Have You Seen Where Fire Meets Water

Some men dance in the fire but I can’t tell you if my experience there is fate, coincidence or some combination thereof.

What I am certain of is I have experienced ordinary moments that became extraordinary solely because of who shared them with me and that it didn’t always come about in terms people would deem conventional.

I used to wonder about these things, used to ask myself questions about how it was someone could impact another that way but I decided it didn’t matter because some things don’t need an explanation they just are.

Ask the lead character in Marlowe’s poem The Passionate Shepherd To His Love to explain such things and he’ll shake his head and scrunch up his face because sometimes you need to just accept and act.

Sometimes you need to follow Fleetwood Mac and remember sometimes all we want to do is see you smile.

I have known people who looked for love between the lines and spent countless moments analyzing words and actions because they sought motive.

They wanted tactile proof to support a particular belief and found it frustrating because they never could grab a hold of such a thing.

All they had was faith and hope that their faith wouldn’t leave them feeling like Ozymandias. I get it, I understand why some might have lower expectations because it provides a way to protect their hearts from harm.

But me, well I don’t know how to do such a thing. I only know when I see a wall I cannot help but wonder what sort of tools are required to breach it.

Time has tempered my approach and made me learn to look for a door, but my natural instinct is to slam into it until it falls or I break and I haven’t broken yet.

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Don’t ask me why, but it reminds me Emily Dickinson’s refusal to stop for death and his willingness to stop for her.

In my mind’s eye I see that bony dude and his scythe pulling up alongside me. I am walking along a country road and when death opens the door and asks me to enter I fool him.

I step to the side and slam the door upon him, shattering his spine and walk away leaving him to flop around in the dirt.

Is it it silly? Is it ridiculous to say or imagine such a thing? Should I remember that What’s Dead Cannot Die or retain faith in my ability to manage whatever comes.

Ask for an answer and I’ll tell you I have faced some of the great liars of the world and sometimes they have fooled me.

Sometimes they have fooled me twice even, but maybe I fooled them too.

Ask me to continue and I’ll tell you there is a reason the devil went down to Georgia and it is because he knew that confronting me on my home ground was never a smart choice.

I know people who think of that song as being the sad and wistful recollection of a person who is looking back upon their life but it is not how I see it.

Those words come from someone who has lived enough to understand the importance of taking time to appreciate their life now and not later.

Those are the words of someone looking at today and the future.

It leads me back to The Fab Four and I can’t decide if I want to quote/share/reference Golden Slumbers, Carry That Weight and The End here or go a different direction entirely.

Should I tell you I had a dream or more accurately have a dream. That is part and parcel of a good post, sharing, telling and expanding upon…dreams.

While I was sleeping, I dreamt

It is hard not to think about what happens when people notice you but not just in reference to blogging.

Maybe it is because we are referencing dreams, but I am thinking about what happens when we realize that someone really sees us for who we are and not just for who or what we show the world.

There was a time when I didn’t like that idea very much, didn’t have any interest in allowing that to happen.

The reasons why aren’t pertinent to this post other than they are tied into a desire to learn how to become a better communicator in the personal and professional worlds.

Tied into my listening to Vin Scully with clinical interest, trying to figure out how to take what comes naturally to him and make it part of my package.

That is, the ability to take the simple and complicated and tell it in a clever and compelling way in just a few words.

Vinnie doesn’t have hours to speak, he has moments and he fills those moments with colors, sights and sounds you can hear, see, smell and taste.

I am not bad at doing that, but I am no where close to where he is at…yet. Might not ever come close, but I tell the children to aim high and shoot hard.

But that’s not my only dream, not by a long shot.

I have others some are for my children and some are just for…me.