Got the Doobies singing Nobody while I think about the HBO special on Yacht Rock and the apology I’ll probably never get.
Technically I haven’t finished the special yet but I am halfway through and enjoying the hell out of it. The footage of the LA of my youth alongside music that surrounded much of my childhood makes me smile.
Got echoes of The Conversation We Never Had floating through my mind and the words of the mighty Pasqualina who says we’ll have our time.
Sitting here wondering if my mystery guest will tear through the archives here again or if they’ll simply reach out and ask if we can make like Heinz and Ketchup. 😉
Yeah, bad dad joke but that is ok I am a Dad and I get to tell bad jokes sometimes. I have some pretty good ones too and have been known to make people laugh pretty hard so it balances out or so I argue.
Been in touch with some attorneys about some things and learned that some of you used people that might be way too rich for my blood.
But before I share far less than 1,969 things I know about you and I let’s take a music break with our buddy Mick.
Life Is A Spiral Staircase
There are no coincidences because what you see, hear and do are part of something greater than us. It is tied into something larger that can be described as both mystical and magical.
Don’t ask me to explain this because I can’t tell you how or why. All I can say is that I know because I have experienced it. I have seen it. I have lived it. I have been there and that is all the proof that I can provide.
It won’t be enough for some of you. It won’t be the kind of thing that you can accept because you can’t buy, touch or taste it. Actually that is not true, you can but only if you open your mind and let your soul seek its match.
I know this because for the longest time I didn’t do it. I spent years not buying into it or believing that it could be real. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to because I did. I desperately wanted to believe that this thing was something tangible. Because I just knew that if I could feel it in my hands and see it with my eyes it would prove that there was something to this dream I had once lived.
I didn’t want to buy into the idea there might be something more to the universe and that there would be experiences and lessons.
Maybe because I couldn’t figure out how to reconcile the mystic alongside of free will, but eventually I did.
Don’t ask me to explain because I am not sure that I can because it comes from the gut and unless you were willing to take my hand and go on a journey I am not sure I could get you there.
But it makes sense to me in a logically illogical way and so I see myself on the spiral staircase of life. I am back in a place I have been before but I am standing in a different place on the staircase than I did before.
Call that a chance to revisit the past but to do so in a different way. So I look at things and ask if I want to respond as I once did or do things differently.
It is a mix, I am irked by the lack of communication and conversation. Some decisions were made without consultation but part of me shrugs my shoulders now and says maybe that is ok, maybe it is time to for our journeys to be separate from each other.
Maybe they’ll intersect down the road or maybe they won’t. It’s an interesting place to be, do I want to approach it from a scarcity mindset or continue to adopt what is for you won’t go past you.
Some of you can’t feel what I am saying. These words have no meaning to you. They are figments of imagination that you can’t feel, see or taste. So they never grab you. Your heart, your eyes and your mind are closed to them.
I can’t fault or blame you because I used to be like you. I used to look at this sort of writing and roll my eyes because I didn’t know. I hadn’t seen. I hadn’t felt it.
Are You Asking The Right Questions?
It is something my children have heard me say more than once. “Are you asking the right questions? Do you know enough about the topic to ask smart questions? If not, maybe you need to do some more research so that you can dig in and get there.”
I hold myself to the same standard and know there have been many moments in time which would have been made easier had I asked better questions.
They would have shed light in a way that would have provided much insight and maybe reduced much heartache in both personal and professional settings.
It is kind of funny to mention it because there are times when I have intentionally avoided answering the questions others asked of me.
Sometimes there is joy in being non specific, especially when people know you are capable of communicating with precision and detail except sometimes you can’t.
Sometimes you can’t because you asking someone to explain why a sky painted in streaks of orange, blue and red is beautiful or why certain chords make your heart jump.
Sometimes you can’t because your fingers extend into the sky and touch the face of god, because sometimes when two people share a moment in time it changes them and lasts forever.
And that is why I look for rituals.
Because sometimes the simple ritual is the most meaningful and most beautiful. Sometimes sitting next to or across from someone who has eyes the light dances in and a smile that lights up their face is the most meaningful thing of all.
****
Flashback in time to something I wrote 13 years ago:
“Yesterday I saw something that has stuck with me. I walked out of the Target on Sepulveda and saw a man lying on his back. Another man stood over him waving his arms wildly and yelling, but I don’t know what he was saying. The six lanes of traffic between us drowned out his words and made it impossible for me to tell if he was happy, sad or angry.
He looked like he had been on the street for a while as did the man who lay just in front of him. I was in a rush but for a moment I stared hard at the man who was on his back and tried to determine if he was ok.
I watched three kids walk by him and measured their reactions. They didn’t react in any way other than to walk around him. I decided that the guy who lay on the sidewalk was ok and that this was simply where he had chosen to rest. It wouldn’t be the first time that the sidewalk had been used like that and probably not the last.
So I got in my car and drove off to take care of other errands. But all night long and most of today I have felt conflicted about it. Have I grown so accustomed to seeing homeless people that I no longer am shocked or disturbed by it. And I wondered if maybe the man who was standing was yelling “Help Me.”
****
That is a true story and something that has stuck with me. I have tried to make a point not to repeat the inaction, tried to make sure I at least checked on the person.
It is those little moments and those little things that add up. During a time in which people celebrate cruelty and chaos to those they dislike and complain when their side isn’t treated well it is important to make an effort.
Important to try to do something because those somethings are like ripples in a pond and you never know if your ripple might be the one thing that turns a horrible day into something manageable for someone.
That is worth something.
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