Up Here

There is a bend in the road about 8 miles away. It's a lazy bend. There are hardwoods & a steep slope to the left of the road. To the right, just a sagging valley, heavy with hay & jonquils, that rolls itself down to a stream that (I feel certain) is indifferent to what may find it from either side.

There is a small gravel alcove where you can park your vehicle. The cord grass hangs solemn over the edge of the asphalt & almost obedient near the graveled rock. They look like small parishioners simply worshiping your pause. The blades, I mean. The arrogance in me digs that... but the understanding in me finds what I dig insulting.

Tipped on the edge of a ridge, the wind finds its way to you, through you, around you and beyond you with an ease that only what cannot be seen, can see. I've always admired that about that little turn around.

We've been past that turn a time or two. Your little hands were always too busy pushing through the air outside of the rear windows to notice. Between you and I, I never realized my offspring were born with dolphins on their palms.

Maybe we all are.

Perhaps one day we'll pull off. Perhaps we'll grin at the grass, bow in acknowledgement & continue on our way. Perhaps we'll wander, not down through the field, but up through the hardwoods.

Perhaps we'll climb.

Perhaps we'll find the top of everything.

Maybe then we'll finally realize what's up here.

Your Dad

I finally met the man that usurped our lives. The man that wrote a finer tuned line, a better collection of words & a greater delivery of syllables than I. I met him at a ball field, ironically enough.

You played a great game, C.

He was a bit pudgy. I found that amusing but I let it go. He was a bit shorter than me but I let that go too, most folks are. He was a bit quiet but so am I so I let that go as well. But, there was just one thing I couldn't get beyond...

He wasn't Me.

I suppose, in the end, that's all your Mama was looking for.

I've been looking for closure for 4 years. I finally found it on a ball field in Murray County, Ga.

Hallelujah,
Your Dad

Have you ever wondered what makes Me smile?

Snow. I love snow. Especially when it lets me work from home.

Your Poppy. He's subtle isn't he?

Autumn.

It knows everything is about to die... but the fact that everything is OK with that... is fantastic.

Screwing with a Co-worker's desk when they're out of the office. There's just something about pasting a Miley Cyrus or Twilight picture to their corner that just feels "Right".

When I think my team will win.

Hope at the end of the road.

Most of all... You.

Now you don't have to wonder what makes Me smile.

Box

This life is made up of fools and philosophers and all sorts in between. Your Daddy is on that bell curve somewhere. Whether he's at the apex or on the fade isn't of consequence. He's on that curve. Just like you. Just like everyone else out there.

I see people worry over unnecessary things. All the time. I see them fret over happenstance & consequence. What's up with this cough? Why does my knee ache? Will I make that payment? Silly little things that only matter in the moment but never, ever, and will never, matter in the end.

Believe me.

The general consensus is that our "things" will get taken away. Our cars. Our lungs. Our Lives. Our Possessions. The constant threat of loss drives us in such a manner that we don't acquire that one little thing that is truly Free and Guaranteed.

Time.

I want you to do a fundamental thought project with me. I want you to imagine a box that holds all of those things that you hold dear. I want you to pretend to put them all in one secure container. All of your loved ones, all of your toys, all of those things that define how you see this world, how you interact in this world, how your world revolves around you. Stuff them all into that box. Your box.

Are they all in there? Is everything about you in that box?

Now look at that box.

Now blink.

Now that box is gone.

No, seriously. It's gone. Adios, see ya next year, gone.

What do you do now? What defines you now? What do you have to show for yourself now? Who are you now?

You do what you've always done, defined in the same way you always were, showing all you have as you've always tried & being who you've always been. Time gives you each of those luxuries. Nothing else. Nothing else & nothing more. Your box never really mattered.

All that really mattered was the amount of time you thought you owned it.

Bengali

I think I've paid my dues. I hope I have. First world problems aside, they're all I've known so I'm comfortable in saying that.

I'm feeling strange tonight. My skin doesn't fit quite right. I know why and yet I want to say I don't know why.

I don't know what to make of this thing called "life". It's bizarre. It's a bit unsettling. I'm aware that the ever changing rules cannot apply and yet I try my best to apply them.

Sometimes I feel like the goldfish that you took out of the bowl. You didn't do it to watch it struggle, you just did it to watch it live. You had no idea that the act of taking it out of that bowl doomed it.

I just don't know what my bowl is. For the life of me, I don't know who took me out of the one I had.

Maybe it was Me.

I can betroth my experiences in this life to you but it will not change what you endure. It can only enhance your interpretation of endurance by way of what your old Man recalled at this moment in time, in this one place we inhabit.

People will forget what you said. They most certainly will eventually forget what you did. But I swear to you, above all, this one thing. They will never forget how you made them feel.

That's all they carry with them. That's every one's After.

This world is an inconvenient train station where we're all jostling for position on the platform. If I could give you any bit of sound advice it would be to not buy a ticket. Just hop the fence, blend in with the crowd & when no one is looking... hijack that son of a bitch.

Ride it to where the winds cannot recall your name. There you'll find freedom. There you'll find truth. There you'll find your own After. That's what we're all looking for... as it were.

And always Talk Hard.

Even in Bengali.

New Year

Today we slayed a dragon, sat upon his nose, scoffed at the bitter winds whipping our faces & smiled through it all just for spite.

It was a good way to send 2011 on its way.

Watch out, 2012. We're badasses.

The Tides

14 Years ago today your Mother married Me.

A lot can happen in 14 years. A lot can happen in 1 year. A lot can happen in 1 day. To be quite honest, a lot can happen in 3 minutes.

That was how long it took for 12 years to become a footnote. You know what the last two have entailed.

This Human Condition is a fascinating and frightening thing. We were never given any cliff notes. Our ships were built with hands of love or often hands of necessity, and we were set adrift on the fluid surface of this thing we call our Time. It's kind of a like a plastic bottle floating on the ocean. Refuse, if you will. Something that seems inconsequential and yet ultimately defines exactly who you are, while you're busy being it. Only you don't control the surface beneath you. You just hover above it. Carried at the whim of the wind and the tides.

I would like to tell you that life is driven as such. I would like to give you that way out. I cannot, though. Not in good conscience. That is just a description of my tides. That is my excuse. That is what I still, to this day, blame on the waves.

The ugly truth, the honest one, the only real one, proves that cliff notes were never needed. None of us ever required a directory of what to do or what not to do, what to say or what not to say, what to fight for or what to let go of. The ugly truth is actually the most beautiful thing of all. It is Itself.

I write these words because I'm still learning... too. I write these entries because I'm documenting my own discoveries. I only do so in the hopes that perhaps, one day, they may benefit you as they do me Now.

The only thing I really know, and I mean absolutely know for a fact, is that as long as you're floating... it doesn't really matter what destination you have in mind. Odds are good that destination never had you in mind either. Maybe you were never meant to find it and maybe it was never meant to find you.

Maybe nothing is "meant" at all.

What if floating is all we can ever do? Would that upset you?

I agree.

I say to hell with the tides.