Maybe Patience

This is why I love the Fall and what it means. When I was 8 years old my Father took me fishing for the first time. We went a ways up North Creek. I'd seen it before. It wasn't too far away from the hunting cabin that I'd haunted on occasion. Triple Oak Lodge. It was a little log cabin that had to have been close to 100 years old. In truth, it was 123. I digress.

Jennings creek was far more accessible but North Creek had the Big Fish, or so I was told. As such, that is where we went.

I remember my Father rigging my line with some odd contraption that involved a hook and some small egg things from a glass jar. They were bright orange. That much I recall.

He told me to cast upstream and wait for it to drift by. He said I would hook a lunker. I wasn't exactly sure what a "lunker" was but it sounded cool as shit.

I didn't hook said "lunker". But I did see that little orange ball swim by, often.

Still, I kept casting upstream because my Daddy (your Poppy) said that's what I should do. And if anyone knew what in the hell I was doing, it was my Father. Because I surely didn't.

At some point, and I can't recall the exact moment, I grew weary of the instruction. I began tossing the line out here and there. Willy Nilly (as I was later told). On one particular cast my little orange ball stopped floating by. It decided to hover around a rather obtuse rock. It kind of dangled, to be honest. Dangling in the current. It was a bit perplexing to an 8 year old.

But then I saw that maple leaf.

While I was worming around with my pole and furrowing my eyebrows, I caught a glimpse of a leaf that had finally let go. It was to my right, that much I recall. It wallowed in the breeze for a bit and then found it's new home on top of the water.

The stream, brook, or river, description completely dependent upon your interactions with running water... gladly accepted this leaf. Personally, I don't think it really cared. Secretly, I think it mattered above all things. I fight with myself about that memory often. Who was smarter? The leaf or the water? Immortal questions.

What I do know, though, is that the leaf in question nestled into the current and found its ride. I know that because I saw it do so. I was 8. But I saw it do so.

It followed the current until an obstacle arose (it's called a rock). It hit that obstacle. It stayed there. Far too long for an 8 year old's attention span, in my humble opinion, but it stayed.

Eventually, it let go. Eventually, it moved on. Eventually.

Now, common sense and logic would tell you that friction, pressure & resistance are what held that leaf there. That is probably true.

But to an 8 year old... maybe it was just Patience. That mystical entity I lacked. Maybe.

My little orange ball of bait didn't have that patience. To my knowledge it's probably still stuck. Shimmying in the current.

At least I hope it is.

Maybe I should go check. I've probably been patient enough. :)

(By the way... that isn't a stock photo. That's actually North Creek. Want to see it for yourselves? I'm game.)

Flower Pot

I don't have a picture to post. I think she frowns upon that.

Whenever I feel like the world is getting too big, too small, or too much somewhere in between, I always step out on the front stoop.

I do so because I know that She'll always climb out of her flower pot and serpentine between my legs until I feel like the world is just about the right size again.

I can't say I really like cats.

But I Love Cali.

You can learn a lot from a cat in a flower pot.

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.

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.

Breathing

I want to tell you something. Something you need to hear but won't enjoy learning.

When your Mom left, over the course of that year and a half where you were shuttled back and forth, every week, to spend seven days with Me and seven days with Her, I got lonely.

I've heard it said that the nights are the toughest but that wasn't the case for me. The nights were the easy part. The mornings were the misery.

When you wake up in a house that once was a home and the rooms sit vacant and apathetic to your gaze, your mind entertains itself with all sorts of fancy. What could I have done, what could She have done, what could We have done, etc.

There is nothing more emptying to see than a child's bed unoccupied and sounds of that child vacant throughout the house when a Father wakes in the morning. It's crushing. It's absolute.

During the weeks when you were gone I would pass my evenings drinking alcohol, as much as I could hold in. It made time vanish. It made me hope. False dreams built upon a very real catalyst. Eventually, I would bid the night adieu and find rest on the couch. I never slept in the bed after your Mom left. It felt foreign to my skin.

On particularly tough mornings I would listen to Kris Kristofferson's music while I prepared for the day and fantasize about what life would not be like if I were here. The 38 that my father gave me when I moved to Georgia became a constant companion. I always had it nearby. Just waiting for that moment of acceptance, I suppose. Waiting to wave goodbye to the walls.

Obviously that moment never arrived. It tried to, I think, but I always found a reason. Two, actually.

The funny thing about a gun, something I never really knew, is that if you hold a gun without intent... it's just like holding anything else. But if you hold a gun with intent... it gets so damn heavy in your hand.

I think that's because you're not just holding a weapon but you're holding your entire life.

I say all of this because I made a promise to myself when both of you were born that I would never, ever, lie to you about who I am. I have not. I will not.

I want you to know that sometimes it's OK to give up. Sometimes it's OK to lose.

Just make sure you're Breathing the entire time.

Earn It

 
People will eventually forget everything you've ever said. They will eventually forget everything you've ever done. The one thing they'll never forget, though, is the way you made them Feel while you said and did those things.

If you can close your eyes and fall asleep content knowing that... then you've found the definition of Honor.

It lasts and lingers longer than your own shadow. It's something you cannot sew on and something you cannot wash off.

It will follow you to the grave and it will end up being the only resurrection you'll never know.

Earn It.