Are the stores closed?
Will the wind dream tonight?
Too many wonders, too much sorrow.
So walk on down .
Echoes of a wistful solo
may take flight as one's
angelic fury grips another twilight.
So walk on bye.
A rumble, a whisper and he's off.
Hoping not to listen,
to see, nor taste another roar
as heart’s crescendo pounds a beat.
So stop the ride.
Words – they mean, they wander,
trace, define and unravel
the wanderlust of this love.
So look to the west.
And catch the soft hope of dawn.
Where we start, and where we end, are often so close it’s scary. Many folks travel the globe, literally or intellectually during their careers, and long to retire near where they grew up. Used to think it odd but the older I get, the more sense it makes.
Me, I figure to end up back in diapers, bib and drooling. “Yeah, baby, groovy!” Poor Mrs. TMM, having to deal with THAT picture. The drooling has started already, though usually as involves a nice Victorian house on some tree’d and nicely sidewalk’d Small Town America setting. And the bib comes out during the feasts on the campouts I so enjoy! Diapers? Not yet, amigo.
I think back to my mother. It began with her, something I rue to think I don’t often enough remember AND act on it. I have the regular phone calls down, more or less, but that’s lame after 48-odd years. There’s the substance, the meaning, and I need to keep working on it. TMM cannot stand telephones, a problem when mama is hundreds of miles away in the land of Sun, Fun & Developer/Consumer/Ecosystem Mayhem (aka, Florida).
I think back too to my wife, my life partner in crime. It continued and bloomed with her, something I NEVER forget. That was easy, eh? Life is love, love is sharing, and onward we go into the sunshine.
That means today’s referenced song (paraphrased below) is an absolute no-brainer: ‘Cut Across, Shorty’ by Rod Stewart, circa 1969-ish:
Cut across, Shorty, cut across
That’s what Miss Lucy said
It’s you that I want to wed.
……
There was a smile upon his face,
because Lucy had fixed the race.
……
Cut across, Shorty, cut across
Oh Lord, it’s you I want to wed.
(Note: "passway" is a word that appears to come from the 19th century Mississippi Delta Blues culture, meaning, yep, "path way.")
Ever have nothing useful to say when you talk to someone obviously in need? Someone who could use a kind word, help, hug or a thoughtfulness beyond the pithy motions of our usual day? That hit me twice the other day – no, three painful times – and I’m wondering why. I was in the moment, interacted and left each chat on a positive note, hopefully of help to the other person. That’s sooooo Jane Austen-ish, huh? But their problems/tragedies aren’t from a book, but painful realities that I only touch on.
I feel like I’m living a curse this week, that of an observer of life. It’s often easier to be in the thick of things, tackling the problems and just DOING. Instead, the watching, waiting and trying to help others can be tough, as you surely know. And life gives no quarter just because the going is tough.
TMM, like other typical guys, has taken deserved heat for trying to fix things that just shouldn’t/can’t be fixed. It’s often about listening. Yes, just listen. Don’t judge, don’t fix and definitely don’t read into things in life’s wide grey zone. Yes, just accept. As a father, as a friend, this can be the toughest damn thing I get to do.
To end today’s post also on a positive note, I reflect on a favorite comforting lyric when I encounter the troublesome ‘stones in my passway’:
I felt the coldness of my winter.
I curse the gloom that set upon us.
But I know that I love you so.
Robert Plant/Led Zeppelin
Yeah, I’m guilty as self-charged today. My weird idea of a psuedo-poem follows below.
(Note: this goofiness is done in appreciation to the hours spent with Mssr. Jon Bon Jovi and due to my life as a dedicated bureaucrat!)
I drive all night to get to that gold
And I feel so wanted
dead or alive.
(not!)
My executive correspondence
could ring a chord
like a guitar lick.
(sigh)
But no matter what Congress
does, doesn’t, should, could or would,
we trudge toward our deadlines.
(rumination)
“Be stiff of upper lip,
scowl your discontent
and rearrange those pretty chairs!,”
my mates in the
Dance Band of the Titanic.
Yes, that’s what I almost became this morning, only 6 minutes into a 35-minute run. The ‘it’s all about me’ moron at the quiet residential intersection almost hit me WHILE I was jogging with-the-light. The aggravating part was that I was the second person on the crosswalk – and the other person hadn’t yet gotten to the curb!
More aggravating was the skid mark on the pavement … from a vehicle that a couple seconds earlier was completely stopped to make a left-hand turn. Marks. Three feet from my slow butt.
Maybe most aggravating was the letdown afterward – you ever have ‘buyer’s remorse’? I had ‘pissed -off jogger’s remorse’ due to what I said about the SUV-wielding gentlemen’s intelligence. He actually stopped and rolled down his window to try to blame me. That’s when I dragged his mother into the conversation. And threw in a nice suggestive gesture. Talk about an invite to a throw-down. I spent the next 29 minutes mulling over that I ain’t the smartest bulb in the box…
[sigh]
If you would like to accompany me on a jog, feel free! Or, if you have advice, feel free to educate TMM on the ways smarter people handle the world!
That little hurricane, one soon passed and left us wiser but not wise enough. Why? Is Mother Gaia speaking to more than Al Gore? I dunno.
But I also don’t care. Ever tell your kids or friends that you don’t always get to pick and choose your fights? Here’s one for ya. DC weathers (bad pun, eh?) earthquake, a windy hurricane, a soggy flooder of a tropical storm -- and probably fires and the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse down the street.
Injury? Yes, nearly since my poor shed started getting flooded and I was two inches from a heckuva lot of work. Poor roof really could some TLC or just replace it, though it’s not but ten years old. Hey, maybe the shed could sink Texas-style into a nice pond and up our property values.
Then we have Congress again living us on the edge of a shutdown. You goofballs. “We are Most Premium workers in Most Excellent country!” (now a shout-out to Everything is Illuminated – a superb movie with Frodo Boy as a worthy lead).
Storms pass and so too shall these eddies in the slipstream of life and chaos…
P.S. Do you know the Horsemen (traditional version): Conquest, War, Famine & Death (Pestilence replaced Conquest in modern pop culture)
