did precisely that for the Jus and Maarja. After just three months home, he was away again. This pattern would repeat for some time, but he had no idea. He was homesick and lived to get back, but that was so far away. It felt like years. 

When you watch military commercials, you see people mastering technology, machinery, and intelligence. They appear confident and gritty—life-changing. The truth is, it is indentured servitude. The grit and confidence are learned at the wrong end of a mop and a floor polisher. Jus and his comrades were ordered to clean every tile surface and sandy rifle range everywhere they went.

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They were never permitted time to unwind, except for some Sunday mornings, which, by law, they have to allow for worship. Most of the time, it is used to catch up on stuff they never let you get done during the week. 

Weapons qualification was intense and daily. Jus and his friends were loaded into troop transport trailers, which looked suspiciously like cattle cars, and hauled out to the ranges at 4 AM. They were sleepy, leaning against walls and each other, trying to steal another minute or two of sleep while being jostled around. Their captors never allowed them to take liberties such as naps. So as Jus and his friends were rocked back and forth as the cattle car rambled along the range road in the dark, the truck pulling it stopped. The doors flung open. "I can't hear anything!" the drill sergeant screamed. "We want to hear some cadence!" While riding in a cattle car? It seemed so ridiculous! Cadence was sung when marching or running to keep soldiers in step.  Jus thought, one stupid idea begets another.

When the cattle car started moving again, Jus cleared his throat and loudly began to sing: "Here's the story of a lovely lady!" Everyone in the trailer joined in and also sang loudly. "Who was bringing up three very lovely girls! All of them had hair of gold, like their mother, the youngest one in curls! Here's the story of a man named Brady, who was bringing up three boys of his own. They were four men, living all together, yet they were all alone..." Suddenly, the cattle car swerved to the side of the road and skidded to a stop. Clearly, someone was not happy.

The doors flung open: "Everyone OUT!!! Formation now!" They all took their places in the cold, dark January morning at attention while the drill sergeant screamed at them. "You all think you are funny, don't you? FRONT LEAN AND REST! MOVE!" Front lean and rest is the plank position one takes to begin doing push-ups; palms of hands flat in the dirt, toes in the dirt. "AND ONE, TWO, THREE AND ONE, TWO, THREE, TWO, ONE, TWO, THREE, THREE! This brutal 4-count method could make 20 pushups into 40.

When Jus and his friend's arms were shaking to the point they could not lift their own weight even one more time, they were ordered back into the cattle car and continued onto the rifle range. As odd as this all was, there was something satisfying about never having to decide. Everything was ordered. Even when Jus did something perfectly, it was torn apart. He could do nothing right. No positive affirmation made him callous and hardened, and it worked.

Despite thinking he would lose his leadership title after 2 weeks, he remained squad leader until the end of Basic Training. Time and again, Jus was punished for the mistakes of those in his charge. It was hard enough to walk the line, and he could never do anything right. Times that by 14, and it was a gauntlet of three tireless drill sergeants pounding on him all the time.

It all peaked when he was being unceasingly punished for his squad's failure to achieve something that to Jus seemed inconsequential. He thought this would be like the past times in which there would be pressure, then it would stop. This time, it did not stop; it intensified with no end in sight. For the first time, Jus felt a nervous breakdown rising from deep inside him. There was no way to stop it. He was terrified because he was speeding towards an immovable wall. He felt certain of only one thing: he was going to die.

At a moment unexpected, just as everything Jus was made of was about to explode into fragments that could never be reassembled, he was allowed to go to the restroom. He rushed into a stall and completely fell apart. Total destruction was here. At any moment, he would be either dead or catatonic. As the last seconds of light in his life began to disappear, the immovable wall shook and fell in a great, awe-inspiring crash. The air was cleaner, the sun was out, and it was as though he could see for miles across lush green fields! There were no boundaries, and the warmth of peace filled him completely. The anxiety bubble had burst, and THIS is what was hidden behind it! He suddenly felt mighty and impervious to anything from outside of him. He felt wonderfully made. He had reached the confidence level of the very friend who caused him to even think about doing this stupid thing in the first place.

He quietly turned and left the restroom. He returned to his punishers and did exactly what they said to do, and it was absolutely nothing. He was suddenly a machine that could easily do this for the rest of his life. Jus realized, THIS is what they mean when they talk about breaking a person. It was remarkable. It redefined his whole life. Yes, he would have anxiety in the future, but he would always have this moment to reflect back on and know that he was millions of times bigger than the anxiety.

A Tactical Walk

Is it just another day, or is it the day? Will it be the predictable flow, or will it be a death-defying feat to get home? Stay cool, stay low. Shadows lurk, looking for ways to breach. Something keeps tapping on the glass, looking for weakness and access.

Thinking big, walking tall, and feeling strong is only a dream that is shaken and then falls when you realize it is later than you think. Jumping out of bed, I am taking inventory, knowing that in my commitments, I am already speeding on the highway, looking for a gateway to arrive a half hour ago at my destination.

Photo by Ruben Mishchuk on Unsplash

The arrow is released. It must reach the target. It means everything to me. As I feel the bow string graze the tips of my fingers, every lazy moment I could have done more comes to mind. I could have pressed on tirelessly like one with no limits. It is easy to say in retrospect. I curse the distraction that kept me from doing so.

As the arrow strikes down range, I realize exactly where I fell short. I hate this type of clarity. The drop is still remedial, but there is work to be done. It is similar to landing a plane a mile off the runway, then disassembling it, carrying the pieces through the forest, and reassembling on the runway so that you can take off. It represents how I have done things much of my life. I am getting too old to think there is time to do things like this regularly. But, then again, it is not even me. Once the arrow is released, it is no longer my carnival.

I figuratively slap myself for the "hands clean" idea I just mentioned because teaching and learning never stop. The most impactful teacher deals the cards, and we have to play the hand of the game we begged at the door to get into. 

On my side of the canyon, I look for little glimpses across the impossible terrain. I know there is nothing I can do, and I try anyway. I just love and nothing else. It is all I can do now. There comes a time when we can do more, but now, I can only be the sound of safety. It's not much, but it builds something that can be carried forever.

There are many of these sticky spots in the trail. I am busy trying to manage more than I should, resulting in static, white noise, and distracting noises coming out of the woods. Flashes of proper perspective keep crashing in, enough to discern that I must get my head straight.

Almost a decade has passed since I spied through the telescope at the far reaches of space, and discovered the fragmentation of my composition streaming toward the light, requiring me to deal with it whether I wanted to or not. The big surprise is that the answers are indigenous to me on the deepest level. In the most unconventional ways, all the fragments actually fit together.

I know there is no easy way to be better at this. Everything is work, and that is certainly ongoing. I know I treat my life like a class in preparedness for my children, and then sometimes, I get better and sit back and watch them blossom like only they can. 

The Bravery in Out of Range - Part 1 - The Way They've Always Done Before

 As I walk the roadways of my memory, those distant, forgotten lands, I think back to when my years were only 25 and I thought I would live forever. I could not envision limitation, weakness, or disease. I jumped up onto the fuselage and rode a rocket across the sky for days, landing in the dark early one morning.

Photo by Mohammed Ibrahim on Unsplash

The sirens screamed that poison was rushing at us from the sky. We ran for our lives, thinking that at any moment, all awareness would simply end, like we were being unplugged. Out of breath and struggling to pull air through an M17A1 Protective Mask, which I was never all that comfortable with in the first place. The lights of a one-story building up ahead acted like a beacon as we ran across the airfield, in which every minute and a half, a fighter jet took off, shaking every internal organ inside of me.  It was very difficult to get on top of this and to feel like I had any control at all. 

Inside the building, I ran through the hallways and dove into a room to finish donning protective gear, and looked up. There was a television on, they were reporting that air raid sirens had just gone off in Israel, Riyadh, and Dhahran due to 2 Russian jets taking off from a runway in Kuwait. There it was. A satellite feed was telling me what had just happened to me. It was so twisted. All clear.

Backtracking to where all of our gear lay under the dark sky, the fighter jets and bombers never stopped. Some took off, others returned from their reign of fire. We found a bus. There was a big sticker on the side of it, officially declaring that it had been contracted by the United States of America.

We drove off, away from the city lights, which were ridiculously symmetrical in a fascinating way. The dark countryside we were moving into was very mysterious. Nothing felt official, and the bus was in rough shape. One of our more outspoken members talked and talked to the bus driver as though he were sitting next to him at a bar. He kept starting his sentences using the words, "Jesus Christ," to which I finally leaned over to my platoon sergeant and said, "Do you really think it is a good idea that he keeps using the name of the Christian saviour over and over again here in the Middle East, and derogatorily so, to a man who held the fate of our lives in his hands. We had no idea where we were; he could have delivered us into the hands of terrorists and made global examples of us. He was told to watch his mouth.

We landed around 1 am on Tuesday, after boarding in CONUS on Sunday night at 7 pm. It had already been a very long day. We drove for another couple of hours as though our "cab driver" was trying to put some miles on the meter. I'm not wrong about this either, because we eventually headed back toward the same perfect grid squares of lights we saw earlier, this time closer to the well-lit bridge that led across this part of the Persian Gulf to Bahrain. 

We went into the port where some of our trucks were. We had heard stories. We were a tractor-trailer unit. While our trucks and trailers were on the barges, the trailers were positioned adjacent to our tractors. While the barges rode the rough seas, the trailers slammed back and forth between a set of tractors on one side and a set of tractors on the other side. This caused catastrophic damage to the tractors on either end, reducing them to almost half their original width. Even though they were totaled, they were our responsibility. We had to post 24 24-hour guards on them. We had sent an advanced party nearly a week ago. Lonnie, usually a composed guy, stepped up onto the bus. "How many of you are glad you are finally over here?" Hands went up everywhere. He looked exhausted. "You're not going to be soon. All we have done is pull guard duty around the clock." Of course, he didn't think about the fact that there were five wrecked trucks to guard, and now, instead of a handful of people to watch them, we had an entire transportation company to rotate in. He told us where we would be going next, and our bus driver fired up the engine, and we headed back onto the road.

Before the sun rose, we were deposited onto the sidewalk in Khobar. It was clear that we were no longer alone. There were thousands of the rest of us, residing here in Khobar Towers, in apartments built in the late 1970s with vast amounts of oil money, as an attempt to modernize the nomadic population from the desert into a life of luxury. As the story went, the desert dwellers were bussed into the city and shown these beautiful apartments with five bedrooms, three baths with a bidet, marble floors, concrete walls, and mahogany woodwork. In the Saudi culture, it is an insult to hold the sole of your foot up to a person. It is severe enough that you even need to be careful when sitting, so that you do not point the soles of your feet toward the person you are facing. The nomads looked out at the 8-story buildings and walked back out into the desert. They found it insulting to have people walking above their heads on upper floors, nor would they participate in such dishonor.

The towers, which spanned a pretty impressive area, sat empty for over a decade. When the war buildup began, it was ideal for housing the multinational coalition invasion.  There was one little issue, however. When the nomads refused the accommodations, which I heard was in 1979, the complex's water system was drained and turned off. They did not turn off the electricity for some reason, so tens of thousands of hot water heaters remained hot, but without water, and eventually burned out. 

We lay on top of our duffel bags on the sidewalks as our leadership tried to find us a place to live. The sun came up, mixed with the smell of dust and diesel fuel. We had all been up for over 2 days now and were existing in some kind of existential zombie autopilot in which we acted only on impulse, guided by instinct and training. The training part seemed the most loosely connected, because there was no training like this.

I wanted to do something. It was weird that we were homeless. I was wound up and wanted to settle down. I joined my platoon sergeant, the first sergeant, and the platoon leader on a walk into some of the buildings to find apartments for us. Because there were 5 bedrooms in each apartment, you could fit a whole platoon in each, sleeping side by side in bunk style in the bedrooms and the living room. Walking into the lobbies of these eight-story buildings reminded me of starting at new schools when I was growing up. The push bars on the doors, the echo of the metallic locks, were strangely familiar.

We were in the stairwell, five stories up, when our first air raid sirens went off since we arrived. We immediately masked up. The first sergeant turned to me and ordered me to get the Lieutenant and his MOPP gear. Mission-Oriented Protective Posture is the additional protective clothing that a soldier puts on after donning and clearing the protective mask (6 seconds), and the subsequent 3 seconds of pulling the hood down. 

That gear included a heavy camouflage jacket and trousers, lined inside with neoprene —a firm, rubber-like material used for fuel lines. The jacket had a black mesh-like material against the skin, with activated charcoal powder throughout to also protect the soldier. MOPP gear was heavy, hot, and disgustingly dirty, but if you were caught in an area where chemical weapons had detonated, it all could save your life, while you sweat to death and have trouble breathing. Sounds rough, of course, but the flipside is that without this stuff, your solid organs turn to liquid in your last few minutes alive.

The request that the first sergeant was making of me was highly unusual because your MOPP gear was to ALWAYS be strapped to the back of your LBE (load-bearing equipment) which consists of a pistol belt and suspenders, upon which typical items are two magazine pouches, canteen,  first aid kit, flashlight, and MOPP gear all had respective places. In the field, it was as intrinsic as wearing clothes themselves. Soldier stuff 101. I was only an E3, Private First Class, which I do not recommend getting activated and sent to war on that salary. But it also meant that I was required to take even the most stupid orders and carry them out.

Obeying like a good puppy should, I went down the many flights of stairs to the 4 steel and glass doors and pushed my door open and took two steps. A Humvee went by on the road in front of the building, and a PA announcement came from the soldier inside: "SCUD LAUNCH!" I stopped in my tracks. "Forget the dumb stuff!" I said out loud. If there was a missile headed for us, I was not going to be searching for the gear belonging to career officers and soldiers who did not even have their basic issue with them. I just went to boot camp a year ago, and it was pounded into my brain that if I couldn't do this simple thing, I wouldn't survive.  I turned around and went back up to the fifth floor, continuing to put on my MOPP gear. 

The First Sergeant yelled at me, "Hey! I gave you an order. I told you to get our MOPP gear!" I looked at him, in his mask, through my mask. It was a world in which we all looked alike. "First Sergeant, General Order Number One: 'I will guard my post and not leave my post until properly relieved.' To carry out that order, it is implied that you show up with the equipment you were assigned. The way I see it, you are unprepared, and that is not my problem, First Sergeant." I am sure his face had to have turned red inside the mask, but really, what man of his rank or the Lieutenant's rank would ever take disciplinary action against me when the very charge would highlight their incompetence? I knew that even though I could not see the face of my Platoon Sergeant, Rob, I was sure he was smiling. He, of course, was a MOPP-4, which meant all protective gear was on.

We sat silently in the stairwell, not knowing how this worked. The sound of a missile quickly came into our range of hearing, followed by a series of Patriot Missiles firing up and taking off. Four explosions rocked the ground and were spectacularly loud. While the threat of dying in a blast had passed, if this SCUD missile was carrying chemical weapons, this was only the beginning. In a chemical environment, you could have to endure living life at MOPP 4 for days on end. Well, except the Lieutenant and First Sergeant. They would not fare so well with just a mask.

A long time had passed, but it was enough time for the NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) Teams to test and confirm there were no chemical warheads on this SCUD. Three short blasts of the air raid siren gave the "All-Clear". We could return to normal status.

When we returned to the company area, the Commander, Captain A, had informed us that we had accommodations. We had an apartment on the sixth floor of one of the towers. The apartments were not furnished; they just had thin, indoor-outdoor carpet over marble floors. I picked a spot under a window in a room where 8 of us could call home. 

Before we left Fort Devens, Massachusetts, we were issued very nice standard-issue army cots. At this time, no one knew where any of those were. They were shipped over with all of the other equipment in shipping containers. No one knew where anything was. There was no evident organization. No one knew we were coming. We had no idea where the majority of our trucks and trailers were. It was normal to be standing somewhere in the massive port and see your assigned truck go by. You would simply yell, "Hey, that's my truck!" And the driver would stop, set the brakes, open the door, grab his gear, and walk away. Even though there seemed to be order, this was also chaos, all coordinated by people essentially in control of much of the world. They were determining what every day was going to be like for me. 

Safe Haven - Part 9 - You Can Never Go Home Anymore

 It was clear to Jus that his days of chemical dancing were over. It had been where he had lived, and he knew it; he could never return home. The rock steadiness of his would-be assassin prompted him to try to follow in his footsteps. He didn't realize the man was born with much of this quality. Even if he did know, Jus knew change was possible. He had just returned from the figuratively dead; he knew he could do and become anything. 

He needed education; he obtained it. He needed a deeper understanding; he worked for it. It was a limitless part of his life. The monsters that plagued Jus forever were challenged, and he faced them one after the other.

Jus sold himself to the very rank and file he said he would never entertain, and they were delighted to receive him. He hit every target, and he surprised the warriors. As the days got colder and Jus' commitment intensified. He knew he was on his way to what he wanted to be. 

On the home front, it seemed like some of the best days. There were, however, undercurrents of things not being exactly what they appeared. Surrender and trust were whispered litmus tests of days declared set free. Emusification looked perfect until the lone stirrer rested. If times were indefinite, the lifespan of the union was unbalanced. Maarja's experience differed from the Jus' experience during the last year, even though they navigated the same deep valley. It was a most difficult complexity.

On that cool late November day, Jus promised something that he could not take back. It was one of the coldest Decembers on record, during which he studied and turned his life upside down, shaking parts of it out onto the floor as he tried to make sense of everything. He only had a month before his life was no longer his to decide.

Photo by Michael Lock on Unsplash

As the bitter December continued with limited resources, the Jus and Maarja tried to make the best of what they had. Everything seemed to be going according to plan until that fateful morning of the 20th, when Jus woke up to the news of Operation Just Cause. This violently shifted the paradigm that he had convinced himself of. A voice from the house where all of the words of scholars are homed echoed asking him, "Are you willing to die for the profit of people who do not know you or care about you?"

There was no way to turn back. Jus, whose days were quiet and warm inside the house, as the bitter December raged outside the window, was worried. What did he do? There was a war in Southeast Asia when he was a child, and for some reason, it could easily happen again.

January came, and the icy winds continued. The oath Jus took was starting to feel like someone was pushing his head underwater, and he began to notice that he had less control all the time. There were only 7 days that month in which he was free. He had been stagnant for the last 4 months, and he had to do something. But this? There was no turning back from this. When the 8th day came, he got up in the morning, where would he be tonight? He had no idea. 

As the bus pulled away from a street damaged and decaying, Jus watched Maarja get smaller out the window. A million things passed through his mind, mostly the question: "What am I doing?"

The plane took off for the sky and, in a Twilight Zone-like whirlwind like that of the Odyssey of Flight 33, touched down in a snowstorm. Jus shuffled onto a bus, and as the diesel engine sang its song that sounded like incarceration, he finally knew, this was wrong, but also happening.

Safe Haven Part 8 - People Don't Pick You Up on the Blue Highway

The cylindrical object spun through the space, end over end, in slow motion. Drops of condensation streamed out from its surface as it spun. Its contents were violently erupting inside the vessel and pushing out of the predetermined void at the top, also hurtling its volatile contents everywhere as it descended into ultimate shame.

The red, the white, the red, the blue, the white, the red, the white, the red, the blue, until you could no longer tell as it broke known speed records, gaining speed in a demented violation of physical law. Enough was enough. It was the actual limit. 

Miles of wheels turning, music playing, temptation, recklessness, love, alienation, everything Jus thought he was passed through his mind as the bullet that would hurt more than any other was spinning towards him. If those with a similar fate could give one more statement, they would tell you that they never saw the gunfighter draw his weapon.

More defiance! Even though Jus had no case to defend, he did so without substance or merit. All of his failures sat right alongside him in this room tonight. Three years earlier, he sat in this room surrounded by people who loved him as he left for good. Tonight, he was back. 

Photo by Marek Dvorak on Unsplash

More boastful talk of defiance erupted from him, and that is when everything in motion made contact. With its blue inscription, the white and red cylinder made contact with Jus, striking him so hard and surprisingly that it instantly stopped his words. Its contents, ice cold, drenched him instantly. Rage beyond anything he had ever felt before appeared deep within him in less than a second. He had never felt anger so intense. The rage became him.

Instead of fighting as he had been doing before the collision, he went silent. Something had just changed in him. Every word that now came from the man who had made him and had destroyed him took him apart piece by piece relentlessly, and he was just getting started. Later in the darkness, Jus plotted another escape; this time, he would no longer talk.

In the light of day, the damage done during the battle that raged into the night was visible everywhere. This was the end, Jus was sure of it. It all came down on him at once. The last 3 months rained down on him and all of its corruption, and even worse, it was all on him. Now, he needed to fix it, because he was dead, and he just needed to set things right before he could no longer do so. He saw no future; he only needed to subdue his ability to inflict damage on anyone going forward.

As the days of devastation passed, Jus made all the hard decisions that didn't show him in a flattering light, but he began to repair the damage he had caused. This level of honesty was something he had not felt since he was a child. Each day, the outlook seemed better as long as he stayed down on the floor, silent and offering nothing. 

Sitting in a room with strangers, stripped down to truth and bone, a path materialized before Jus. He would retrace his steps across the battlefields he had left burned and offer help building new paths and bridges. It was not his idea, and he was not even going to do it, but when he was so low, every bit of constructive advice seemed to be the right thing to do. This so-called self-improvement became his mission, and as it began, he couldn't imagine how far it would take him.

He had to break one more heart now, that would hurt one of them for seven more years, and Jus forever, as he rose early one morning in October and boarded the boat heading north. He could feel the world changing hard from cancer, thriving on the world stage. Echoes of his southern dream and crash landing played as he crossed the river into Memphis. In the corner, the piano man summed up man's folly in a foretelling of an ADHD society.

In the dark, he returned to the scene where everything unravelled. There was no more war, only a tender welcome from Maarja. He saw it as hope. Just like the year before, the mountains around him held great promise. It was where he wanted to be. The climate changed here. Work was scarce and not so easy to secure.

In the darkness, within days of arriving, an assassin mapped out a mission on the crisp night air. What had been taken away from him, he wanted it back. His mission would go critical depending on the opposition he received because it was personal. He moved in the dark, on foot, with great stealth. If his target, Jus, had gone down, the assassin would have appeared never to have left the public eye.

It was just another night for the Jus and Maarja, when there was a knock on the door. As soon as Jus saw him, he knew who the visitor was. Maarja screamed. But the assassin stayed on task; he just needed an honest answer to one question. Jus, who had been on a quest for brutal honesty, walked directly up to this man, whom he had been told was the enemy, dangerous, and abusive. He realized that everything he knew about him resulted from slanderous manipulation to get Jus to do things.

Jus stood before him and told him that with all he had seen, he would fight to the ends of the earth for the man who had, up until this point, been so wrongly accused. Jus had the evidence to clear him and help him get what he was fighting for with all his heart.

They walked outside and had the most starkly honest conversation Jus had ever experienced. He learned this might have been his last night on earth, but the truth had won. If matters were never straight before, they were tonight. He offered the man a ride, and a most unlikely friendship ignited that night.

Something about this man made Jus yearn for a certain quality he possessed. Jus had bared his soul for the last month, and he was so weak, but at the same time, great hope for the future surged within him; he just had no idea how to move forward, until now. The man he met was so sure of himself, like no one he had ever met. It was a treasure Jus wanted. He was done being what he had been his whole life, a victim of the wind's direction. He needed to be a rock. A rock he would be. He no longer feared the bamboo cages along the River Kwai. He was now used to incredible discomfort and humiliation. It was a price he was willing to pay. He would break himself, and now he walked into a building he had sworn to never set foot in and surrendered.

Safe Haven Part 7 - Dancing at the Zombie Zoo

 When a submarine fires a torpedo at a target, everything is calm. It is just an object, streaming intently through the water. All is quiet, and nothing seems to change.  That is where they were, Jus and Maarja. A gentle chemical serenade commenced and sweetly charged his efforts to court a girl, Jus already had. 

They traveled and saw all the sites they had ignored the year before when they were still in survival mode. It never occurred to them that this was just another distraction. Jus could not discern imminent danger, which was at its highest when life became calm and normal. 

Because things seemed to be going so well, they brought visitors from their past. Everything except the core was riding high. Fireworks and fanfare would keep them from ever looking too close. It was like being on a merry-go-round that kept increasing in speed. Lies, lies, lies about how they were actually doing. Jus built a city on materials made of assumption. Correction is on the horizon that you just cannot see.

With intensity, Jus and Maarja loaded more weight upon their shoulders, the cornerstone being Jus and his agreements. As the days progressed, aftershocks began from the torpedo that was yet to hit, like a vinyl record being played backward. Again, Jus was hauled into the village square, bound by his wrists, and spit on and ridiculed. He awoke the next day, covered in sweat and dried blood. Something was wrong. It was all too familiar. He was on a train car that had become detached, increasing speed down a long mountain descent. He had no choices except the one about to be made.

Suddenly, the torpedo hit the wall of their foundation. It rocked the land until daylight. This was it—war, betrayal, embarrassment, disrespect at its purest. No more. No more! Jus had opened his heart, and in return, he was tortured and humiliated. He no longer wanted to be a part of this. Somewhere before the sun rose, he decided: It is done.

With stone-like determination, he abruptly fled and could not be swayed to reconsider. By sundown, he closed his eyes in a new room. Outside that room was a different landscape. Jus' emotions scoured recent years and systematically removed segments from his collective consciousness. That would have been enough, appropriate, and even admirable, but what came next showed that he had learned nothing.

This should have been the reset. The second chance to make well-thought-out decisions and to build on other family relationships. An opportunity to breathe, set goals, and set a solid life course. But Jus' lifelong companion, so slick and cunning, had other ideas. All safety protocols were shut off. He was about to discover what happens when one beats the aggressor, only to let it coerce its way back in. 

Outside, it was bright and beautiful. Inside Jus' heart, chemical rationalization continued its powerful metamorphoses. There was never a time that he should have stayed silent, like he should have today, but of course, that is not what he did. Feeling like he had gotten off the merry-go-round, he stumbled through the fairgrounds as enticing vendors whispered in his ear. Honey dripped off their lips as they smiled and begged for his attention. It was a gauntlet he could not survive. Somewhere deep, he had to know that this was a slide into darkness, but he was not strong enough to see it.

To stand back from this moment and zoom out of his timeline, the following year from this point on would play out like a whole decade.  Right now, there was a long way to go. Everywhere Jus went, he was the eye of the storm. Previously silent women took hold of him and demanded that he turn his attention to them. Turbulence followed him everywhere as he worked through his day. Logic and reason were not present. He moved through the days in a ninja-like dance so that in the darkness, he could soak in stolen waters with a stranger that he convinced himself would become like fine wine someday.

Photo by Bonnie Kittle on Unsplash

The dark hours were surreal. They contrasted so much from the daylight that it became clear that merging daylight and dark hours was becoming increasingly impossible. As all of this played out, Maarja called out from her balcony, inviting Jus to a gathering, who was so immersed in his runaway life, pulled the pin on a grenade, and dropped it on the ground. It was extreme since he had only recently fought to keep her. This was war for her, and not a word could now be spoken without fire, as Jus slipped further into his chemical darkness. 

As the war intensified, Jus knew the life he so naively dreamed of could never exist here. He was still a fool for ever thinking it could happen anyway. He knew what had to happen next. The escape was planned. A house of cards had to be constructed to plan out everything that would need to be done. Cleverly placed materials, facade, misdirection, stealth, camouflage, and not changing the flow of everyday life. During all of this, there was a scent that he could not break free of; it was everywhere, and he had no idea why.

The days became like the last hours before a carefully planned escape from a POW camp. Every word spoken had to be carefully scrutinized before it was spoken. The hours wound down. Jus had no idea who his stranger was. The great illusion he had spun kept anything real from penetrating the room's walls.  The last days and nights passed in the arms of a time bomb of infatuation named Annika. The mightiest of reckonings were coming, and Jus could not see it through the chemical lens that engulfed him like an alien parasite. The darkest hours were coming, and there was no way to avoid them. 

As the minutes ticked away from his last hour there, Jus did the one thing he would regret forever every day. He opened the boxes of his life and poured his innocence into a dumpster. Thousands of days, chances to revisit those times, love, tears, and an emotional storm—all of it—were discarded, disrespected, and brought to nothing. It was like he was cutting pieces of his own flesh and leaving them behind. He was somehow proud of this rogue decisiveness, but it was just a lie he told himself to justify selling himself to the stranger beside him now. Annika was along for the ride, no matter what happened. She had told the boy that she was running from danger. She did not tell him that she was the danger she was fleeing from.

So fittingly, as the headlights showed on Stella Manor one last time, a cat jumped up on top of the dumpster. It pleaded with Jus with haunting certainty: "You are not abandoning your oppressors; you are abandoning yourself." The parasite won. Jus would soon know what it is like to be dead.

A Path of Least Resistance

 The many things we do to ease the pain of those we love—is it good? Is it wrong? I know that hardship is part of growing into a strong person, and yet, sometimes, as parents, we stop that growth in the name of love. 

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It is that proverbial "I know a shortcut" story that I think will satisfy all of the pains and still create a teachable moment. I never realized at the time that love that intense can blind me to the traps that extend the three-month journey into three years in which we never reach the land we set out for. 

Lost in the wild, we constantly try to get back on track to find the summit. But every time we see light up ahead and use more of ourselves, it is just a false peak, and we still have no idea how far we have to go or if we are even going the right way. It is a form of torture. In a way, I have tied myself to a chair as I watch all of this play out. I feel helpless and sad. I let everyone down, and they are frustrated.

Like a flooded basin, the pain of this decision to prevent pain begins to spread everywhere. It contaminates every corner of our lives. I look down at all the broken pieces this has caused and have no answers. Words and intentions are now stained with the blood of mistaken steps. Nothing is clear.

It is so ironic. All I wanted to do was ease their suffering, but instead, I created more and spread it out as far as the eye could see. I wish I knew how to get back. I wish I could make it better. 

The path of least resistance is never that; it only looks that way. The hero becomes the hunted, and his party becomes hostages. It is torture day and night to make what seems a loving act and realize it was the worst way possible.

How can I stop the bleeding? Materially, that answer is simple. But what of the heart? What mending is there for that? Is it a one-for-one transaction: least resistance for weakness? Is depressive aggression the enemy? My lifelong stumbling block? I saw you in the woods as I sat facing the fire in late '83. I knew you were there. Why don't I ever learn? 

Safe Haven Part Six: John Barleycorn Must Die

 Distraction can be the sweetest reward. Here, everything was a distraction. Jus loved everything he saw every moment of the day. It was the same for Maarja because it seemingly dissolved all the antagonists in pursuit. Where to focus now was the question. It was good, and it was terrible. Only when sunlight hits soil previously covered by a building can one see what seed was spread over time.

A meteor streaked the August night sky, giving way to the cool, dark nights of September. The days were brilliant and alive. Jus was suddenly given opportunities for advancement, and he took them with gratitude. Everything fit in this new land. He had a place to live, purpose, and respect, all of which the last year had dissolved one after the other. 

September allowed him to take so many pieces scattered over hundreds of miles and put them all back together. At the same time, he built his empire in his new city. This was what he had needed all along. Oddly, none of these winfalls separated him from his companion, like a shadow that stayed lockstep with him, ensuring that the lights of Saturday night would be doused like a fire.

By day, Jus drew great respect from Stuart, a man many years his senior. He streamed quickly into great favor. On sweet crisp October mornings, as a steam radiator played its unique staccato, Jus would sit across from the Stuart. Jus would listen to the old man talk fearlessly about his weaknesses. He always respectfully acknowledged until one day.

Jus suddenly succumbed to voices in his head that had been with him since Joplin, Missouri, October 86, and over and over since then. John Barleycorn must die. There comes a time when many travellers come to this realization, and Jus knew it was real. He fired the figurative distress flare into the room. Stuart stopped talking and looked across the table. "You, Jus?" His shoulders fell low. "Yeah, me." He felt ashamed, but the old man kindly told him everything would be alright.

Photo by Calvin Sihongo on Unsplash

The moment the word left Jus' lips, gravity ceased to exist. Like suddenly being selected for battle, everything was uncertain. It was like a spaceman landing on a new planet and removing the helmet to see if the air was breathable. Yes, Jus was breathing, but he was unsure how long it would last. It was pain, but also like a painless physical injury. It was fantastic and terrifying at the same time. 

Music from his childhood became stuck in a loop. A desperate message to the personification of his disease materialized. It was a breakup, and it was mourning. A small lifeline of people declaring to understand, who were nothing like him, was the only thing holding him together. He wondered if that could be enough. This brought him outside the zone where he was allowed. Maarja protested, comparing his previous course to this one, arguing that the old way was better. As the saying goes, sometimes you are the windshield, and sometimes you are the bug. The hammer, the nail. You get the idea.

The merging of everyday life, withdrawal, mastering new skills, and always being connected to the string he could not see. Everything was new. There were weeks of activity inside each day. 

A new year brought more choices, which gave way to splendid distraction and preoccupation. It was a nice place to be. Everything would have been better if he had not slowed down. Jus, although thriving, still felt like he was operating through the days, void of several internal organs. Something was always missing inside. 

As winter finally gave way to spring, the wave rose higher and higher. Business ideas, welcoming friends and family, and framing busy days that contained 100 hours each. There was enough distraction to subdue Jus's emptiness. The distraction seemed enough to keep Maarja's injury hidden as well. Sooner or later, no matter what anyone says, they could not defy gravity. 

The crash came without warning. It reeled them all the way back to the old brick structure and the smoke-filled night when the soldiers came in and seized them. It was clear; the core was broken, and Jus did not want it to be. He tried to fight. He would do anything. Everything around them was so prosperous; why couldn't they be alright inside? 

As the days went by, Jus went over the crash repeatedly. He was determined to win Maarja over again. He decided that the problem was himself. Perhaps he had overreacted. He was fine. His chemical vacation proved that he could function and even thrive without it. Look at all he had done. Stuart, who had helped him last fall, was gone; Jus would not have to look him in the eye and rationalize this nuclear decision. 

This was the way that he could win Maarja back. It was too extreme a change for her, and this could be the compromise needed to put it back together.  She did not protest or condone in any way, except to be silent, which was an endorsement in the most significant measure.

None of us will recall the first time after all those months that Jus picked up that bottle and touched it to his lips, but everything else that followed was like watching a massive car crash in very slow motion. All facades would burn away, leaving only what was truly there, and then shock waves of self-realization and deception would follow. Mr Barleycorn had weaseled his way into the party, and now Jus was about to see some serious stuff. 

Here is where the ship started burning up in the atmosphere.

When you're down in the hole

There were many times in my life when I felt invincible. Limitless energy, strength, and power were always there, and I never questioned their origin or future. Relaxation was something other people did, but it was a myth to me. It never mattered, and it did get me into trouble many times as it could cause me to overpromise my time and assistance. My heart was in the right place, but the laws of time and physics held the real story.

As I have walked through the decades, the damages have slowly begun to humble me. Lifting entire appliances and sleeper sofas on my own, dragging them up stairs with nothing but rage to propel me, takes its toll. 

My 31-year-old self stood in the dealership shop where I used to work. My auto technician friend, who was 45ish at that time, recounted how his bones and joints hurt all night and how he never slept well because of it. His description of his malady was sobering. A flash of heat went through me because at a mere 31, I had acted like I was Superman. I did all those things he said I should never do. I knew then that I was on the wrong flight, and there was no way to change it now. Up ahead, payment must be made.

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It came faster than I imagined. Back surgery at 35, rheumatoid arthritis at 40, chronic tinnitus at 58—where did the break happen? From 35 on, the next 25 years have been spent learning how to do the same job but more intelligently. Overall, I have done well.

One of the greatest follies is overconfidence; it is one of mine. I went through all these valleys trying to negotiate with a fraction of my former energy, strength, and endurance and felt that I had it all figured out. Of course, pride comes before a fall. There is always something new.

Today, I am in the depths of 20 days of a strong respiratory virus that has also triggered a very painful condition. It has made me feel like I have fallen into a hole, as if it were a trap. I have always thought that I was good at seeing all possible outcomes in the road ahead of me, but let's be real: No one possibly could. To declare such a thing is just foolishness.

One characteristic of me is that I truly multitask. In the failed business world, there is a saying that there is no such thing. It is believed that if you attempt it, all tasks fail. Mine is a different brand. It is not so much running multiple jobs simultaneously, but I can see every step travelled in all of those tasks, and whenever one set of steps can carry 2 loads, I do that. It may be due to years of LTL (less than truckload) transportation dispatch and load brokering. Whatever the case, I am exceptional at it.

After being in the hole for the last twenty days, I can suddenly see that choreography as we need things and other supplies running out. My brain has calculated how to make every moment, mile, and step count. 

My collective task at the Army NCO Academy was "Consolidate and Reorganize". A collective task orchestrates many individual tasks from the soldiers' manual applicable to that overall goal. The C&R scenario is your unit was just attacked. Your water supply took fire and is leaking on the ground; there are casualties all over the place, chaos, screaming, munitions burning, and smoke everywhere. The injured must be brought to a safe triage area and treated where they are not in the open. Water and food need to be secured. A defensive perimeter needs to be set up, ammunition collected from wherever you can find it and given to the perimeter guards. Strategies of what to do next must be set, utilizing whatever and whomever is left to the best of your ability. Why? Because historically, when the OP4 hits you and then pulls back, they are regrouping, and now, knowing that you are this damaged, they are coming back at any moment to finish the job.

Down here in the hole, you can bet I am finding things I did not account for. I am not out of this hole yet, and I have no idea how long it will last. But you can be sure that for all of my responsibilities of caring for my household, I will do even better to carry us through this ever-elastic framework, that is, our ever-changing circumstances.

Safe Haven - Part 5 The Fall and Rise of the Kobayashi Maru

 As the wagon pulled away from the land where it all started, destructive fires burned behind them, making it clear that there would be no way to return. They had made this journey many times before, but never like this. It was a one-way trip tonight. From a distance, it seemed like growth and expansion; in reality, it was cover and concealment. There was no plan, but really, was there ever a plan?

When they arrived, it was dark. The woods and interior looked different from what they had been before. It was lonely, and it held no answers within it. They quietly put in supplies, whatever little they had. Inside, Jus wanted to know where all of this was going. He had no idea what was next. Previously, he had been on the wrong side of the airlock, which was bad enough, but at least those times, he was alone. Now he had companions, and that made it very different. He did not feel any closer to those in his care. Ever since the journey, everyone had been weird to him.

Photo by Charlie Gallant on Unsplash

As the sun rose, Jus wanted it to be a play day. It was Saturday. He sat in the sand of the beach, looking at the glistening sunlight reflecting off the water, and wished he had answers. Winter was coming. It was a predator that kept pace with his steps, yet somehow, winter took slightly longer strides. He knew there was no way to outpace it.

Had they fled a month earlier, they could have gone south, to a warmer land without the threat of winter, but that is not what they did. There was nothing Jus could do about that now. He would have to come up with a solution. Nothing happened. The summer sun got hotter, water was scarce, and food even more elusive. 

Jus looked for work in the surrounding rural areas, but it never provided results. So they journeyed south, not far from where they had fled, to take temporary work with old friends. The summer spun like a top of changing world events, devastation, and loss of respect. Friends took them in as if they were an injured animal, and the boy could never quite understand the motives. Forty years later, that equation is even more perplexing.

They journeyed back and forth on the road that led north into the quiet peace of their uncertainty and back south to the psychological tango of mercy and doom. There was no accounting for how they were able to do this. The boy did not even know how they were being sustained. He grew more disillusioned as he continued through the darkness in the light of the days and long dark nights. 

The voices in Jus's head were ignited by the comments of those around him, which passively aggressively charged him with self-deprecating feelings. Some days were hot, in the city, in homes of the past. Other days were also hot but filled with children screaming and laughing at the lake, enjoying summer vacation to the fullest. The mercy of infactuation allowed the trickle of poison that kept the boy subdued, always keeping him looking selfish, a failure worthy of conspiratorial manipulation.

Like panic season, the precipice of the end of everything was advancing fast. There were no tricks or scraps from which Jus could construct answers. All resources were depleted, and he failed. Fortunately, it affected Maarja so much that she relented being left in the lands she once fled. When you are number one, that becomes the prime directive revealed, and all of the facade burns away.

What happened next was similar to when you removed Kryptonite from Superman's vicinity. Jus's strength began to rise. New ideas that should have previously been obvious came to light, and he pursued them. He was incredibly successful. Resources were at their lowest, so he put every last one into his new endeavor. It was an investment that would win.

The days were fine. Jus made a decision, and he was surrendering to it. Meanwhile, in the land where the Pease Brothers settled, Maarja spun the hourly assessment to determine what words would be used in the next hour. At this point, it was more of an instinct than a plan.

The days and nights went by quickly, and the time came for Jus and Maarja to reunite. He still believed they were a team, and sometimes, so did Maarja. Things began to have a routine, and life became something that she liked again. It seemed like fate was smiling upon them, so they took the next step to end their wayward wandering and put down roots. This was met with them blatantly being shot down. All of the wars fought in the days of living in the ancient place where a thousand people lived and died rose to smite them one more time.

This knocked Jus down into the dirt, ash, and smoldering timbers he thought he had been free of. He smiled, pushed his face out of the dirt, and stood up. He shook the fire from his hair and said, "Did I ever tell you? I love the no-win scenario." He played it their way; now, it was his turn.

Like the perfectly coordinated attack campaign, Jus left nothing untouched. Every T crossed and I dotted, his assault was bulletproof and held unswerving confidence. Today, he wins; he just needs one more lifeline support from those who will love him forever to finish it. Of course, they made it so.

Jus would never forget finding that the road to where he had been going his whole life went further north. That long climb felt like change; it felt like his 52nd chance. The day was bright and summery, and relief and real life were not only coming, but they were here, and he claimed them. It was not October; it was August. June's uncertainty and the following desolation had led them here, on the road to a new life.

With only the little bit they had, Jus and Maarja set up the new homestead on a quiet summer day before he had to leave. He would be back in the middle of the night. August meteors streamed over his head in a spectacular array as he traveled home. As he approached the house, small fires were burning in the street, and angry people were yelling. He assessed them as he walked to the door, and they quietly watched him walk past.

What had he done? Jus wondered if he had made a terrible mistake, but deep down, he knew he had not. Something about it felt very right. A bunch of drunken idiots who slept like vampires during the day and caused destruction at night. Well, that was something he could handle. He would no longer be pushed by the wind as he had been for the last year. Something had happened to Jus during all of this; he was the captain of his future, and no one would change that. Well, except for Maarja.

Rogue Twilight

My legs complained about the miles I logged today. No matter how many people are walking with me, this is a very lonely journey. I felt good, too. There is nothing more fulfilling.

As I took each step, carefully contemplating the thousand that followed, I felt stronger. I could take on the load of others in my entourage, which is also a reward like no other. 

The evening began to fall, and I shared stories and warnings with my travelling companions. I wished to share more, but fatigue and illness soon won out. I had been fighting for survival only 24 hours earlier, a battle so intense that I was not sure I was going to make it. Somewhere, you must pay the price.

As the night air grew colder, the stars rotated above all of us in a dark kaleidoscope of dreams and random interjections that would change the laws of physics in a world that was familiar enough to make sense and then suddenly not make sense at all.

Photo by Chris Barbalis on Unsplash

Even worse, the illogical becomes the logic. It becomes what we fight for. As we dance through the fourth dimension, gaining, we run face to face with ourselves from the land of the sunlight. We look so foreign; we silently stare into dark eyes in disbelief. How? I saw you reaching for more. Why did you take anything in the first place? 

I begin to wonder if the man in the dark mirror is me. I mourn for the progress I made in the land of the sun. Are we the same person? Or is he just fragments left over, that the stirring of the night sky floats to the surface, so that I can pull them out, right here and now?

Even more disturbing is the people I encounter. Why? There should be no connection, but here we are. Did I pick up a current that can be felt but not seen? Are we simply travellers in the same group trying to beat the same enemy?

Like a trail walk, there is a mighty judgment coming. A wise man said, "The time has come to see yourself; you always look the other way." There is no avoiding it. It started with the girl landing her spaceship as I was lost in a nighttime forest. Although she has been gone for a long time, her care still manifests.

Moving across the borders, bad news comes in waves. As I look at the structures that represent the cities I have journied through, the repairs I made then look much worse than I ever thought. My shame and shock at the fragments slowly bring relief as the steed mightily pulls light across the land, bringing truth into the corners and conquering deep shadows.

It takes a while, but I am glad when the warmth steams away the night's dew. Images evaporate and show what they are, fragments to be extracted and not repaired. Decisive eradication. Never look back. It was just a dream. It was the Joker dealing the Rogue Twilight, pulling broken pictures and thoughts from deep within. Without this Aurora of sorts, how could I ever move forward in everything I do?

Now, with the light overhead, I raise my glass to the memory of the night sky that spun above me in its betrayal and mockery. I will never trust it because the walls inside of that dimension are not as solid as we know them to be. Mere thought can move us through the solidity of substance. But I do know that this is a purge and if I really want to finish the journey, I have to endure the Rogue Twilight.

Safe Haven - Part 4 (When You're an Outlaw)

 Unfortunately, in the aftermath of losing immortal heroes, life demanded that Jus carry on. Although this seemed impossible at times, it was required. In those days, there was still a chemical escape to deal with or not deal with, whatever he chose. 

He did not think too far into the future. Shortly up ahead, that road was contained in a thick fog, and seeing beyond that was not permitted. Jus did not care.  A tremendous pressure had been lifted, and living the life of a transient was much more like a home than anything else.

Since he had left Ann's Island, nothing felt like home to Jus unless he slept in the place that made him feel like he could be returning at any moment. Not long ago, he met Dexter, who was proficient at tempting him with a rich lifestyle he never thought he could have. He was cunning and convincing.  Slowly, Jus changed his image; he dared to dream what that life could be like. Being what the status quo thought was upstanding and respectful felt good. Especially after the tornado that flung everything he owned everywhere in the past few months.

Photo by Hassan Pasha on Unsplash

That continued in this new life. Maarja, who let him think he was making the decisions, allowed this to continue, but at any moment, she would cut it off like only she could. As the days got warmer, everything seemed to be getting better. But an unplanned journey came up, and of course, Jus was always up for something like that.

It is still amazing how he could take great journeys with no resources and somehow win. Not that this was not tense and scary at times, but it was still remarkable. This journey became the mold for many to come. His expediency, tenacity, and resourcefulness were all exercised in exquisite ways.

It was a strange journey as well. The people had dynamics that Jus did not understand. Maarja appeared injured and retreated with whatever she had, lying in a fetal position in the back of the room. It looked like one thing, but it was far worse. Jus, alone at the wheel, found the peace he always saw when he was alone. 

Upon his return, Jus's tether broke. Here, he began to float. Last year, he had jumped from a burning piece of a shipwreck to another. He tried that again, but he kept falling into the water. He looked for numbness, and everyone turned against him as he did everything. He was used to Maarja allowing precision pain to be administered to him; that was normal. This was different. Behind eyes that seemed neutral, there was an elation in Jus's new pain level. What did he do? He did not know. It should have been obvious, but he could only think as far as Maarja wanted.

The seemingly random assaults increased. Something was missing—an outlet to inflict destruction, and now he was falling into that role. Something had changed, which only allowed him to damage himself even more. He had no purpose, and those who did not amount to anything lifted themselves into lofty dominance over him, coveting anything that was his, leaving him no integrity, wisdom, or self-respect.

In the light of day, gravity pushed hard down upon his head. All he could feel was shame, and there was nothing but disgust around him. He was mocked and ridiculed and treated as though he were a homeless vagabond. Not a word could come out of his mouth correctly. He was nothing.

There is an old saying: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." If not for an ancient, twisted history that Jus would never want to know about, releasing an explosion in the compound, he would not have made it out alive. Because it was the only card Maarja had left, she pulled back on the subliminal torture she was applying and quietly looked to Jus to pull something off.

He did what he did best. He rushed through the house, as if a meteor were entering the atmosphere, and headed straight for them. He grabbed the belongings that seemed essential to them in seconds. The wagon was already moving, and he jumped on board as it escaped. The villagers were raging behind them, shooting flaming arrows at them. They always thought they could bury them beneath their communal meeting place. But today, Jus and Maarja were escaping. The villagers would need to tear someone else apart.

Blind Spots

 The 1980s was a decade in which I saw that we had taken a futuristic turn. We abandoned the real existence we lived during the 1960s and 1970s. I always felt that the 1950s through the 1970s were what real life was. What happened in the 1980s was some space-age dream we might suddenly get over.

So we went, complaining about punk and new wave music, front-wheel-drive cars, and the addition of electronics in the new album releases of our favorite musicians. The 80s were too much like the Jetsons—polished, synthesized, and overproduced into a chrome shine. In our bumbling yet instinctive analog way, we easily walked our 1970s walk through the 1980s, knowing that things were catching up with us. Computers were in some people's living rooms, but not ours; we could not afford them. Telephones were in most people's houses, but not ours; we did not need them. 

Photo by Derek Story on Unsplash

None of us knew what was next. From watching Video Killed the Radio Star in August of 81 on a channel that seemed to think it could somehow pipe music with images into our homes 24 hours a day, to the shuttle program sending astronauts into space so often it became commonplace. Faster and faster, the wheel began to spin, and we packed all of this into our little lives with all of the wisdom of the seventies but a chip of vanity on our shoulders that somehow made it ours personally.

There are many ways to look at an era, but none is as precise as when we look back upon it. Ten years out, we feel so much pain. Twenty years out, sadness. Thirty and forty years later, we realize we were sitting on a time bomb in which infinite combinations of perfect events were falling into precise chambers, locking a fate too bleak to imagine. We were headed for oblivion. The world would never be like it was then. Little did we know that the foundation was being built to tear everything down. 

In the summer of '87, I was timeless and immortal. I was 21 and thought that I would live forever. My parents were just over 40; they would also be here forever. In a room downstairs, I was listening to the waves. Mister Petty pleaded with me and tried not to panic as he did, but it would never be the same. Everything. Everything is changing.

I was changing lanes, telling myself that, at some point, I would know where I actually was. The woman I knew did not wave from the ship as it pulled further away from the land. I wished I could be as well adjusted, but expected to be eventually. The music filled my space, and it was music about loss. Loss indeed was happening, and I was not totally getting it. There was an explosion several miles away. I saw the shockwave closing in in the rearview, but I had no idea what it meant.

The notes mourning are not for something that happened or perhaps even happening. This was big; everything was in jeopardy. A chilling realization comes to light between bursts of emotion upon which my gravity starts and stops. The world is still spinning. The centrifical expansion of whatever caused all of this is still unfolding. Time says I'm used to being alone. I try to know what I have and be there wearing all my folly as armor. But two seasons later, I always see a better way.

Nobody ever told me that youth ignorance is so formidable. As terrible as it is, they had a responsibility to paint warnings on the asphalt of the streets, plaster billboards, and write them on the sky. I cannot be sure they were not already doing that because one thing I do know: I was not listening.

Are we all this blind? So fallen? So unwise? Or does that belong to those who have no questions? They never rethink, recount, or recall how they could have made it all better, and then let it haunt them at highs and lows in years to come, calling themselves out, over and over again.

Could it be that living those moments again and again is helping now, turning hours into minutes when it counts? Could any bad decision made today become a three-month deviation from the journey? I have to believe. The blind spots were there, and I will always hold myself in contempt for not being able to see better through the fog. I guess I am depending on time to get it out of my mind.

Hands Tied

 Sometimes, it is like building castles in the sand too close to the tide. The edge of the water is never within my control, but I try anyway. That leads to frustration, and I still try. I persevere, and I am met with dissolution. I become so frustrated that I wonder if I should be more aggressive, insisting that things are not so bad. I know that will never win, and somehow, I keep futility like that in check and still lovingly build despite the erosion by the tide.

A peculiar thing happens: the tide yields and the structure is beautiful. There is gratitude and appreciation. Inside of me, I, too, am grateful that I stayed the course of love. In the weakness that I felt, the yield allowed the growth of the most important things, and for this, I cannot possibly assign a value.

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Sometimes, I am tired, but the energy that flows when this plays out naturally is unmatched. It humbles me and makes me listen, feel, and relate better. With the wisdom of restraint, I scream inside because what I feel and do will not naturally mesh. I know I am getting stronger because of it, but it can also hurt.

I have no regrets about the restraint I exercise when I patiently allow all of the complexities of our likeness to find their respective places. I also know that had I been weak and tried to make it all better by rushing in and making everything fall into place, the ground I stand on would have fallen under my feet. 

As we walk the path of our lives, I have concerns as simple as the struggle just mentioned. I worry I will succumb to my weakness and frustration, feeling I am not helping enough. I hope you are strengthened every time we walk this path, and I showed restraint to allow us both to grow. I hope that I am making everything count so that good choices will be remembered and that I will be a source of strength should I no longer be here. 

I never realized all of the impact every moment can make. I now understand the responsibility of it and am sad that wisdom took the time it did. I misunderstood the whole point of everything. Life is strange that way. I hope that I am making up for it. I make every second count. Sometimes, that means that I need my hands tied and my mouth shut so I can watch the beauty of seeing my children grow in their decisions. There is where true peace and contentment live, and there is no place I would rather be.

Don't Yuk My Yum

When you are doing something incredible, life asks when you will fall. 

When you are riding, the slip-stream pockets appear in the vacuum.

You stumble and even fall

You tumble, you crash, scrape and burn sometimes.

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Look up at the sky and do it again.

Stay the course, because good things are happening.

Be the change you desire to see all around you, 

then fight, fight, fight. Quietly determined.

When you see the light and rally the people in the land

savor all the good you have done, and lift each other up.

Don't you ever let this be about greed.

Do not poison the well. Give freely and you will see.

I don't want to go out in the rain

I don't want to go out in the rain

I don't want to live with those restraints

incarcaration of self-affliction.

What if we could see the bars we put around ourselves?

Would we all unite and declare our liberation?

Would we free each other?

Would we allow others to free us?

Don't bring me down

Don't bum me out

Don't rain on my parade

Don't be so negative

I was admiring a wise woman and the art she masters.

She told me that you have to just let it go.

I know she is right, 

There is no room for bitterness in any of us.

Let this beautiful thing have it's day

Let it grow and flourish as it can and should.

You will be surprised with what will happen,

Let it be, let it go, get over it.

It will be great.

Safe Haven: Part 3 (Time's Arrow)

 Jus fell through the ice just as it formed. That is when a hand reached down from his childhood and pulled him back out of the freezing water. He would survive now, and so would his tribe. Things were looking up. He was sure that this was where life was beginning. It had to be.

Photo by Lians Jadan on Unsplash

The storm, which had been raging for three months, had finally calmed, or so it seemed. In Jus's uniqueness, he found normalcy inside ancient brick walls where people came to live and die. As the nights became colder, he worked through distractions that would be debilitating for many. He jumped from a floating chunk of ice to another in a great cold sea that, although he had never seen before, he navigated with incredible skill.

The world was rapidly changing beneath his feet, and he did not truly understand that. He was so busy fighting for his life and the lives of others. Just where did all of this trouble come from? It was tireless, relentless, and never-ending. The very mountains he had known since conception were fading, and his back was turned toward them so he could not see them. At the time, he was so unaware that he was squandering the most incredible opportunity. Time ran out fast as the detonation approached like a fuse burning down to the dynamite.

The days were still wild like a roller coaster ride that had not been activated for 25 years. This was what normal had become. Jus felt the weight of the ropes that suspended those he carried high above the gorge. In the evening, just as he thought he could rest from the war, Maarja raised a firearm, made eye contact, and pulled the trigger over and over again until all of the brass lay hot on the floor. She would reload tomorrow, and they would play that scene again. You might think the rounds caused the most damage, but it wasn’t. It was a subtle but undeniable joy that would emanate from Maarja during the assault. That held a pain he would feel over and over again.

The days grew dramatically shorter. By day, Jus roamed the countryside, living 20 years in the past. By night, he shared intimacy with the glass, darkly shaded. Secrets are bubbling violently within it, trying to break free to the surface. Dangerous meetings of substance in one moment, floating away as smoke in the next. He never knew if it was clarity or illusion. The floor was made of a thin sheet of glass, and they danced upon it like it was a foot thicker than it was.

They created a bubble in the frigid air. The airwaves defined the dark days, bringing adventurous journeys into the north that their descendants would be afraid to take on. The nightbird was tapping on the glass as the Kobayashi Maru streamed through that strong northeast wind. Somewhere in the darkness, principles existing beneath the dirt, a foundation upon which he would not build for a long time, affected everything. The soil Jus stood on would wash away into the sea if not for that.

It was not enough. So lost in the smoky night was a haze in which they could not even see across the room. While the nightbird tapped, the boy placed his elbow on the table and extended his hand to grasp hers firmly. His face was struck with a heavy glass bottle, pushing his limits into a savage fever of betrayal and anger. Retaliation and hurt were all he could feel. He stomped around the surrounding land, tearing people from their tents and teepees of the past, dragging them out into the light of the fire to charge everyone with their crimes. Judgment day had come. It was enough!

Soldiers burst into the compound, guns blazing, knives flashing, gathering Jus and Maarja up with contempt and loathing. He knew that they did not know what they were doing, and he searched for ways to control the assault. The soldiers poked and prodded them, sure they could incite a response they could smash. But the boy had a friend so many years ago who taught him well. "Fight them with those things they do not understand, and they will have no leverage."

As the sun rose, the walls around them were revealed to be made of paper. There were indeed desperados under the eaves. Whispers everywhere, plotting harm, never trustworthy, never safe, always injurious. They brought additional forces, eyes, and ears to guard the homestead. As they did, the sun grew warmer and brighter. They could see that the furniture around them was all smashed, and there were ashes of their goals all over the floor. 

New hope arrived as the days grew warm. A complete course change was on the horizon. Shelter was ahead, but the boy had to fight one more battle to make it happen. He embarked alone on a journey to take the war on himself, knowing he could not be defeated. In those days, nothing stopped him. He was strong, ten times his size should have allowed.

A messenger came to him just as he was hanging up the sword. One of the most formidable men he had ever known was passing. It was something that never seemed possible. This was the threshold of life and deep regret. If he could have gone back, Jus would have spent day and night with him and walked his journey, respecting all the purposes in which this man had lived.

So much knowledge, power, and wisdom came to this quiet and dark moment in which Jus and his family sat in a circle whispering, remembering, and crying. Israel still fought because he was a fighter. Far into the night, I supposed he walked through the bombed-out streets of war-torn France once more. He heard the voices of his children, muffled in the back of his head. He knew the sound of the voices and the streets that he walked on at the same time. 

Did he see friends along the way who bled out forty years ago, hardening his heart forevermore? Did he see his wife on the day that they met? Sherwood Island, the mountains, the smell of charcoal, all of it. Echoes of machines in a factory that churned out during the Industrial Revolution. 

There comes a time when a decision made thousands of years ago finally determines that we only have one option, and we surrender and rest. Our thoughts do perish, but are remembered. For the hours Jus sat across from the table from Israel, his Grandfather, he struggled to bring back every single word: the bridges, the homely French girl on the bicycle, the storms, the human nature, and the fight. 

Jus went to his new life in a box on wheels. He did not know it, but things were really going to come apart now. They would be flung across the sky, where new wreckage awaited them. Things were going just as they should—just the way they were supposed to.