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

 Unfortunately, in the aftermath of losing immortal heroes, life demanded that the boy carry on. Although this seemed impossible at times, it was required. In those days, there was still 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 contained a thick fog, and seeing beyond that was not permitted. He 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 unless he slept in the place that made him feel like he could be returning at any moment. Not long ago, he met someone who was tempting him with a rich lifestyle he never thought he could know. The man, however, was cunning and convincing.  Slowly, the boy 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.

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

To this day, I am still amazed at 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 esquisit ways.

It was a strange journey as well. The people had dynamics that the boy did not understand. The girl 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. The boy, alone at the wheel, found the peace he always found when he was alone. 

Upon his return, his tether broke. Here, he began to float. Last year, he had jumped from burning piece of 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 the girl allowing precision pain to be administered to him; he was used to that. This was different. Behind eyes that seemed neutral, there was an elation in the boy's new level of pain. What did he do? He did not know. It should have been obvious, but he could only think as far as she wanted him to.

The seemingly random assaults increased. Something was missing—an outlet to inflict destruction, and now he was falling into that role. Something had changed. This 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, no wisdom, and absolutely no 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 only nothing.

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

He did what he did best. He rushed through the house as if there was a meteor 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 screaming in rage behind them, shooting flaming arrows at them. They always thought they could bury them beneath their communal meeting place. But today, that boy and that girl were escaping. They 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. 

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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)

 He 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.

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The storm that had been raging for three months had finally calmed, or so it seemed. In the boy'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 entire 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 was running 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. He 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, the girl raised a firearm, made eye contact and pulled the trigger over and over again until all of the brass lay hot on the floor. Tomorrow she would reload and tomorrow they would play that scene again. You might think it was the rounds that caused the most damage, but it wasn’t. It was a subtle but undeniable joy that would emanate from her during the assault. That held a pain he would feel over and over again.

The days grew dramatically shorter. By day the boy roamed the countryside living 20 years in the past. By night he shared intimacy with the glass darkly shaded. Within it, secrets bubbling violently 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 mere thin sheet of glass and they danced upon it like it were a foot thicker than it actually was.

They created a bubble in the frigid air. The airwaves brought definition to the dark days. Adventurous journeys into the north that their decendants would be afraid to ever take on. The nightbird was tapping on the glass as the Kobayashi Maru streamed through that strong north east wind. Somewhere in the darkness, principles existing beneath the dirt, a foundation upon which he would not build upon for a long time, affected everything. If not for that, the soil he was on would just wash away into the sea.

It was not enough. So lost in the smokey night, there was a haze in which they could not even see accross the room. While the nightbird tapped, the boy placed his elbow on the table and extended his hand upward 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 was 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. Judgement day had come. It was enough!

Soldiers burst into the compound, guns blazing, knives flashing, gathering them 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 them and prodded them, sure that they could incite a response that 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 only be made of paper. There were indeed desparados under the eaves. Whispers everywhere, plotting harm, never trustworthy, never safe, always injurious. They brought in additional forces, more 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 up ahead, but the boy had to fight in one more battle to make it happen. He embarked alone on a journey to take the war on himself, knowing that he could not be defeated. In those days, nothing stopped him. He was strong, ten times his size should have allowed.

Just as he was hanging up the sword, a messenger came to him. 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, the boy would have spent day and night with him and walked his journey, respecting all of the purpose in which this man had lived with.

So much knowledge, power and wisdom, comes to this quiet and dark moment in which the boy and his family sat in a circle whispering, remembering and crying. The man 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 at 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 the industrial revolution. 

There comes a time, where 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 the boy sat accross from the table from the man, he now struggled to bring back every single word. The bridges, the homely French girl on the bicycle, the storms, the human nature, and the fight. 

The boy 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 accross the sky, where new wreckage awaited them. Things were going just as they should. Just the way they were supposed to.

Never Be So High

 What are you? 

What am I? 

There are days I know the answer well. 

There are also days I know nothing. 

The sun shines, and the windows are down

I float along in my bubble that seems self-sustaining

The music plays, and it is beautiful

3 months later, I wish to remove the bass line from it.

Who do I really think I am, taking gifts and tampering?

You can shine, I can shine, we can shine.

Then I isolate, doubt, and disassemble, 

because the higher we fly, the further we fall.

What a dream it is to soar and see for miles at a time,

but I cannot be trusted to decide my own fate.

It only leads to falling into a land full of agitation, 

people hating you and people hating themselves.

At the heart of the matter, I do not wish to be so high

that I cannot see the people I love, 

those who make my life great, lifting me up.

I never want to forget that it is them and not me.

We take so many things for granted.

We need to constantly be on guard.

I never want to be so high

where I cannot see you.

I sit here this morning thinking about everyone I will see today.

Because of them, I have opportunities.

Every interaction and every decision is a chance to make the day a little better.

I never want to forget. It is about them and not me.

The Disintegration of the Gun

 It is the course of difficulty that I walk. I lean into the rain and the wind. Pushing, gritting teeth, grabbing for holds in the landscape, and I am happy to do it. I understand what is at stake. Even though I am not playing at the table I stand at, I know the dealer plays a psychological game with me. My ability to opt out of his gravity has limitations.

The fact that I am still allowed to make choices despite the pull is where the definition of true love lies. The defining line, beyond which the pain and broken dreams dissipate without substance, is a mere watery mist that, within seconds, cannot be seen.

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In the realm of physics, nothing changes. That absolute antagonist bears down even harder, pressuring, depriving freedom of movement and even thought. But then, that is just brought to nothing. How can one ever define this? Do we really need to?

Someone very dear to me asked a rhetorical question the other day: What have we learned from this human drama? There is more answer to this than anyone knows. The decisions made as a parent have far-reaching benefits or perhaps consequences. Indeed, we must choose carefully. There comes a time when our comfort and contentment are not necessary. We have a duty. It is a matter of respect and honor.

"All of this human drama, have we learned anything?" Yes. The answer is simple, but it must be complete. We are a fickle people. We tear apart anything that even has the slightest imperfection. It is the black speck of debris on the pure white snow. It is the tiny crack in the tile seam of the shuttle Columbia. Like the physical law itself, that is who we are. When the answer comes, we have to see it for ourselves. We have to know that there are no other options. The ultimate dead end, and ultimately honest answers to the questions.

The disintegration of the gun, all of which pierces us today, ultimately comes to nothing. It is an undeniable testimony to assure our hearts that we did all we could; we truly have learned who we are and where we need to go.