My Eyes

I spent a lot of time being afraid of what might come. Far too much time, honestly. I masked that fear with a saying that I stole from a film. "So Be It". I owned it, used it, abused it, and eventually believed it.

Thank God that I did.

I am not old enough nor experienced enough to tell you everything you'll ever need to know. I am not wise enough nor patient enough to give you the insight you'll need to get by. But I pretend I am and I pretend I am. I think that's what matters.

Those things you'll end up worrying about, do not really matter. Those things you'll lose sleep over, do not really exist. They're all mechanisms we use within our own minds to make our lives seem worthwhile. They're tactics we employ to convince ourselves that we have something to figure out, to solve, to overcome. As if those solutions might somehow give us meaning.

They're tricks that we play upon ourselves to fill up our empty cups, when we have no water to pour.

You have to see the World as it truly is. You have to see it as a dysfunctional machine that somehow functions.

Suspend your disbelief only long enough to understand that what you believe cannot be suspended. Who you are cannot be replicated. Who you'll be has not yet been written.

You can only change your world once you realize that no one else could ever dare change it in spite of you.

It is all about perception. That is what "So Be It" means, as it were.

It is all about what you see.

And I know what you see. You may have gotten your Mother's hair, her stature & even her disposition. You may have inherited her religion, her mannerisms & even her apathy.

I see a world full of quiet people, hopeful people, people waiting to to find an answer that has already been answered. I see a world full of people that have all of the tools and abilities it will take to save themselves and everyone they rub elbows with. I see a world so full of wonder and beauty that even blindness has to blink.

I see a world that is rich and waiting. I see a world that you see.

You do have my eyes, as it were.

So be it.

Paint

The day I left home, the room I grew up within had walls painted white.

That was due to my having sullied them in my teenage endeavors.

When your old Man was a young Man, he made everyone who came into his room write something, anything, on his wall with permanent marker. The wall meant something. It was 1992... before facebook.

You see, everyone that I ever loved or cared about picked up the stick and wrote what they felt. They wrote what they wanted to say. Unabashed, unaltered, unending. They wrote what they desperately wanted the world to know they had to say.

It was beautiful.

When I left home I had to paint over it. I had to make it presentable again. It took 3 buckets of white paint.

But you know what?

Their words are still there. Buried beneath my whitewash. Hiding beneath the roller and hours and cussing. All of their words are still there. Their sentiments are still strong. Yes, they're buried beneath a couple of coats... but that doesn't render their message obsolete. That doesn't strip them of their intent.

It just means that sometimes you have to dig a little bit to understand what a room is trying to Say.

Life is a Room.

Don't paint over what it's trying to tell you.

Oh... by the way... The greatest quote someone once wrote on that wall was simple, crude, but incredibly to the point.

"You better live life wide ass open. If you don't... you'll end up living life wide ass open."

Paint can't cover up that truth.

That Star Still Works

I'm from the Star City of the South (Google it).

If you knew how many wishes I bestowed upon that poor piece of machinery, you'd laugh.

Still... there is a sneaking part of me that believes that quiet little whispers, whispered in quiet little moments, aren't just hovering around some random mountain while quietly waiting to find a forehead to kiss or an ear to whisper into.

There is a sneaking part of me that thinks life is a little bit bigger... and smaller than that.

There is a sneaking part of me that honestly believes...

That Star Still Works.

One Night

The clouds are lazy tonight. I like that.

Cicadas are out in full force. They're finding their cadence, learning their rhythm, earning the percussion they've so mastered, and yet, they don't even care what I'm thinking.

It's quiet out here on the porch. I can feel the warmth from my body dissolving into the cool concrete. I kind of like that.

I keep thinking that it isn't so hard to see in the dark... if you just quit looking for the light. It's true.

The air smells good. The rain moved in, lingered, and moved on. It left its mark, though. It's still hanging around, waiting on the leaves, on the grass, in the soil. It's waiting to change.

The moon rose late. It's fat, lethargic and ambivalent. Still, it's pushing the shadows of the few tall oaks farther across the field than they could ever fall. Think about that for a season or two.

This is just one night in your life... I know that.

But it's one night in your life when I know that you sleep soundly, secure, and peaceful... just twenty steps away.

That's why I breath in and out everyday, just so you know.

Because one night in your life is every night in mine.

Boot Prints

When I was a kid, I would lay back in the cool summer grass and look at the nighttime sky. I would see airplanes, satellites, and various other refinements make their way across the big black spotted dome above me. It's one of my fondest memories.

I grew up in the Shuttle Age of space flight, long after the pioneers & rogue volunteers had launched their way into history, strapped atop nothing more than a damn missile. Now that's not to take away from those who ferried their way into the great beyond aboard the Shuttles.

I do recall what happened to the Challenger. 6th grade. Mrs. Wade turned the TV off when the booster rockets ran away to find their own piece of blue.

I wept openly and without pride, doing so amongst my peers. As did my peers do so around me.

I did so once again when I staggered, bleary eyed one Saturday morning, into the living room to see the slowest shooting stars I'd ever seen at daybreak, quietly make their way across a Texas sky.

Still... my enamor and reserve were always kept solemn and stoic for the Apollo Boys.

I so wish I could have experienced those days. The days in which we, as a country, Did because we Could. Because we Wanted To. They were latter day Outlaws to the heavens.

The Mercury & Gemini Programs had come before, assuring the financiers that we wouldn't (probably) kill ourselves, and thus we banded the few together and pushed them into the sky. Those rockets should have had balls hanging off their asses.

Everyone has heard about Apollo 11 and Apollo 13, but I want to tell you about another Apollo.

Your Father's favorite of all.

Apollo 7.

They were the first triple threat that went up. Not long after the fire. 10 days in orbit, making sure the orbiter didn't have too many flaws, hoping to God the engineers had it all figured out.

Schirra, Eisele & Cunningham.

They were a pain in the ass to CAPCOM. They bitched about everything. In truth, that was their job. They were test driving a vehicle that couldn't be driven back to the shop if the A/C stopped working.

They railed on the food, the ride, and the fact that Schirra got a cold.

But... because of them... future Astronauts had helmet visors, better meals & the undivided attention of Houston.

Sadly, they were blackballed from future flights. I always found that shameful on the part of our Government. Well, one of many things.

Last July I got to see the Apollo 7 reentry module. I got to touch it's crippled & sculpted heat shield. I got to hold the heavy metal in my hand.

It was a good day.

It reminded me that where we think we can go is no where near where we might end up if we try to go Somewhere.

The Universe if FULL of Life. So are You.

Don't ever let anyone tell you the sky is the limit.

Not as long as there are boot prints on the Moon.

Learn

When I was a senior in High School I had the greatest teacher ever.

It was 6th period. The last class of the day. Ironically enough, in the last classroom on the right, down the freshman hall.

Mrs. Adcox was her name.

She was my English teacher.

In her room there was an incredibly, ridiculously, atrociously thick dictionary that stood on a pedestal.

Every day when I slugged my way into class and dumped my backpack on the floor next to my desk, I would go over to that big ass book and flip it open, albeit randomly, to a page. I would close my eyes and press my finger down on that exposed bit of paper.

If I already knew the word my finger had found, I would repeat the ritual.

True Story.

It amused Mrs. Adcox.

She asked me why I did it.

"Because as long as I could do this, I'll never know everything it has to tell me".

That was my answer. Honest to God. Every time she asked me.

I honestly believed that. I honestly still do.

She would smirk and go on about prepping for the lesson. To this day, she's one of the hand full of teachers I truly am grateful for having been around.

She let me Learn.

I hope your teachers do the same.

0.01 Celsius - Letter Number 2

 
You are not inherently special. There is nothing about you that sets you apart from any other biological form on this planet, save another's whim. You require oxygen to breath, sustenance to consume, and water to swallow to survive. By all accounts, you're simply a dependent creature who worships their environment for the blessings of those things that sustain you, those things that give you another moment. Just like the ants you step on.

But that does not mean that you are not capable of mattering.

And it certainly does not mean that you're better than all of those other, inherently, ordinary things...

I have known assholes and I have known saints. Their differences are often so insignificant that the only telling point to be found is in how they say your name.

Your Father knows both creeds. He knows them well. He's been both. Quite often, at the same time.

If I could turn back the hands of time, wrestle them to the ground and push them into the dirt, I would imagine that I would pick a side. I would imagine that I would choose an allegiance. I would imagine that I'd be valiant enough to decide.

But both I & Cher know I can't.

I kill me.

Did that joke fail?

Are you feeling what I'm telling you here?

You're either liquid or you're frozen.

0.01 Celsius is a place you can never be... for Good.

(P.S. Doesn't Anders look kind of... I dunno... like Julia Roberts? Weird, yea? Hell, maybe he just forgot his chapstick that day. = Things that run through your Daddy's mind.)