Snow Day

Let the snow fall from the sky like tropical rain...I will be safe and warm in my cozy little home, in my favorite easy chair, wrapped in a thick red blanket. Today, I will read and write and drink hot coffee, enjoying what will most likely be the final snowstorm of the season. My puppies will surround me, thankful for the unexpected day they will spend sleeping on my lap. I could complain but I won't. I could be angry that my plans for today were spoiled, but I'm not. Instead, I will breath and pull open all of my drapes and curtains and watch the snowflakes pile up and cover all that is ugly. A power much greater than I can imagine, has decided that I need a day to myself. A day to slow down, relax and reflect on all things good. And that is what I will do. I will lose myself in words and music. What was meant for today....can wait until tomorrow.

Time....

     I found myself experiencing a bit of melancholy this evening.  Too much time spent recalling misplaced friends and days gone by, left me feeling rather hollow and empty. When you are young, you think you have all the time in the world to achieve your dreams and reach your goals.  You squander time as though it were boundless…limitless…endless.  Projects initiated so enthusiastically lie abandoned midway through. You give up all too easily, on lovers and friendships when things become awkward or difficult. Of course, you call it a “break”.  Endings are just too harsh for the young. A break seems much less messy and unpleasant. The truth is it’s just a way of letting go without admitting that you are giving up. You hold that little piece of “I’ll get back to it” in the back of your mind…or “we just need a little space.” Don’t believe it. More often than not, it’s simply a crutch.  You can’t go back because the rest of the world has already moved forward. Circumstances change. People change.  It seems to make the break less painful when you leave yourself or others with that tiny speck of promise.   Hope, after all, is the key to life. Sometimes hope is the bridge you use to cross over to that next person, that next job…or that next city. It gives you a false sense of security. Believing that you can turn back actually pushes one forward.  It is much easier to walk across a tight wire when there is a net stretched out beneath you or jump through the clouds with a parachute on your back.  

     When I was young, I was fearless.  Time was like money in the bank.  With my time I bought experience. I bought Knowledge. I learned how to meld the two into power.  That power, gave me the strength to find myself and in turn, live my truth.  For that opportunity, I am grateful.  There will be poignant days like today, in which nostalgia will move me to the verge of tears.  I do not cry for what I have left behind in my life, but instead for all that I shall never achieve.  While time may be infinite for the universe as a whole, we are given but an hourglass filled with a measured amount of sand.  Even as I write this in my journal my sand is sliding through the timepiece. There is no way to slow it down. There is no way to stop it.  Perhaps, I would be wise to take my shoes off and just slide my toes into the sand and simply enjoy the moment.  Maybe I should….but I just don’t have the time.

Top Honors

      So, Camden, New Jersey has taken our only first place title. Detroit has always rated low in virtually every survey that I have ever observed. We did, however, hold top honors on one very ominous list.  We were unlucky enough to enjoy the abysmal distinction of The Most Dangerous City in the United States last year.  True, it is an appalling commendation to have earned and exhibited, but it was sadly, a first place position, which is something Detroit has not enjoyed since the Pistons netted NBA first place honors in back in 2004.

      Once, a city of champions and the industrial hub of the United States, Detroit has crumbled and fallen down around us.  The scorched and blackened buildings which cower in the shadows of the magnificent Renaissance Center are but a sad reminder of what “used to be”.  The empty streets are reminiscent of the old ghost towns that dotted the landscape of the so called, Wild, Wild West. If it weren’t for the rich suburbanites who tailgate their way into town for the occasional hockey or baseball game, the streets would remain empty but for the insignificant homeless veteran, pushing a rusted shopping cart down the broken, shattered sidewalks.  The only other real nightlife can be found in the oasis of casinos that together form a fortress of sorts, keeping the vermin out and the professed privileged in. The gamblers who lose substantial amounts of money to the one armed bandits, have no idea just how close they are to trading in their BMW’s for a shopping cart of their own…..ahhhh so goes the circle of life, liberty and the pursuit of poverty.

Social Media

     I attended a lecture dealing with social media today. It led me to thinking about my own dealings with that form of communication, better known to some as FACEBOOK. "Social Media"...a fun place to make new friends.  All I can say is, that while I may have somehow added 5000 people to my so called "friends" list, most of whom I will probably never meet, share a meal or even a hug with,  I can barely count on my two hands  the number of real friends I have left in this world. For that, I give much thanks to the magic of FACEBOOK. You see, back in the "Old days" (about 6 years ago) I might have an argument with my friend in the bar. We might yell at each other and go home for the night and forget about it until the next day. I would then proceed to call my friend, after we had sobered up, and we would laugh about the silly madness from the night before. We would end the PHONE call with a friendly "see you soon" and make a plan to see one another next weekend… but not anymore! Nope, now those same two friends go home and plop down in front of a computer screen, while they are still drunk and angry. They will fire up the old KEYBOARD OF COURAGE and proceed to spew out several paragraphs of evil, vile, hateful messages that will never ever go away, ever. There will be traces left of the message all over cyberspace for the next twenty years.  There will be no laughing about it tomorrow. There will be no apology the next morning. There will be only spiteful retaliation once their phone starts vibrating with messages from so called “page stalkers” who sit on FACEBOOK all day surfing for drama. "OMG, have you seen so and so's Facebook? I'm sure it's about you!" They pretend to be your concerned friend, when all they really want is to sit at home and watch more drama unfold on their lap top when you are forced to go on FACEBOOK and respond! Then what will happen? Block...Delete...good bye "real" friend...as you say to yourself, “Well, now I have room to add a new FAKEBOOK FRIEND....hmmmmm shall it be "Riding Dirty 420" or maybe "I like blondes 69"? The excitement of  social media can be overwhelming at times… FACEBOOK, the loneliest group of friends on the planet.

Inspiring

I decided to attend the lecture yesterday afternoon, featuring Christopher Higgs. I was excited for the opportunity to listen to the written words and ideas of such an accomplished man. As he read his opening narrative everything else in the room disappeared. It was as if I were sitting alone in a darkened theatre with only Mr. Higgs on the stage.  Reading the passage myself would have been delightful, however listening to the author articulate his own feelings into spoken word was remarkable.  I have not had the opportunity to observe a published author expound on his own work in such a manner and while I may have be just a bit bemused by some of the things he discussed, the overall experience was marvelous.  

I am going to borrow an idea from his first book and create a chronicle of my own life. His history of Moony was brilliant and reminded me, just a bit of what O'Hara does in his writing. Of course Higgs, for me, is much easier to appreciate because his passage makes sense. It does however, offer an explosion of moments and experiences presented in a colorful slideshow.  The expression “Seeing my life flash before my eyes” finally makes sense, only in this case it was “his”, or should I say, Moony’s life and not mine.  The single four minute segment that he read produced more feeling and emotion than many entire books that I have had to endure reading. 

I am thankful for the opportunity and I look forward to the next such encounter.  The short discourse will have a lasting impact.

The Gloves

I opened up the front door yesterday, and was slapped in the face by an icy blast of winter. Backing up, I went to the closet and reached up to the top shelf for a pair of gloves. I felt the soft, worn leather as I pulled them down. The minute I saw them, I knew....as I slipped them onto my hands and felt the soft fur on the inside, I knew. As I raised my hand to wipe a tear from my eye I could smell the soft sweet smell of her mixed with the scent of the leather. I proceeded to go outside and get into my car. As I turned the key, the radio came on and Tim McGraw's voice filled the car with an old familiar song, "Live like you were Dying".
I hear you mom. I love you too

Frozen

     I was a bit caught off guard when I joined this class. Like many others, I had thought CRTW 300 to be an actual "writing" class. Instead, I found myself immersed in a reading class. Two such classes, in fact, because I signed up for ENG 300 as well. I was required to take both, so it was not a matter of choice. I was a bit disappointed to say the least. My purpose for transferring to EMU was to absorb and learn, while being compelled and required to write. Like most aspiring authors, I find that getting started is the most difficult part of the writing process.
  Where to begin? The pure, white page is so daunting. Holding the pen and staring at that empty page can be compared to having an idea "on the tip of one's tongue".  So often, I sit frozen, thinking and eying the vacant area, as if the words might miraculously appear. They don't. The most frustrating factor in the whole equation of creating a story, is that single first word. Like water trapped in a pipe on a frozen winter evening. As the time ticks by, or the temperature drops, you feel the pressure building. The words, like the freezing drops of water strain for release. Everything is there, right there, waiting for me to simply turn the handle. So simple, yet impossible just the same.
     Perhaps reading the tales written by brilliant, long lost storytellers will inspire me. Maybe their words will loosen that stubborn tap handle just enough to allow my own to trickle out. One never knows what sparks inspiration. You never see it coming. You sit down one afternoon and it is there, pouring all over the page and dripping onto the next. Those are the days I hunger for.