Sometimes I have to remind myself of what Rilke said below and remember to have faith in that old phrase what is meant for you won’t go past you.
Sometimes I need to remind myself no prizes are given for the ability to stand in a fire and burn longer than anyone else. There are no medals to be awarded for such things and there are limited situations in which such skills are needed.
More often than we think it is better to recognize when to let go and walk away because force of will and or physical strength will not be enough to change the outcome.
Maybe Dad Really Is Watching
Been working on updates and changes for the blog and came across a post I wrote a few hours before he died. I called it Even Pirates Have Feelings but haven’t read it since then.
It took me back in time and got me thinking again about then and some of what I shared in When Your Father’s Ghost Visits You Part 2.
Got me thinking about a piece of fiction I wrote a decade ago called Sometimes You Have To Forgive Yourself and reminded me about how many twists and turns life takes us on.
The last 20 or so years have more than a few moments contained within them in which I find myself scratching my head trying to figure out what the hell just happened.
More than a few moments in which things I expected to happen didn’t and things that seemed impossible did.
Maybe that is part of why I keep writing. Maybe it is how I keep my sanity or how I lost it.
I know because I have felt it, feel it and have written about it. People have egos and sometimes they are bruised. Sometimes they are humbled. I know because life has humbled me…repeatedly. I know, I am not supposed to complain. I am not supposed to be angry, upset, frustrated or anything but happy because it could be worse. And I know that some of you want to know if I still know how to write funny posts.
I Am Funnier Than You Are
The answer is yes, I still write funny posts. I am still funnier than you are, maybe not all of you but quite a few of you.
Somewhere there is a reader who is angry now because I said I am funnier than they are and I haven’t told any jokes yet. I also know that they aren’t Canadian because everyone knows that they are too nice to get angry, or maybe I should say they are too polite to tell me they are angry.
Good people those Canadians, they never stop smiling, even when I make fun of their currency and call it Monopoly money. Nor do they get upset when I ask them what it is like to have pet Polar bears.
Before the Russian asset started attacking our northern neighbor I could say such things and not worry about being attacked by the Canadian polar bear army or a crack legion of moose riding special forces.
Now I have to be aware they might come and be stone cold sober when they do. It takes a bit to mollify a cranky Canadian and I don’t say that just because my grandfather was born in Montreal.
But I do concede that some of the complexity and chaos of life has taken some of the urge to write the funny posts out of me.
There is a harder edge that had been polished smooth that has become a little more jagged and chipped so it pushes to be heard.
So I remind myself I could be a second rate math teacher at a community college or been born in the Midwest.
Feel better? I know I do.
You see I feel better because even though aspects of life suck right now I am on top of changing things. I am working on a story about a boy who lives under a staircase and has magical powers he calls the force.
He has no family and very few friends and is required to fight a bunch of other kids to the death. In between fighting the kids he has to destroy a magic ring, fight off vampires, werewolves and a bunch of zombies from Band camp.
Along the way he’ll be befriended by a scarecrow, lion and some exceptionally intelligent flying monkeys. I might have them all sing and dance. I just need a catchy song and dance act. Maybe they’ll do the Time Warp.
Is that a little bit silly? Does that sound like something some insouciant fellow who sometimes gets lost in his own imagination might come up with?
I’d say yes and tell you how handsome and humble that silly guy is. That guy is pretty angry with a few people now and frustrated about a few things.
But he remembers the boy who used to respond to getting potched by telling his parents “I take this potch and throw it away.”
That makes me laugh and I remember that in spite of all of the inconsistencies and changes in so many ways I am who I have always been.
Older, wiser, bigger and more mature, but more me than ever.
And now thanks to the liver biopsy and changes that have come because of it evolving again.
It reminds me the best writers or at least my favorites are master storytellers. They know how to take a simple sentence and make it sing for them. They are artists who weave tapestries of sight and sound that I can see in my mind’s eye. Every time I sit down at this chair and let my fingers dance upon the keyboard I strive to meet the mark that they set for me.
And dance is exactly how I see this. Words are my partner and my job is to lead them into creating a construct that creates something out of nothing.
It is time to shut this joint down, if not forever at least for the night but before I do a quick reminder to myself and others that life really does turn on a dime.
I wrote about the rabbi I knew who was killed on a highway a few weeks ago over here. Every day is a new beginning and so I ask myself the question about whether what is happening now is the end of a chapter or the start of something new.
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